Angle: Disney turns its back on millions of Americans
Laura Ingraham says Americans under the assumption that Disney still embraces the vision of its founder, Walt Disney, are sadly mistaken.
This is a rush transcript of "The Ingraham Angle" on March 30, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. And this is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington. We have a shocking story tonight.
Private school teachers now across the country are implementing something called race essentialist curricula, and they're being instructed by former Black Panther. Well, we have a video of his lesson plans and we're going to show them to you.
Plus, a current Disney employee will be here in just moments to tell us why he's so disgusted by the company he works for. And that is where we begin.
Mickey is crying. That's the focus of tonight's 'Angle'.
Now, my family's probably been to Disney in Florida and California, I don't know five or six times over the past 10 years. We've fantastic memories. Epcot, rides like Soarin', my favorite Test Track.
But today, I joined millions of Americans across this country asking, why should we support a company that obviously detests people of faith and other traditional Americans?
Now, Disney has become a place where most of us are just going to refuse to spend any of our hard earned money. It's shown itself to be a haven for radicals, who are hostile to anyone who has any sort of traditional conceptions of morality.
Disney created cultural experiences, remember. That was the whole point that all Americans could enjoy, based on our shared love of country and all of our traditions. But now, they're turning that on its head. They're not welcoming all Americans. Instead, they're taking sides.
Now, after its CEO initially and correctly had decided not to weigh in on Ron DeSantis's parental rights and education bill, the company decided to go all in.
It should never have passed, they said in a statement declaring that, it was now Disney company policy to get the law repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.
So now, the official position of Disney is that schools should be able to teach children from K through third grade about sexual orientation. I don't know, why not just rename the roller coaster, sex mountain. Come on kids. It'll be a blast.
Now, Americans under the assumption that Disney somehow still embraces the vision of its founder Walt Disney are sadly mistaken.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALT DISNEY, DISNEY FOUNDER: I felt that there should be something built, some kind of amusement enterprise build where the parents and the children could have fun together. But it all started from a daddy with two daughters wondering where he could take them, where he could have a little fun with them too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Well, now it's all about pushing a sexual agenda on little children across their entertainment platforms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LATOYA RAVENEAU, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, WRITER IN ANIMATED TELEVISION: Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to my not at all secret gay agenda. I don't have to be afraid to let's have these two characters kiss in the background. I was just wherever I could just basically adding queerness.
ALLEN MARCH, DISNEY PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: They've been really open to exploring queer stories. And kind of the only way to have these canonical trans characters, canonical asexual characters, canonical bisexual characters, is to give them stories where they can be their whole selves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Like, don't you like - love the tedious lingo, so they can be their whole selves.
Now, this isn't programming. This is propaganda for grooming. There's nothing these activists hate more, by the way, than a parent who protects her son or daughter's innocence. Oh wait, daughter. I can't say that, because Disney doesn't like such gender terms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVIAN WARE, DISNEY DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION MANAGER: Last summer, we removed all of the gendered greetings in relationship to our live spiels. So we no longer say, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
We've trained - we've provided training for all of our cast members and in relationship to that. So now they know it's, "Hello, everyone", or "Hello, friends".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: You're not my friend. These people are so sick. No wonder employees on the inside are beginning to blow the whistle on them.
Now, in an open letter Disney employees say, "It's an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for non progressives that our beliefs come under attack. And they see people who share these beliefs condemned as villains by their own leadership."
Now, this is just blatantly political, everything Disney's doing here. It's not in the least principled. If they were so committed to these issues, why do they do business in China, which engages in brutal oppression of minorities? Relying on laws, by the way, they are 10,000 times worse than anything in the parental rights bill.
Now, since this isn't a matter of principle though, for Disney, you got to ask, what is the real end game here? I'll tell you what it is.
By adopting this far-left corporate ethos, Disney has joined the cabal that believes that it's time to ostracize a huge swath of the American population, including traditional Americans, people of serious faith and social conservatives.
