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Published January 24, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," August 16, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace.
The first Fox News national poll since the big debate. Who is surging and who is falling behind? We'll tell you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. BEN CARSON, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People are listening. They're not going to hear just political speak from me.
WALLACE: We'll sit down with one candidate who has gotten a big post- debate bounce in Iowa, Dr. Ben Carson.
Plus, Clinton's e-mail server. How will her campaign handle the latest setback?
REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C.: The bureau usually doesn't ask you to do things, they demand that it happen.
WALLACE: We'll talk with Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Benghazi Committee, about the investigation.
Plus, our Sunday panel weighs in on the new poll numbers and the rise of the anti-politician.
CARLY FIORINA, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People are tired of professional politicians. People are tired of politics as usual.
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who do you think they're watching, Jeb Bush? Huh? I don't think so.
WALLACE: All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.
Well, there's been a big shake-up in the Republican presidential race since the GOP debate. Today we have the results of the first Fox News national poll since that. Donald Trump still leads the field with 25 percent support among GOP primary voters.
But Dr. Ben Carson has now jumped into second place at 12 percent. Also on the rise, Senator Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.
Among those who dropped since the debate, Jeb Bush down five points to 9 percent and it's his first time in single digits since April.
When it comes to who won the debate, the highest net scores go to Fiorina, Carson, Governor John Kasich and Senator Marco Rubio. And lowest net scores go to Chris Christie, Rand Paul, and Donald Trump.
Joining me now, the candidate with the biggest post-debate bump, Ben Carson, who is campaigning in Iowa at the Iowa state fair where he's running second to Trump among likely caucus-goers.
Dr. Carson, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
CARSON: Thank you, Chris. Nice to be with you.
WALLACE: Well, congratulations on those strong numbers. I not only want to talk to you about your surge in the polls but also that of Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump. What do you think Republican voters are saying about the appeal of nonpoliticians?
CARSON: Well, I think people are starting to recognize that the same old, same old, is going to take us to the same place. You know, we're sort of at a precipice right now.
Are we going to continue down this road which is leading to a very bad place or are we going to try to make a change?
I think they're also looking at the lives of people who have had very significant accomplishments because that's what we need right now is accomplishment, not just more of the same.
WALLACE: But how do they distinguish, you know, because, yes, you all three have had extraordinary accomplishments, but some would say some of you are fit to be president and some of you aren't. How do they distinguish between you and Fiorina and Donald Trump?
CARSON: Well, I hope they are actually listening to our plans. You know, I want more people, for instance, to talk to me about the economy and about foreign affairs.
You know, I tend to get a lot of questions about race and about medicine. I think as time goes on and as I get out there and I talk to audiences, I talk about those things and they're hearing it.
WALLACE: Well, let's get into that especially now that you're a top tier candidate. You say you want people to examine your policies, both foreign and domestic.
Let's drill down first of all into your position on taxes. You say that income inequality is a big issue. You favor raising the minimum wage. But you also want to impose a flat tax of somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent for all Americans, all taxpayers, and the allegation is, the charge is that would be a big tax increase for low and middle income wage earners, but a big tax cut for the wealthy.
CARSON: Well, first of all, what I want to do is I want to equalize -- I want things to be fair for everybody. I don't want to pick and choose who the winners and losers are. I think when you do things in a proportional basis, it works very well.
You know, 10 percent of the easy number to use because it's easy to do the calculations. But, you know, you make $10 billion, you pay a billion.
Now, I know there are a lot of people that say that's a problem because the guy still has got $9 billion left. We need to take more of his money. But, you see, Chris, that's called socialism. I recognize that there are a lot of people here to believe in socialism, that number is increasing.
But the problem with socialism is they all end up looking the same way with a small group of elite at the top, you know, rapidly diminishing middle class and vastly expanded dependent class. That's not America. We're different than that.
WALLACE: The idea of a progressive -- go ahead, sir.
CARSON: The other thing I want to mention is when you have a tax system that includes everybody, it's very difficult for the politicians to engage in their favorite activity of raising taxes. It's easy to do it on 1 percent or 2 percent or 5 percent. It's hard to do it on 100 percent and you have to live within your budget.
WALLACE: But what I was going to say is we've had a principle in this country of a progressive tax rate. The tax rate is lower for lower income people and gets higher for the wealthier for decades.
And let's take a look at what the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency, says would be the impact of your policy. Currently, the bottom fifth of households in terms of their income in the U.S. face an average federal tax rate of 2 percent, while the top fifth pays an average federal tax rate of 21 percent.
Again, if your flat tax is somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent, just looking at that statistic, the bottom gets hit while the top makes out.
