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Published January 27, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "The Five," June 5, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Ladies and gentlemen, President Obama in the Rose Garden today announcing Susan Rice will become the next national security adviser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Susan is a consummate public servant, a patriot who puts her country first. She is fearless. She is tough. She has a great tennis game and pretty good basketball game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Well, she is definitely good at spinning stuff, especially when she's talking about Benghazi -- which, by the way, the president didn't mention.
Failing off at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seems to be the norm. Get caught misleading or deceiving and you just might earn a promotion from President Obama. Take Ms. Rice, for example, the latest to get promoted.
Here's a quick refresher on how she failed all the way up the Obama ladder.
On September 11th, 2011, our Benghazi four were killed by terrorists.
On September 12th, President Obama and Hillary first claimed the video was responsible and then President Obama flew to Las Vegas, fundraiser.
On September 14th, Hillary standing in front of draped caskets, insults America by blaming the video again.
September 15th, the Obama administration changes the intel talking points to reflect the dishonesty the administration have been propagating all week. And remember, this was just weeks away from the presidential election.
And on September 16th, Hillary refuses to go on record and sends Susan Rice out to cover for them all.
Bob, let's just get this part of it out of the way. The timing -- the timing is beyond interesting to me. The IRS scandal is hot under America's collar. Does -- this -- is this an attempt by the Obama administration to transfer the focus from the IRS back to Benghazi?
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Well, first, I don't think Benghazi is turning out to be the big epic conspiracy that everybody thinks it is. But let's keep something in mind. She doesn't have to go under oath. She's a national security adviser. She's exempt from that.
Donilon was very much involved in all this. She is the one on background who said that we did a poor job. I think that Benghazi now has got some insulation on it. I think that the Petraeus angle was still alive and well. And I think it was a major screw-up.
And I think you're not going to find some smoking gun. If you do, it's not going to blow --
BOLLING: But, Ands, let's -- Bob didn't answer my question really. So, is this the Obama administration trying to change the focus from the IRS where they are really are caught, they are caught in the crosshairs in the scandal they can't get themselves out of. It's kind of ingenious to say, hey, what about that other scandal, you know, the one that Bob points out? It's not really popping up too much on people's radar?
TANTAROS: I think they're doing it for a number of reasons. I think they got away with Benghazi. I think they're doubling down on the excuses that they've given. Look, a liar replaces a leaker. At best, Susan Rice used intentional deceit when she went out there on those five Sunday shows.
Even better, she is incompetent. So, she shouldn't be in charge of our national security. She doesn't make me feel more safe. I don't know about you, Eric. But I also think there's another goal here. This administration uses women as human shields.
And the last time he nominated her, or her name was floated, he didn't officially nominate her, he came out, he says -- you want to go after somebody, Lindsey Graham, John McCain? Come after me. She had nothing to do with Benghazi.
BECKEL: Why do you think she'd been lying?
TANTAROS: I think that -- let me just finish. I think that they nominated her to set up a trap for Republicans to go after women. They are nominating Samantha Power. Hillary Clinton was Obama's human shield over Benghazi. And it will silence the liberal females, Eric, who've criticized the president for not having enough women in his administration.
BOLLING: We'll get around. We'll come back. We've got plenty of time.
Dana, Susan Rice, national security advisor, big job.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Yes.
BOLLING: No Senate vetting, though.
PERINO: No Senate vetting, but she's been Senate confirmed before.
Plus, in Clinton administration, she worked in the National Security Council. So, she understands how it works. I don't to have necessarily agree with her to respect the fact that I think she's earned the position.
And I think that President Obama trusts her -- whether or not I would is different. I think that his decision-making and way he goes about making decisions is on display here.
I don't -- I'm not surprised that they didn't bring up Benghazi. I think it would be very strange PR strategy to go from the IRS back to Benghazi.
That said, she is in a perfect position now to find out who gave her the wrong talking points or she could actually just come clean and say what it is.
One other point about the NSC job -- it's not necessarily a front and center job. It's not when you get a lot of press. And, in fact, Susan Rice, after all this attention, might be the only national security advisor that anybody outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue could actually name.
But it's a process job, being a team player, being somebody who is seen as the person who is not trying to get attention for herself, but is trying to make sure everybody understands that they have equal footing within the White House.
That might actually be her biggest challenge.
BOLLING: Greg, is she qualified? This is a big, big important job and she's got the president's ear I guess every day, right?
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Well, it depends. I mean, based on government performance markers, it seems like even a community organizer could become president. So, I think she could be qualified.
But you missed the other appointments. OK. First, you have national security advisor and advisor for security who bungled Benghazi is appointed. Lindsay Lohan is going to be drug czar and you're going to have Bill Ayers as the head of homeland security, because that's the way this is going.
The appointment I believe was done to distract and it worked. It's in our "A" block. You play this like a harp.
Obama lit a fire in the kitchen so he'd avoid the crime scene in the garage. But it does tell you who pushed the video. Obama pushed the video.
PERINO: Yes.
GUTFELD: The natural -- his natural reflex, to blame America when something goes wrong, created this mess. Therefore, the promotion is used as a payoff for his grad school thesis.
BECKEL: Well --
BOLLING: You want to do this before, I have Ed Henry and Jay Carney.
What do you want to do? Your call.
BECKEL: Go ahead.
BOLLING: All right. Let's do this. Let's roll Ed Henry and Jay Carney earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Last thing, Susan Rice, you described her as one of the most qualified, experienced foreign policy experts in America. If that's the case, how did she get the information on Benghazi so wrong five days after the attack?
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And I welcome the opportunity to correct the record, especially for some news outlets who persists in misrepresenting the facts. The role that Ambassador Rice played in conveying the information were the assessment of the intelligence community, and in every iteration of this, Ambassador Rice made clear as I did that these were early assessments that were certain to change as we obtained more facts, and to suggest otherwise is just irresponsible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Ooh. Go ahead, Robert.