Yes. They believe that you should be completely shut out of public life, and that your views shouldn't be frankly heard on the internet, TV, radio, taught at our universities. None of it.
People who hold these views, these horrible views shouldn't serve in the military, certainly not as officers. They shouldn't be teachers, or sit on any corporate boards.
And by the way, if you ever donate to one of these traditionalists in elected office, you're going to be denounced and trolled. Such was the case when LGBTQ activists discovered Disney had donated to the politicians who supported the DeSantis bill.
So what they're trying to create is a world in which believing in more traditional sexual norms is the same as being a member of the KKK. This Disney controversy, by the way, is not a one-off. They want to put everyone on notice.
If you're a devout Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox Jew, evangelical Christian, and you have these views? We're going to treat you like you support cross burning.
Now, remember, when we were told, by the way, that tolerance was all the Liberals really wanted? Tolerance for different lifestyles, orientations. But now we see the real agenda, cultural annihilation of anyone who disagrees with them on these issues. They want to turn all of America into, kind of, like a gender studies class at UC Berkeley, where people are afraid to say anything that might possibly upset the Thought Police, where anyone who steps out of line is shunned or very severely punished.
Think about JK Rowling. 10 years ago, she wasn't just a global bestseller, but a beloved liberal. But today, the left hates her more than Harry hated Voldemort. Folks like John F Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, who appealed to devout Catholics. They'd never be welcomed in their party today.
And, remember, even Obama in 2007. At that time, he was against gay marriage. He wouldn't be welcomed either. By taking their orders from extremists, who dominate the Democrat Party, Disney and like-minded corporations, are engaged in an expulsion project against at least half of America.
They're going to lose billions in income until someone has the guts to do their own hostile takeover and return to common sense. But let's look on the bright side here. Ron DeSantis really smoked them out at Disney. Just like Brian Kemp smoked out Coca Cola and Delta when they supported boycotting the all-star game after leftists screamed about the voter integrity law in Georgia.
We all know where they stand. And we can make our purchasing decisions accordingly. We love Mickey, but not more than we love our families. And that's the 'Angle'.
Joining me now is Jose Castillo, who is currently a resort duty manager at the Walt Disney Company. Jose, are you concerned first and foremost about your job, your job security, by speaking out here tonight?
JOSE CASTILLO, RESORT DUTY MANAGER AT THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY: Hi, Laura. Thank you for having me on the show. Honestly, no, it's no secret here in central Florida that (inaudible) Congress that I'm a Disney worker, and I'm a strong conservative.
To be honest, I'm not concerned about my job. Because I think if I were to get fired for my views, I think it would send a wrong message to conservatives, that conservatives would not be welcome at Disney.
I know that right now, it seems like there's a misconception. This is what I tell people, there's a misconception out there that everyone at Disney is just raging liberals and that - I think, that could not be farther from the truth.
For my perspective as a candidate running for Congress, I have tons of people that work for the Walt Disney Company that reach out to me daily on social media.
INGRAHAM: OK. But, Jose, this is about this current story. I'm glad you're happy at Disney. But I can tell you what, after people saw what they saw on those videos, they're not happy at all. So I'm glad your job security's there. Good for you.
But someone who is a traditional conservative, social conservative, serious Christian or frankly, any other faith, is now being told that Disney's purpose - political purpose is to ensure that kindergarteners to third grade are taught about sexual orientation. That is the hill that Disney wants to die on, after making billions off of families who are traditionalist. That's the problem here. That's the problem.
CASTILLO: I think, they're making a terrible miscalculation that ultimately maybe - will be bad for business. Their statement says this about the bill that Ron DeSantis passed. They said, "Our goal as a company is for the law to be repealed by the legislator or struck down by the courts".
And in the left, they talk about democracy after this election. And so what about our democracy right now? The people of Florida, a lot of Disney cast members voted for our state legislature. These are duly-elected members of Florida, House of Representatives in the Florida Senate who passed this bill, sent it to the governor. And thank God, our governor has the backbone to stand up to companies like mine, Disney, and pass this bill and stand with the people of Florida, stand with the parents and protect our children.