CARSON: OK. What we have to think about, Chris, is how do we fix the economy so that it encourages entrepreneurial risk taking and capital investment? How do we create a ladder that allows those people in the lower income brackets to move up that ladder?
That's what we need to be concentrating on. Not how do we make them comfortable in that situation. That's not what America was all about. And we can do that.
WALLACE: But what do you say to that person who is making $30,000 or $40,000 and maybe paying an effective tax rate of 5 percent or 10 percent, basically, you're saying you're going to get a tax increase.
CARSON: I say the thing that is really impacting that person making $30,000 or $40,000 is all of the regulations that we're coming up with. Every single regulation costs us in terms of goods and services. It increases the price of everything. Who gets hit by that the most? The people in the lower economic brackets.
That's what we need to be concentrating on. Those are things that are driving income gap. Opportunities we make available. We create a ladder. We create opportunities and the can-do attitude rather than what-can-you- do-for-me attitude. That's what made America great.
WALLACE: All right. Let's turn to foreign policy.
As president, you say you would revoke the current Iran deal and negotiate a better one and you also are fiercely critical of President Obama for you say attacking his critics.
Here's an article that you wrote this week in "The Jerusalem Post". You called the president the "divider in chief" and you write this, "Shockingly, his diatribe also was replete with coded innuendos employing standard anti-Semitic themes involving implied disloyalty and nefarious influence related to money and power."
Question, Barack Obama anti-Semitic?
CARSON: Well, all you have to do, Chris, is like I have go to Israel and talk to average people, you know, on all ends of that spectrum. And I couldn't find a single person there who didn't feel that this administration had turned their backs on Israel.
And I think, you know, the position of president of United States should be one where you begin to draw people together behind a vision. Not one where you castigate those who believe differently from you. I think it's a possibility for great healing if it is used in the correct way.
WALLACE: But, you know, it's one thing to, one could argue your policy differs from Israel but you say in your article and you're talking about his domestic critics in this country that there's anti-Semitic themes there.
What specifically is anti-Semitic in what the president is saying?
CARSON: Well, I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them. And to sort of ignore that and to act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that's anti- Semitic.
WALLACE: One sign I guess of your rise in the polls is that you were attacked by the left this week for your involvement in a 1992 study that involved fetal research. The charge is that you're hypocritical now when you call for defunding Planned Parenthood because you were involved in a study that involved fetal research 23 years ago.
And even one of your conservative critics, rivals, Rick Santorum, says that the position you're taking is morally suspect.
How do you respond to all this?
CARSON: I say a lot of people are getting pretty desperate if they're going back almost a quarter of a century looking for things that aren't even true.
You know, what I did as a surgeon is take tissue samples and give those to the pathologist who then compared them with their archives. It's sort of like if you were an archaeologists and you find something in a dig that has some writing on it, you don't recognize it, you give it to your archivist and they go through all of the archives that they've been able to maintain over the many decades and they say, you know, that looks like something from Mesopotamia.
It's the same kind of thing. It has nothing to do with an abortion or even touching fetal tissue. It is a desperate attempt by some people to try to change the argument and also to justify some of the things that are being done by Planned Parenthood. Completely different from anything that I was doing.
WALLACE: So, let me ask you, Dr. Carson, where are you -- because there seems to be confusion on the issue of abortion and exceptions in the case of rape and incest, because you said recently that if somebody is a victim of that kind of an attack, they can go to an emergency room and get the RU486 pill, but there are some "right to life" groups that say that's a chemical abortion pill.
Where are you on exceptions in the case of abortion? Yes or no?
CARSON: Well, I think that when conception occurs, life occurs. And -- but I do believe in contraception. And at an appropriate time, you have to know what the cycle is. The egg is only fertilizable at certain periods of time. And there are certain types of drugs, progestins, that can prevent ovulation.
So, let's say someone has been raped, and they are administered that drug, it can prevent ovulation which allows that egg to come down. Because the healthy sperm can leave for up to five or six days, but if ovulation doesn't occurring, then you're not going to have conception.
You know, it has to be understood. You have to have people who actually understand how it works.
WALLACE: Doctor, we've got about a minute left. We're going to dig into the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal later in this program.
But I want to ask you whether: one, you think she's broken the law and, two, by her actions with private e-mails, classified information, she has disqualified herself as a potential president?
CARSON: Well, you know, I will leave the legal discussions to the lawyers after they've gone through all of the evidence because I think it's foolish to make a proclamation without seeing it all.
However, what we do know is she was a United States senator. She was secretary of state. And she makes this information, which should have been known to be something you didn't want to be available to our enemies or anybody else putting it on a private server shows incredibly bad judgment.
