Updated

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 9, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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O'REILLY: Continuing now with our lead story, President Obama visiting Texas but he doesn't go to the chaotic southern border.

Joining us now from Washington Senator John McCain. I have to ask you what I promoted here. Do you believe Barack Obama is incompetent and simply cannot run the nation?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: I think he's having great difficulty in his presidency and I think the polls reflect that in the American people. But I'm not sure the word is incompetent as it is na

I have never seen the world in more turmoil than it is today across the Middle East, challenges from China, this situation on our own border. I have never encompassed and never imagined that we would -- there would be such a lack of positive American leadership and the consequences are horrendous: 170,000 dead in Syria; destabilization of the entire region. The list goes on and on, you know all of these things.

O'REILLY: Yes. And we all know that. And then we were just showing as you were speaking pictures of the President playing pool in Denver last night. Now, nobody begrudges him leisure time. I certainly don't criticize him for playing golf or anything like that. I think that's petty.

But you would think that, you know, with children -- all right -- tens of thousands of children being warehoused, being put on buses. Can you imagine how frightened these children are and the ordeal that they have had to endure coming up from Central America through Mexico, a third of them estimated are brutalized?

And there is the President playing pool, you know, when he could be at the border. He could be in one of these shelters. He could be talking to people down there. It's just -- to me, that's not leadership. And I'm not saying this from a partisan point of view.

MCCAIN: well, I think it's pretty clear that by not going to the border or even to Lachlan Air Force Base where thousands -- hundreds of these children are, it showed a lack of sensitivity to the issue. One thing he could do by the way, be down there and thank the people that are laboring 24/7 --

O'REILLY: Absolutely.

MCCAIN: -- trying to care for these kids. I mean there are people -- I've been to our border in Nogales, Arizona where these children are and the people there honest to God, Bill, they are going without rest trying to keep up and care for these children and give them the treatment that all human beings deserve.

And, by the way, the President doesn't seem to understand that the families there pay thousands of dollars to get their kids here to the worst of all humanity. You mention what happens to the children and particularly the young women. And he has nothing in his proposal to repeal that 2008 Act because we should be sending those kids home and the way that it's going to stop is when those families see plane loads of those kids arriving back in the countries that they came from.

O'REILLY: Oh, absolutely and then their money is wasted and they won't take it. But you can stop that tomorrow if the National Guard goes down to the border as Governor Perry requested and as you know we have been saying that for years here.

MCCAIN: Yes. But you need -- could I just interrupt that?

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Go ahead. Go ahead.

MCCAIN: Yes, the Guard is important. But you've got to repeal this law called the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act.

O'REILLY: Right. But I understand -- as Ed Henry just reported -- there are things that are underway to do that.

MCCAIN: They're discussions. It should have been his first priority. Because if you want to stop the bleeding, that's the way you do it. It should have been his first priority and it's not mentioned in his proposal for all this legislation of $3.7 billion.

O'REILLY: Ok. And you are absolutely right. But I don't think it's the first. I think it's the second. The first is to tell the country of Mexico you better knock it off.

MCCAIN: Right.

O'REILLY: Now, look, you have been a senator from Arizona, a border state for decades. This is the most corrupt operation in Mexico City in the hemisphere. I mean they know exactly what's happening. These kids are marching through that country. It's 135-mile southern border down there. You are telling me they can't stop it?

Where is President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry? I mean they send Biden down. I don't know what Biden is doing. I have called for a boycott myself and Americans should not travel to Mexico to buy their products. If I were president, I would say, look, you either shut this down right now or you can forget about NAFTA. I will use my pen and my phone and we are not going to do any deals with you. What's wrong with that, Senator?

MCCAIN: Nothing is wrong with that including the fact of telling these Central American countries that we give a lot of assistance to, that they are going to not get another dime until they stop it. And, by the way, if a child is in fear of being persecuted by the environment in which they live, then we should have them go to our embassy, go to our consulate, apply for asylum and we can expand those capabilities. Not have them show up at our border. Tell them if they show up at our border, they will be returned.

O'REILLY: Well, look, once the Guard goes down there and, again, I think the President will have to do that. Those pictures will go out on THE FACTOR and every other American TV news program. And they'll go into Central America because they carry us down there. And that will discourage the $700 paying the coyotes to bring them on up here.

But you know, I'm getting a little tired of seeing the President of the United States absolutely do nothing. ISIS just appears out of nowhere? Just appears out of nowhere? That was a two year making, that army and we did nothing there. I know you were pounding the table. But, I mean, come on. Enough's enough.

Last word.

MCCAIN: Look, when the President decided that we would not keep a residual force, which was the case, that was the beginning of this whole fiasco in Iraq. And the same thing is going to happen in Afghanistan --

O'REILLY: Absolutely.

MCCAIN: -- if he does not leave a residual force there.

O'REILLY: All right, Senator. Thanks for your time as always.

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