INGRAHAM: Well, I just - I can't tell you how many people I heard from today, said they're never going to Walt Disney world again. They're not going to Disney World, they are not going to Disneyland. They're not going to spend the thousands of dollars that are asked - they're charging at the Star Wars experience at Disney to essentially be told they're a bunch of anti-LGBT, horrible, awful rotten people.
They're just not going to do that. So I mean, I guess Disney can cobble together their income from non-traditional Americans, but that's going to be a heavy lift.
Now, a new poll is saying that a majority of Florida Democrats support its new parental rights bill. So Democrats support the parental rights bill. The numbers are huge. Again, Disney going with the far-left extremists, which I can't imagine what Walt Disney would think today.
CASTILLO: Well, the reason that's happening is because really - there's the saying, "Squeaky wheel gets the grease", and the small minority within the Walt Disney Company that's part of the LGBT community are screaming the loudest. They're being the loudest, they're being the most vocal.
So we need conservatives like me here. I'm not a candidate, I'll be as loud as I can, tell them people that we need to stand up for our conservative values and I'll be doing the same in Congress.
But what Disney fails to realize is that, we've gotten emails from our executive, saying their stance is on the bill and whatnot. And what people fail to realize, I knew where they stand - they stood already, but there's a lot of people that are disappointed in Disney--
INGRAHAM: But why would you want to work at a company, where the company essentially thinks that you're a bigot? I mean, what they said, essentially, about Ron DeSantis, and all the activists who supported what Disney did was that Ron DeSantis was a bigot.
So I mean, again, the message to traditional Americans is, you're not welcome here. That's the message Disney is sending out. I'm going to say it very clearly tonight. Everyone's walking around this issue. They do not think that traditional Americans should have a seat at the table, or frankly, even be on corporate boards. I don't know how many conservatives around the court - on the board of Disney today. We should have put their names up on television tonight.
But I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and corporate America is going to be in for a rude awakening. Thank you, Jose. We really appreciate you speaking out tonight.
Now, when the media isn't helping fan the flames of a manufactured controversy, they're busy covering up for anything that might be inconvenient to their preferred political party.
Now, as we all know, in October 2020, The New York Post exclusively reported on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. The biggest newsrooms in the world didn't work to confirm the details. But rather they moved quickly, just dismiss it all. The biggest offender was CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST: For all we know, these emails are made up. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: In my expert analysis, it's all BS. So I don't even want to talk about the substance of the New York Post articles.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The right-wing is going crazy with all sorts of allegations about Biden and his family, too disgusting to even repeat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Going crazy. Well, so consider my surprise. When I woke up this morning and I saw this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There's a lot of issues that the Justice Department is looking into, including, of course, this laptop. We know the FBI has possession of it, and that they believe it is his laptop, that the contents of it are his.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But they weren't alone on the day after the New York Post story dropped. Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent declared, that this was Trump's fake new Biden scandal and called the allegations laughably weak.
But today, like CNN, The Washington Post sang a different tune. "Thousands of emails from the laptop of Hunter Biden are authentic communications that can be verified through cryptographic signatures."
Here now, Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, whose work can be found on Substack.
Now, Glenn, it's nice that they kind of referenced it and acknowledged it as a story. However, was there any real mea culpas on the part of any of these so-called journalists, who are so quick to dismiss this?
GLENN GREENWALD, INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST: No, there's been none. And, remember, they didn't just dismiss the story. They peddled an outright lie that came from dozens of former intelligence officials that this material was Russian disinformation. Meaning two things, one, it came from Russia; and two, the emails are forged.
They asserted it over and over. I can show you a hundred clips from CNN and NBC, and from liberal digital outlets saying this lie over and over. The evidence was overwhelming from the start that this material was authentic.