BECKEL: Well, it is irresponsible.
Let me tell you --
TANTAROS: Why?
BECKEL: -- the national security advisor, as Dana pointed, is somebody who is actually negotiator between the secretary of defense, national security agency, the State Department and the CIA and others.
They are a traffic cop. They are not very well-known. They do have, by the way, the third best office in the White House, its corner office and it's a beautiful office.
But I think Susan Rice was giving these talking points, she was not involved in the process. She got sent out and I think she got out and honestly gave those what she believed to be honest talking points.
PERINO: I actually -- I'm going to disagree with you on that. And I've tried to be even pretty evenhanded here. But as the U.N. ambassador she has intel people on her staff that are right there, but she could have asked. She has access to all the information that everybody else has.
She was looking for an opportunity to go. Remember, another thing that was happening is that the U.N. general assembly meeting was taking place that week. President Obama had declined to meet with any of the world leaders and so, they were trying to get people somebody out there that could I guess massage that.
But I think that if you look at the White House said on background and a story of couple weeks ago, they said, Republicans have accused us of being liars and idiots. And actually, we were just idiots.
I think the questioning of whether or not somebody was involved in the idiocy should be the national security adviser. I don't think it's out of bounds to ask the question.
TANTAROS: But you look at the information that was provided to her at the time, they say there was conflicting information, conflicting information from the president of Libya, from the security agents on the ground that it was terrorism.
There's this red herring hallucination of a video and Susan Rice decides to go, you know what, I'm going with the video.
And shame on President Obama for not bringing in his national security team that included Tom Donilon at the time, the guy who has accused of -- even by Dianne Feinstein -- of potentially leaking New York Times, sanctioned leaks, while at the same time they were going after Fox's James Rosen? The hypocrisy is on so many different levels here. And I just think if I'm Susan Rice, I'm not going to go out and give a lie to five Sunday shows.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: I'm going to agree with you, Ands. She had to know.
BECKEL: Nobody else in that process, nobody, with the exception of Petraeus, want to name the group, and want to name the terrorists. And he did that and then his own CIA said, don't do it.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: That's debunked already. That's been debunked a hundred times over. Since then, we have emails from the administration, from the intel to the administration saying, from the very moment it was happening that they blamed Ansar al-Sharia. They blamed it from the get-go. They changed -- they changed on the 15tj of September.
PERINO: Because they caved to the State Department wishes to take it out with the White House in the morning, says, we'll figure this out in the morning. They -- you know, it's frustrating to keep arguing the facts of this. We should able to analyze it, because the facts are that they did screw up. They admitted themselves that they were idiots.
BOLLING: Can I show you -- do you have that document in the intro that we were on? It was on the third or fourth one down, where it was all redacted line through it. That's where they originally had it from the get-go. Look at that.
And they put black lines for Ansar al-Sharia. They deleted the information --
BECKEL: The fact of the matter is they did not want the terrorist to be announced two weeks a presidential election.
BOLLING: No doubt about that.
GUTFELD: And that is grounds for impeachment.
BOLLING: There you go.
GUTFELD: I mean, you just admitted, that is a conspiracy.
But you know what drives me crazy? Aren't there temp agencies like Manpower in D.C? It seems like the same crew of people get the same jobs over and over again and it's just like academia. No wonder the people that are in government end up going back to college and college goes back to academia because there are no standards of excellence in either area.
So you have a rotation of nincompoops. Nincompoopery, if you will, that goes from academia to government and back. That's all they can do.
There's no objective truth to guide these people. There's only politics.
And that's why you have rotten people in government and college.
BOLLING: Can I throw up a full screen --
GUTFELD: Don't throw up.
BOLLING: Now, I won't throw up. I'll throw up a full screen of the rotation of sorts of what's going on in Obama administration right now. Look at this, what's going on, guys. Eric Holder, this questions whether he testified under oath and fabricated. Jay Carney, Darrell Issa said he is fabricating. Susan Rice, we don't if she lied or just didn't know.
You'd go around the horn, and Hillary Clinton and there's Lois Lerner who says, "I'm not going to lie, I'm going to hold up my right and say I'll take the Fifth."
GUTFELD: It raised a question, what do you have to do to get fired?
Like I -- everybody knows in private enterprise, there are laws -- there are things that will get you fired. But what do you got to do.
Anthony Weiner is running for mayor and may just win.
TANTAROS: And we thought that Samantha Power was let go of the Obama campaign. Remember in 2008? We thought that she was let go from the campaign in 2008 because she called Hillary Clinton a monster. She said that we should invade Libya. She also said we should invade Israel.
But, look, we thought she's gone. We let her go. She's back replacing now, Susan Rice, Greg, the circle of nincompoopery. She's part of it.
GUTFELD: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: Some of the greatest diplomats that we've had in this country, whether it's Galbrif (ph), whether it's Bunker (ph), whether it's Saul Lenowitz (ph), you go on down the list, they have gone back to academia and come back to government.
Now, to suggest that these people are all just a bunch of liberal hacks is just wrong.
GUTFELD: I didn't say hacks. I said nincompoops.
BECKEL: OK, well, fine.
PERINO: Hack is a bad word.
GUTFELD: I don't like hacks.
PERINO: Me neither. Nobody knows what it means.
BECKEL: Great American and deserves a lot of credit.
GUTFELD: I am sorry I offended them.
BECKEL: You should.
PERINO: Like our ambassador in Benghazi.
BOLLING: Ready to go?
BECKEL: That's another, I agree.
BOLLING: Yes, that's good point.
PERINO: Thank you.
BOLLING: We're going to leave it right there.
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