This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 18, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So, on Tuesday, in an interview with Breitbart TV's Larry Connor, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the media a vast left wing conspiracy. Is that right, Governor Romney?
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think you are absolutely right, that there would be an effort by the, quote, "vast left wing conspiracy" to work together to put out their message and attack me. Many in the media are inclined to do the president's bidding and I know that's a battle -- it's an uphill battle we fight with the media generally.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GUTFELD: So is he correct? Is there a vast left wing conspiracy?
Of course not. Conspiracy is something you do in secret. It's hidden. No one knows about it.
It's like the moon landing which we all know is a hoax or Bill Hemmer who is a hologram. But left wing bias in the media is in plain view day in and day out. If that's a conspiracy, it's the worst kept secret since Bob's trip to Thailand last year. He said it was for medical treatment, but we know better.
See, the issue really isn't the conspiracy but the denial of bias by some of the press, which is now so feeble that no one really even takes it seriously anymore. I mean, President Obama's dog Bo knows the media is left wing.
Which makes me wonder has anyone seen the little guy lately? Starting to get worried.
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: I have no idea what I was talking about there.
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: That's not unusual.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: But here is the problem. The rest of us don't either. Could you ask a question?
GUTFELD: Yes, Bob. You are part of the conspiracy. You're on every board. When are the meetings and is there a secret knock?
BECKEL: There is a secret knock and there's a secret handshake.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: And you have to know it. And there's a password to get in.
And, you know, this was (INAUDIBLE), he was supposed to do a playoff of Hillary Clinton in the vast right wing conspiracy on the "Today" show that day. But the problem is old Mitty did not end the quote. He just kept going.
But, you know, the fact is that there are so many outlets for media information today. The idea there is a conspiracy to beat Mitt Romney.
Are there people in the media who would like to see him beaten? Sure. But the outlets available to him are enormous compared to the other presidential candidate.
So, I don't know what he is crying about.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: He may be crying about the actual left wing conspiracy against Mitt Romney. Think about this for one second. Go no further than the ABC debate where Mitt Romney was on the stage and George Stephanopoulos went after this issue of contraception again, and again and again.
Everyone is scratching their head what is the big deal about contraception? Why is he going after Mitt on this over and over? No one knew, until the debate ended. One month to the day after that, Kathleen Sebelius writes op-ed saying that she thinks that under Obamacare, Catholic institutions, churches should provide contraceptives for employees.
And then the media storm hit. It looked like ran back. Look at that. George Stephanopoulos was carrying the water for the left wing.
GUTFELD: Do you have a whiteboard?
BOLLING: They forgot the markers.
GUTFELD: I am so out of here!
(LAUGHTER)
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Can I say something about the vast left wing conspiracy?
GUTFELD: No.
PERINO: I just don't think it's very vast. And that's their problem. But they do have the media part of this is an interesting thing. I was reading last night on a flight that I took, on the real quick trip. And I was reading a women's magazine. Fashion magazine type of thing.
GUTFELD: Esquire.
PERINO: You read it, OK, interesting nail polish color, blah, blah, blah. Oh, this is interesting. How the Republicans want to take away your contraception rights. It's about Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke, whatever, blah, blah. But there was no balance in this thing at all.
So, it's not that you just look at three networks, or you could look at MSNBC. The thing is, is that it's pervasive. It's all the way through to magazines. Across the board.
GUTFELD: Is it because that's just how they think? And I guess at a certain point, Andrea, should we just accept that the media is, you know, a left wing mob and be done with it? Just move on.
ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: Well, it is a left wing mob. We can't be done with it. That's why it's good that there are more alternative outlets for people to go to get their news. Thank God that there is conservative talk radio to balance out a lot of mainstream outlets.
But, you know, as you point out, Greg, in your monologue, conspiracy is something done in secret. I don't think they're secret about it at all. You have a former presidential debate moderator Gwen Ifill looking at some of the tweet that she's made. I mean, Twitter actually has exposed a lot of journalists for their bias. She's criticized Sarah Palin. You have Jim Vandehei who runs Politico coming out just a couple weeks ago saying, I worked in newsrooms across America. They've almost all voted for presidents that were Democratic.
BOLLING: Can I follow up with that? Jim Vandehei at Politico, let's take it from the top -- the White House has weekly, according to Media Matters, weekly meetings, via phone conference with Media Matters. Media Matters has admitted that they write primetime for MSNBC. MSNBC puts Politico editors on all day long on the program.
So, you have Politico, MSNBC, Media Matters in cahoots with the White House.
BECKEL: Wait a second, because I'm actually on those calls. It's called talking head call. And whether Media Matters is on there or not, there are a lot of people on there who appear on TV who happen to be Democrats.
Now look, you talk about a conspiracy. The entire talk radio industry is dominated by right wing. There is no successful left wing radio.
Because, why?
GUTFELD: No one wants to hear it.
BECKEL: I grant you that. But to suggest that somehow the left is so dominant -- and in these newspapers, in these networks, look, most of the people went to college at Columbia School of Broadcasting and the rest, and they happen to be liberal Democrats. I agree with that.
That's how it works. But there are a lot of outlets out there, look, when I ran into trouble this week, there are more blogs that jumped on me than I've ever seen.
BOLLING: But you're on these phone calls -- these conference calls?
BECKEL: Once in a while.
BOLLING: Do you talk to into them?
BECKEL: Sure, you can ask questions.
BOLLING: So, everything we talk about you with you for the preparation for this show, you can throw in --
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: I rarely do it. Once in a while I'm interested.
TANTAROS: I would also point it's not what they say or do, it's what they're not doing.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: So they're not researching. We know the least about President Obama, than we have known about any other president. They were digging through Sarah Palin's dumpster. They were trying to take down at CBS George Bush and smear him on his military records.
They tend not to ask Barack Obama where his energy plan is. They don't really do their job selectively when it comes to certain candidates. So, it's not exactly --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Go for it.
PERINO: Because Bob was saying that there are more outlets now for conservatives and what Andrea saying about on the CBS piece of "60 Minutes," Dan Rather and President Bush's record. I think social media has actually, the conservatives have caught up.
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: Excellent for them.
Rob Blouie (ph) who started out as, you know, one of those disdain bloggers working in his basement, he was the one who figured out the Dan Rather piece. And from there, conservatives showed even last night humor and an ability to talk to one another.
BECKEL: I don't know how you can (INAUDIBLE) -- look how bad media jumped on Obama about this contraceptive thing and you all jump on it and say it was terrible.
PERINO: What?
BECKEL: Yes, they did.
BOLLING: Can you get me on one of the conference calls?
BECKEL: No.
PERINO: No.
GUTFELD: Can you pretend I'm not on and I'll listen in?
BECKEL: No, I wouldn't put. No.
BOLLING: That's conspiracy.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: All right. I have conference calls at anyplace. You're welcome to them, Eric. No politics.
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