A Politico reporter published a book eight months ago, with ample evidence concluding that it was true. The New York Times, 10 days ago, said they authenticated it. The Washington Post today said the same thing that these materials are authentic.
Laura, not one of the outlets that spread that CAA lie, that this material in the weeks before the election was Russian disinformation, has even acknowledged any of that evidence, let alone retracted their lives, because they don't care about the truth. And the proof is in the pudding.
INGRAHAM: Not a single question today at the White House briefing, Glenn. Even by the Washington Post that did publish that story today. So they do the thing in print, they don't ask the White House a question about it? No one in the briefing room?
GREENWALD: Exactly. And, remember, it was not just top level officials like Jen Psaki, who went on Twitter. Her tweets still there. You can go find it, saying that this material is Russian disinformation.
But in the two weeks up to the presidential campaign, Joe Biden, when asked about this material, repeatedly accused reporters who asked him about it, and the Republican Party and Donald Trump, who raised it of spreading Russian disinformation and serving Vladimir Putin a complete and total lie from the President on down. Not one reporter in that briefing room is saying.
Now that the New York Times and The Washington Post have authenticated and confirmed the authenticity of the material, do you owe the American people an apology for lying to them? And the reason is, it's because those media figures, these personalities who work in the White House, were in cahoots with this lie, also spreading it on behalf of Joe Biden.
INGRAHAM: Now, and even though by the way, Glenn, that CNN admitted the emails were real after saying that people obsessing about them were kind of going crazy, right? They were still ready to play defense for the big man.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hunter Biden was trading on his father's name to make a lot of money. He's had a difficult life. But it's not really of much public import in terms of the policy of the United States.
There is zero evidence that Vice President Biden, or President Biden, has done anything wrong in connection with what Hunter Biden's done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Glenn, they've done absolutely no real reporting on this. And Harward - Harwood, just, Oh, well, there's no evidence of this. It's the same thing they did in 2020. Same certainty, they had.
GREENWALD: The evidence was all over these emails, which is why The Times and The Post are now reporting it. There was evidence that Joe Biden was talking to Hunter Biden about favors he could do for the energy company Burisma in Ukraine, that was paying Hunter Biden $50,000 a month.
And there was ample evidence they were pursuing business deals in China, trading on the influence Biden build that as vice president and would again as president, to produce profitable deals, not just for Hunter Biden. He apparently got $5 million from those deals, but also possibly with Joe Biden's participation. And none of that was pursued because they lied and said the emails were fake and forged by Russia.
INGRAHAM: Glenn, between this story and the Russia collusion narrative for years, scale of one to 10, where's the media's credibility?
GREENWALD: It's at zero. And that's not me saying, go look at any poll. And you'll see media trust is at an all-time low. However much you distrust, that wing of the corporate media. It's not enough. They lie deliberately. And they're showing you that now in their refusal to even admit that they published falsehoods.
INGRAHAM: Glenn, thank you tonight. We needed to hear this.
And last night, we told you how one Washington State School Board is looking to dole out punishment on the basis of race.
Well, tonight, we got our hands on video showing how private school teachers across the country are implementing something called Race- Essentialist Curricula. Even more troubling, they're being trained by a Black Panther. That video, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: In a Fox News exclusive, Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on COVID, released a report today exposing how the CDC coordinated with the teachers unions to slow the school reopening process.
Emails between the AFT, the Biden White House, and the CDC show that the Biden administration's political leadership at the CDC positioned the union to impose line-by-line edits to the reopening guidance.
So how do you obtain such sway? Well, in 2020, 99.9 percent of the AFT's donations went to Democrats, nearly $1 million. Republicans got $75 and that was from an employee.
Of the 25 biggest recipients of AFT cash, four are Democratic senators up for reelection in tossups. Raphael Warnock of Georgia; Mark Kelly of Arizona; Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada; and Maggie Hassan, sneaky, in New Hampshire.
Here now is the top Republic on that COVID Subcommittee, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise. Congressman, this level of coordination between the Democrats and teachers unions who have them in their back pocket. This is not science, this is politics.
REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Yes, Laura. And what we exposed through this is that it was political science, not medical science that CDC used to put their guidance out on school reopenings.
And in fact, CDC was getting ready to come out with guidance that would have been more favorable towards opening schools. And then the teachers unions were given weeks - over a week before it came out. We're given a sneak copy of it that no one else got that we've been able to find. And said, "OK, what do you think about this?"
And we had uncovered emails between the CDC Director and the union president saying, "Wait a minute, we don't like this. We want new language that makes it easier to close schools." And they actually, the unions, gave different language to the CDC.
And then CDC's final language was almost word-for-word verbatim from what the teachers union said. I don't know of any other group, surely no parents groups that got this kind of VIP access.
And in fact, I asked the CDC Director today in the hearing, to give me a list of anybody else that they gave this kind of access to change the documents.
INGRAHAM: We have one of your exchanges. This is when you asked Walensky about the CDC's just plain involvement with the unions. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: These work discussions had happened in the beginning of February of 2021, days after I entered into this position. We needed to get our schools open. We, in that context, engaged as we often do with organizations and groups that are impacted by our guidance and our recommendations at the agency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: First of all, she's reading her response. She knows she's in hot water. So she's - you can see her reading it. And second of all, I mean, the teachers unions, we know from the Chicago experience, Congressman, they never want to go back. They - if they could stay remote forever, the unions would be happy to stay. Just like your colleagues never want to come back to do actual voting in-person.
So why would we ever ask for their guidance since they don't want to come back to work?
SCALISE: Right. And ultimately, what they said was, we want stronger guidance to keep schools closed, to keep millions of children out of schools. And keep in mind too, Laura, this is all going on under the backdrop when the Justice Department is calling parents, domestic terrorists, for showing up at school board meetings.
So I asked the CDC Director, give me names of parent groups that you consulted and gave the same kind of VP act - VIP access. They couldn't give me a name. And I said, I want to know, were parents allowed to have the same kind of ability to change the science, like the unions were able to give to keep schools closed.
And she couldn't give me a single name, because it was the union bosses who said, "Look, don't come up with this until you give us new ability to shut down schools". And they paid off their friends and gave them the language.
INGRAHAM: Oh, and I will say in closing that Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire; Mark Kelly in Arizona; Cortes Masto in Nevada, you are partly responsible for this. You get the donations from the teachers unions. Warnock as well. Voters have to take note of this. Your kids were locked out of these schools for no reason.
Congressman, thank you.
SCALISE: And it was about keeping kids out of schools, Laura. So we're going to keep having this.
INGRAHAM: Yes. Thank you for doing that.
All right. And educational entities weren't just keeping kids out of schools, they were discovering new ways to pollute their minds. Breitbart reporting, that "Through teacher training lectures, like cultivating anti- racist and activists in kindergarten and decolonizing the minds of second graders."
The nation's leading accreditation association for private schools, it's called the National Association of Independent Schools, is instructing educators to adopt what's called a race-essentialist curriculum for children.
One of their chief instructors is a former Black Panther.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That notion of diversity that we really reached out to include, for instance, the dominant culture of white students and teachers in this work. I think it's important to have representation in what our students are studying all the way down to pre-K.
And talking about things like race, like gender, like social class for our youngest learners. I think the whole notion of assessing with an equity lens is so critical. It's there that we begin to see the bias surface.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Joining me now Bob Woodson, founder and CEO of the Woodson Center. Bob, we keep thinking it can't get worse. But now they're all exposing themselves. Your take on this.
BOB WOODSON, THE WOODSON CENTER FOUNDER & CEO: Well, first of all. Thanks for having me on, Laura. This whole emphasis on race, it really is a flip side is, I think, white progressive narcissism, that somehow that the destiny and future of black America depends upon what white people do or do not do. Dr. King really warned against that in her letter from a Birmingham jail when he said the greatest stumbling block to black progress is not the white citizen's council or the KKK. It is the white moderate, that lukewarm acceptance from people of good will is more difficult to tolerate than outright rejection of people of ill-will.
