This is a rush transcript from "The Five," July 28, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: OK. Welcome back to "The Five." We're talking about the debt showdown and the Tea Party.
Now, let's get back to a few things said about the Tea Party. Harry Reid, I thought, had interesting comments to make. Do we have the Harry Reid quote about the Tea Party? We'll get it here in a second, because I think Harry was right on.
And then we'll get you one from Tom Friedman, which you particularly aren't happy about.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: I have Friedman's article from yesterday, this op-ed, New York Times' op-ed.
BECKEL: OK.
BOLLING: How low can this guy go? He compares it. I'm sorry, Bob.
BECKEL: No. No, you go ahead.
BOLLING: No, we'll stay with Friedman's op-ed column right here. He compares the Tea Party to Hezbollah --
BECKEL: Yes.
BOLLING: A group that's declared jihad against the western world and Jewish people. This is a Jewish man.
BECKEL: All right, here we go. You got yours up when you asked for it. I didn't get mine.
(LAUGHTER)
BECKEL: The same Republicans do not
BOLLING: The sane Republicans.
BECKEL: "The sane Republicans," that's true, unlike my colleagues here, "do not stand up to this Hezbollah faction in their midst, the Tea Party will take the GOP on a suicide mission."
Let me clue in, they're already taking them in a suicide mission.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: You people, you're not only my friends, I admire you, you're smart. How in the world can you align yourself with these people?
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Bob, can I just make a comment about Tom Friedman? He has a mustache. Do you know who else had a mustache? Hitler.
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Jeez.
GUTFELD: Yes, I just wanted to point out that similarity. I don't think that's a coincidence, Bob. I don't think -- Tom Friedman is Hitler. There you go.
BECKEL: You want me to start I didn't say --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: If he could say Hezbollah -- if he could say Hezbollah, I can say that, correct?
BOLLING: You're 100 percent right. You're absolutely right.
BECKEL: OK. Fine.
GUILFOYLE: What about Reid?
BECKEL: We're trying to get Reid here.
GUILFOYLE: Well, I should read it for you.
BECKEL: Read it, will you?
GUILFOYLE: OK. From Bob and Kimberly's book club, Reid tweeted last night, "Boehner's plan is not a compromise. It was written for the Tea Party, not the American people." Hmm. "Democrats will not vote for it."
And this was hash-tagged, "RsMustCompromise."
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: Let me get here, your thing here.
GUILFOYLE: What's this?
BECKEL: I thought that was your dance step, man.
MONICA CROWLEY, CO-HOST: I'm getting vaguely turned on.
BECKEL: Go ahead.
CROWLEY: Let me just lay out two things. OK. So, first of all, you've got the Senate majority leader, the tough Democrat in the United States Senate saying basically Tea Party folks are really not average Americans. They're not the American people.
Then you've got Tom Friedman, the quintessential writer for "The New York Times" going out comparing Tea Party folks to radical Islamic terrorists. So much for the new tone, number one. Number two, the Tea Party --
GUILFOYLE: Can I take notes?
(LAUGHTER)
CROWLEY: Yes, Kimberly, please. The Tea Party stands for three
things: constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.
BECKEL: Now, I can see where you think those are radical ideas and off the wall, but you know what, that's where the vast majority -- what's off the wall, if the Tea Party hadn't holding this things up, markets around the world lost hundreds of points yesterday, which means hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped out, congratulations Tea Party. And if you don't get this thing on Wednesday, the markets are going to fall, and every dime that you lose in your 401(k), you can thank the Tea Party for it.
BOLLING: It's the Tea Party's fault that the market went down several hundred points?
BECKEL: Yes, absolutely.
BOLLING: Not the $14 trillion that the socialist in government has spent us into the ditch. Forget the ditch, the abyss. Nothing to do with that, right?
BECKEL: I try to explain to you, but this is the combined Democratic and Republican bills, spending bills that were passed. These are old debts. These are not new debts.
BOLLING: No, no. Obama is adding to the debt at $4.1 billion per day. You want to blame Bush? Go ahead. Blame Bush. He added to the debt at $1.6 billion a day. Obama is doubling that.
BECKEL: I didn't mention Bush. But what I'm trying to explain that this is normally, a fairly routine deal to raise the debt. These people have held everybody up. In the meantime, the world markets --
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: And they're 10 percent of America. That's all.
GUTFELD: These people are new people into the political process. And you have incredible disdain for how things work (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: The nudist society is bigger than 10 million people.
GUTFELD: I would like to see the nudist people to come out in a show of force.
GUILFOYLE: You'd like them for anything.
GUTFELD: Exactly. How about nude Tea Partiers?
GUILFOYLE: That, too. He might actually support tem that.
BECKEL: There's only two of those.
CROWLEY: Beckel, you are so excited this infusion of young people, people never involved in politics before back in 2008. You said it was a great thing.
Now, it's happening on the other side. And suddenly it's those people? What is that?
BECKEL: Yes. They were rallying around "yes we can" not "no we can't."
All right. Look --
BOLLING: I got to tell you --
BECKEL: I'm going to give you, you're going to be happy to hear this.
I'm going to say it's not helpful to Obama, which "The Washington Post"
poll that came out, that showed his ratings among African-Americans have fallen 25 points due to the economy in the last year, his major base vote.
Now, the reason it's gone down like that is, unlike other people he's shown the courage to actually cut stuff. The reason that Democrats are mad -- and they're furious, they really are -- he's had real cuts. If that is a Tea Party --
BOLLING: Can I put --
BECKEL: Get out of here! I'm going to run upside down (INAUDIBLE).
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: His approval rating among blacks is going down. Right.
Unemployment among blacks is around 16 percent. His approval rating among Hispanics is going down. Unemployment in the Hispanic community in America is around 11.5 percent.
BECKEL: That's right. And you wait until you nominate one these munchkins for president, it's going to go right back up.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: Vote generic Republican.
BECKEL: That's all you can put up, is a generic Republican. That's the whole point.
GUILFOYLE: Yes and African-Americans -- Bob, African-Americans who believe the president's actions have actually helped the economy down from
77 percent to just over half.
BECKEL: OK. I was just told
GUILFOYLE: Those numbers aren't winning. Not winning.
BECKEL: Kim, not wining, not winning. But what I'm not going to win is I don't get out of here for a second.
GUILFOYLE: OK, bye.
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