So, would you take someone with judgment like that and hand them the keys to the White House? I would not.
WALLACE: Dr. Carson, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Always good to talk with you, sir. And, again, congratulations on those good poll numbers.
CARSON: Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it.
WALLACE: Up next, our Sunday group joins the conversation as we have still more results from the latest FOX News poll. Which candidates do debate watchers think are the most and least qualified to be president?
Plus, what would you like to ask the panel about the rise of political outsiders like Carson, Fiorina and Trump? Just go to Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday, and we may use your question on the air.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'll get Congress. I've been getting politicians to pass whatever I wanted all my life. Nobody has more experience -- you know, it's sort of interesting -- nobody has more experience dealing with politicians. I've been dealing with them all my life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Donald Trump outside the Iowa state fair this weekend touting how effective he would be as president.
In the latest Fox News national poll, we asked voters whether candidates are qualified to be president. Sixty-seven percent say Jeb Bush is very or somewhat qualified, followed by Rubio and Hillary Clinton.
On the flip side, 52 percent, a majority of registered voters say Trump is not very, or not all qualified to be president. Thirty-six percent say that about Clinton and 35 percent about Ted Cruz.
And it's time now for our Sunday group: syndicated columnist George Will, Anne Gearan of "The Washington Post", Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of the new book, "The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier and More Prosperous", and Bob Woodward, also from "The Washington Post".
Well, George, pretty interesting poll results. Candidates like Jeb Bush who voters say overwhelmingly is qualified to be president are now lagging in the polls. Meanwhile, candidates like Trump and Carson and Cruz who voters say are not qualified are the three front runners -- which raises the question: what is going on here?
GEORGE WILL, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: What's going on here is those deemed least qualified to be president are most qualified to do what voters want done today, 160 days before the first votes are cast in Iowa, which is send a message.
That was George Wallace's engaging theme in 1968. He said, "Send them a message," in the end (INAUDIBLE), the pronoun "them" is anything you wanted it to be. So, that's what they're doing.
This is a version of the 1960s fad call primal scream therapy. You're supposed to shout and get rid of all your repressed pain from childhood.
This is particularly so for Mr. Trump and what makes him fragile as a candidate is, first of all, he's a one-trick pony. He consists of saying "I'm rich. Everyone who disagrees with me is stupid and all our problems are simple if you put me in charge."
Second, people haven't yet reminded themselves of the peculiar intimacy we live with our presidents now. They are in our living room every night. They're constantly in the national consciousness.
And third, since we are at the end of this going to send a president, people have to say, "Do we really want to give nuclear weapons to Donald Trump?" -- at which point I think things change.
WALLACE: I think you think that's a rhetorical question?
WILL: Yes.
WALLACE: All right. We asked you for questions for the panel. We got a bunch like these. Gamie Irwin writes on Facebook, "See what politicians have done to our country? Time for something different." And David Sherburne tweeted, "Is this a second phase of a trend started by the Tea Party movement to shift power away from career politicians?"
Anne, how do you answer them?
ANNE GEARAN, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think they're onto something here. There's definitely a mood where there's an anti-establishment sort of visceral interest in people who are not career politicians to use the phrase that Donald Trump frequently does.
But there's not -- that really has something that's been largely missed by the Clinton campaign and by the Jeb Bush campaign. They were the establishment candidates. They have credentials on paper that people are going, eh, we're not so interested in right now. I do think that will change over time. But, right now, it's --
WALLACE: That's precisely the question. George says it's a primal scream and acts as if this is a phase. Is it a phase or is it conceivable that we could be headed for a real shake-up in American politics and the people governing us in Washington?
GEARAN: I mean, history would suggest that the electorate will get this out of its system and that candidates who are currently not faring as well certainly on the Republican side will rise back up. Bush probably among them.
The question for Clinton is, can she hold onto the front runner status and build on that at the same time as Sanders is tapping into something that, yes, it will sort of peter out, but it's not going to go away.
WALLACE: All right. We're going to get to the Democrats in the next panel segment.
Arthur, as a student of the conservative movement, how do you explain the surge as we see in this latest FOX poll of Trump, of Fiorina, of Ben Carson at the expense of sitting and former governors and senators with all of their credentials?
ARTHUR BROOKS, PRESIDENT, AEI: Well, George Will is right. This is a low information, high entertainment, high protest movement. It's summertime. It's the same thing in the movies. It's low information, high entertainment.
And this is what you see. If this persists past Labor Day, it's something for the Republican Party to panic about. But it's worth pointing out the protest vote as we see it across -- aggregate across the candidates is only about a third of the voters and about half of the voters still have this aggregate mainstream candidate.