And some of these progressives that are teaching this poison to our children, in one sense, are worse than bigots. They're worse than hardline bigots, because they are really preaching self-annihilation. Every five minutes, Laura, a child is shot in America. I know of a black woman who lost all four of her children, her four sons, to homicide before the age of 30. There is a crisis in America, and the answer to those kinds of challenges is not going to come from teaching white people to be less racist. It is narcissistic to believe that, but also harmful to the nation. It's poisonous.
INGRAHAM: Bob.
WOODSON: And I don't want to hear another white person say to me I cannot confront this truth, Bob Woodson, I'm white, I can't say that, only you can. That's crap. White America has to summon the courage to stand up against these progressive bigots and pursue truth
INGRAHAM: Well, Bob, we were talking about this in relation -- sorry to interrupt, but we were talking about this if relation to Disney, and that's more the sexual propagandizing. But it's this corporate environment that they're hoisting on employees where it's the equity, diversity, equity, inclusion agenda, which on its face, that sounds fine. But when you dig into it, it's a not about tolerance. This is about you must believe, you must think. And it just creates an intolerable environment for free thought and free expression, period, and learning.
WOODSON: It's not only intolerance but it's insulting. But they're using the black issue about justice as the reason for the need for it. And I'm saying that that is just no shared by majority of black Americans. You talked about Governor DeSantis. He won because 100,000 low-income black people voted for him. He only won by 32,000 votes because of his position vouchers on education.
INGRAHAM: Bingo.
WOODSON: Even though Obama and Oprah Winfrey came in to campaign for Gillam. So black Americans, low-income black Americans do not share this passion for racial diversity that is being thrust on them by black and white elites.
INGRAHAM: Yes, white guilt. That always comes back. Bob we've get to.
WOODSON: White guilt is poisonous.
INGRAHAM: Bob, your perspective is so needed tonight. Thank you very much
And the academy just released some news on the Will Smith smackdown, and Chris Rock just offered his first response moments ago. Raymond Arroyo has it all. "Seen and Unseen" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we explore the stories behind the headlines. And for that we turn to FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Ray, Biden was on stage asking Congress for more money today.
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, for COVID no less, on that little White House stage, Laura. As the pandemic wanes and cases plummet, Biden says he needs hundreds of millions of dollars for the next vaccine, and he's launching what every American yearns for at the end of the pandemic, a commemorative website.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today I'm announcing the launch of COVID.gov, COVID.gov, a one-stop shop. We've already stood up 2,000 test and treat sites across the country. I've worked so hard to get our lives, we've worked so hard, we, all of us have worked so hard to get our lives back. So now I'm going to get my second booster shot. I'm not sure why I'm doing it on stage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: "I'm not sure why I'm doing it on stage." Neither are we. He's still pushing boosters Laura, he even as that Pfizer document dump showed that the shot suppresses your immunity for seven days after injection. And you should see this website. It looks for the child built it. Are there really Americans searching for masks, wondering how do I find masks at this point? Good lord.
INGRAHAM: Just go to the airport, United, they have a whole bunch of masks there. It's simple, no problem.
ARROYO: They have got piles of them nobody's using anymore.
Laura, this is a FOX News alert, the Academy in a new statement says Will Smith violated their code of conduct when he hit comedian Chris Rock during the Oscars. The Academy revealing "Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused. We also recognize," they go on, "we could have handled this situation differently." You don't say, Academy? The Academy says it will take weeks for them to decide whether to expel --
INGRAHAM: Weeks?
ARROYO: -- or suspend Smith from membership or levy some other sanction. Laura, I told you on Monday what I thought they should do. He should be out of the Academy all together. What do you think should happen here?
INGRAHAM: Yes, the guy got up off his seat and smacked another guy as millions of people were watching around the world. People say he's a really nice guy, maybe he's really nice. Chris Rock is, I guess, a really nice guy. I don't care if you're a nice guy. You can't do that. You can't do it.
ARROYO: And Chris Rock tonight for the first time spoke out. He's at a Boston comedy club, and he said he's still processing what happened, but he said I will respond and it will be serious and funny. There were hoots and hollers of "F- Will Smith" throughout the comedy club tonight. So shows you where the people are. And today, Oscar cohost Wanda Sykes reacted this way on "The Ellen Show."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WANDA SYKES, COMEDIAN: It was sickening. It was absolutely -- I physically felt ill. And I'm still a little traumatized by it.
ELLEN DEGENERES, TALK SHOW HOST: Me, too. You don't let someone do something like that and get away with it and be rewarded.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Precisely. Ellen has more common sense and understanding and gravity of this moment than even the White House where the comms director today refused to condemn Smith's violence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have any official comment from the White House on the altercation. I know the president was not able to watch the Oscars, didn't see it. So I don't have anything, I don't have any official comments from him or from the White House on this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: He gets to sleep at 7:00.
ARROYO: Maybe it's because Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith gave $5,600 to Biden and hosted a fundraiser for his predecessor, Barack Obama. But you know Laura, the problem with all of this is, some people say move on, he apologized, move on. No, no. It's a cultural inflection point, and it glamourizes and normalizes these ad hoc beatings and smackdowns you see all across America. You don't need a leading actor like this, particularly one that families identify with, enacting this violence, and it shouldn't be celebrated or condoned.
And when O.J. Simpson comes out to support you, Laura, as he did Will Smith, you're probably not the innocent party. Maybe Smith can play "The Juice" next. And there are those peculiar Instagram posts. Did you see these, Laura? Will, he posted this before the Oscars. Before the ceremony he wrote "Me and Jada Pinkett got all dressed up to choose chaos." Then there was this bizarre video. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning, everyone. God has let me live every day and I am about to make it everyone's problem.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Aren't we a little old for that.
ARROYO: That is weird.
INGRAHAM: It's all the infantilization of adulthood in Hollywood, too. When you're doing a voiceover for a cartoon or an animated series, that's one thing. But you're a grown man with children and a lot of people look up to you, and it's just, it's lame. I'm sorry.
ARROYO: I found that creepy and a little psychologically disturbing, frankly, as a kind of a preview of what was to come. Very odd.
INGRAHAM: Ellen was right, OK, Ellen was right. Raymond, great report. Thank you so much
And so what happens if Joe Biden doesn't run for a second term? Well, as Barack Obama's former pollster told "Vanity Fair," Plan B is complete f-ing chaos. Ari Fleischer and Victor Davis Hanson are here on that next.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But the better question is, how low can Joe go in the polls? And how long will vulnerable Democrats in choppy waters tie themselves to this sinking anvil?
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INGRAHAM: Well, that question I posed last night seems a little bit prescient. A new Quinnipiac poll released a few hours ago shows that Joe Biden's approval is now at 36 percent. With almost three years still left in his first term, many are already looking for the exits for the 2024 contingency plans, but those aren't going well either. Obama pollster Cornell Belcher telling "Vanity Fair" "Plan B is complete f-ing chaos." Democrats are already feeling out their options, so Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, the Rock.
Joining me now, Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, FOX News contributor, and Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution senior fellow. Ari, first the media confirms the Hunter news that we all knew last year, and now they're already talking 2024 replacement. A part of me wonders if the media is now beginning to turn on Joe.
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ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Laura, look, none of us should pretend that Joe Biden is going to run for reelection. He'll be an 82-year-old president to begin his second term if he were to win. And after the blowout the Democrats are going to go through in November, they are going to just call on Biden to step aside so a new generation can run.
And you sent me back down memory lane -- 27 Democrats ran for president when the last open seat was there in 2019-2020. We remember Biden, we remember Harris, we remember Buttigieg. But Beto O'Rourke ran, Jay Inslee ran, Marianne Williamson ran. Do you remember all these names -- 27. It's going to be the same situation in the next open seat. Everybody in the Democrat Party is going to run. It's going to be wide open chaos.
INGRAHAM: Victor, the Democrats are a little pollyannish about the midterms.
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REP. STENY HOYER, (D-MD) MAJORITY LEADER: I'm hopeful and I believe, I believe that we're gold to hold our majority in the House and expand our majority in the Senate.
NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: We have every intention of winning. It is absolutely essential for our democracy that we win.
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now we look at 2022. I want to tell my Republican friends, get ready, pal. You're going to be in for a problem.
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INGRAHAM: Victor, that's what he told all our adversaries when he was coming in, America's back. Are these people blind, pretending, or are they just delusional at this point?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTE SENIOR FELLOW: Yes, I think we've never been in this territory before because the real crisis is whether he'll be able to make it through his first term. And the vice-presidential solution to the presidential problem is worse. The solution's worse than the problem.
So I guess you go back, as Ari said, to the 2020 candidate field. But the problem there, Laura, is that all of their agendas have been actualized. They got what they wanted and they're a disaster. When you look at the individual people, Beto's going to lose the Texas race, Buttigieg has been a disaster as transportation secretary, booker had a t-bone gush the other day. There's no there there.
And in the past when the Democratic Party was hijacked in 72 by McGovern and 88 by Dukakis, there was a solution. They got a southern governor like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. Not that they were moderate, but they posed as moderate. I don't see anybody there. Gavin Newsom, maybe Jared Polis in Colorado, or maybe they can bring back Andrew Cuomo. But there's not the traditional solution of going hard left and destroying the party as they had in the past.
INGRAHAM: Part of that is they kicked all the conservatives out of the Democrat Party. There is no one left. Joe Manchin, that's not going to fly.
Ari, they are so desperate they were talking about the Rock, and also, they mentioned Michelle Obama. And they keep going back to that. Ted Cruz mentioned her last night that really, that's maybe their only hope. But if we have soaring chaos oversees and inflation at home, I'm not sure a celebrity is going to change much.
FLEISCHER: Look, Laura, the biggest story in politics in the last 25 years is the shift leftward inside the Democratic Party. You have six Democratic Socialists now serving in the House of Representatives. And the Democrat Party, which used to be somewhat of a moderate party, is now an overwhelmingly liberal socialist party, and it's the kiss of death. It's one of the reasons Hispanics are increasingly becoming Republican. They're kicking everybody off except the far let progressives who will never be happy, and their agenda can never be achieved.
So the Democrats are going to be a shell of a party, and it's going to happen because Biden is not going to be able to run for reelection. And this is going to start the day after Election Day. In seven months, that's when you're going to hear the Democrats go to Biden and say, you need to announce you're not running. We need time to organize our campaigns. We need to know that the field is clear. This is going to be a disaster for the Democrats. 2024 is a long way away. We'll see electorally what happens. But getting there, a wide open field of chaos.
INGRAHAM: And Victor, really quickly, AOC said the party needs to go farther left. That's the reason it's floundering.
HANSON: You and I talked about that, Laura, after the Virginia election, and also in the school board in San Francisco and we said that they're never going to be moderate. They went harder left after they were humiliated in Virginia and the school board in San Francisco. So for them the solution to socialism and extremism is worse than the problem, so they're not going to change.
INGRAHAM: From socialism to Marxism, full blown communism. Ari, Victor, great to see you both
And up next, Kamala was at it today. The Last Bite, well, I guess we'll just call it another word salad, next.
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INGRAHAM: Now, try to follow what Kamala told the Jamaican delegation today.
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KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in way of its impact has been the pandemic. So to that end we are announcing today also that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential.
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INGRAHAM: What?
All right, get your Freedom Matters gear, all American made, and LauraIngraham.com, new hoodie, camo for charity. "GUTFELD!" next.
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