They will -- Republican voters always aggregate up toward kind of this mainstream person or persons.
WALLACE: Let me interrupt for a moment.
BROOKS: Yes?
WALLACE: Because I get e-mails. Maybe you do. But I certainly get e- mails.
And you were saying to me -- when you say low information, that just makes people's blood boil. They say this isn't low information. This is a considered judgment. We think the politicians we've elected -- you know, the Republican said, give us majority in 2010, 2014, things haven't changed. Barack Obama talked about hope and change. They haven't changed in the right direction.
They say this isn't low information. They've gotten something that you haven't gotten.
BROOKS: No, I understand that, and I'm not saying people are ignorant. What I'm saying is that they're not asking for specifics about policy. That's not what people are interested in at this point in the cycle. They will become more interested in that and Republican voters will gravitate toward the person who is most qualified to be president.
The challenge for the protest candidates is to get those numbers up. That's the most important thing. Republicans always come back to -- they came back to Mitt Romney. They come back to the candidate who is most qualified to have the nuclear arsenal in his or her hands.
WALLACE: Yes, the people that are e-mailing me say that's exactly the problem. We came back to John McCain. We came back to Mitt Romney and those weren't the right guys.
Let me put up the latest data point from the latest Fox News poll. GOP voters say Ben Carson is the most likable, followed by Rubio.
When it comes to the least likable, here are the bottom four -- Trump as you can see leading by a wide margin.
Bob, what do you make of the Trump phenomenon?
BOB WOODWARD, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think George has it right. It's reflective of a primal scream attitude but, you know, as John Kasich said in your debate, Trump has struck a nerve. But I think your poll in a way answers the question, who is best qualified to be president, and it's not Trump. It's the traditional candidates.
And having spent too many decades trying to understand presidential decision making, it's really important. Presidents make important decisions and the presidency is not a roulette wheel.
And if you look at Trump, any time he talks, any number can come up. Anything can come out of his mouth. I think people are entertained by that. And I think it's got a gravitational pull on a certain level. But to say we want to make this guy president, I suspect it's not going to happen.
WALLACE: I have to tell you, George, I was deluged by email. This is really on my mind. And I got a lot of e-mail about you and your somewhat unkind comments over the last couple of weeks about Trump.
Do you want to take any of that back?
WILL: No, not at all.
WALLACE: That was another rhetorical question.
(LAUGHTER)
WILL: I would simply say a lot of people sending you e-mails are angry. They're angry at Mitch McConnell and they're angry at John Boehner. They should be angry at James Madison.
Their problem is we sent all of these Republicans to Washington and they still can't work their will from Congress.
The fact is the separation of powers, which is there for a reason and served us well over time, is an impediment to getting things done in Washington. Get over it.
WALLACE: All right, panel. We have to take a break. We'll see you later in the program.
Up next, Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal. Now, the feds have her private server. Congressman Trey Gowdy, chair of the House committee investigating Benghazi, joins us to discuss what happens next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: It began as an investigation into Benghazi. But this week, it has morphed into something bigger. Hillary Clinton was forced to turn her private e-mail server over to the FBI amid revelations at least two of the e-mails in her private account contain top secret information.
In the latest FOX News poll, 58 percent of registered voters think Clinton knowingly lied when she said last march there was no classified information on her private server.
Joining us now to discuss the investigation is Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Benghazi Committee.
Congressman, what do you think is the significance of the developments this week, first the fact that Clinton had to turn her private server over to the FBI and also the revelation that at least two of the e-mails on that private server had top secret information?
GOWDY: Well, Chris, I think it validates what we initially asked her to do in March, which is to turn her server over to a neutral, detached, independent arbiter. We suggested the inspector general or a retired federal judge. Once it was determined that classified -- in fact, more than classified -- compartmented information was on that server, the FBI then had jurisdiction.
So, I wish she had done this in March. We would be further down the road.
But she swore she would never turn the server over again -- and I guess she didn't. It was taken. It wasn't turned over. It was taken.
WALLACE: Well, you talk about wanting a neutral detached observer and one of the questions I have for you is whether or not the FBI in your mind fits that bill. How much confidence do you have that the FBI, which is part of the Obama Justice Department, will conduct a thorough investigation, one, into whether Clinton mishandled classified information and secondly, whether she turned over all of her work e-mails to the State Department and whether perhaps that she deleted, destroyed, scrubbed some of those e- mails.
GOWDY: Well, I'm 100 percent confident in the first. And I'll tell you why, Chris. From 1994 to 2000, I worked for the Department of Justice under a president named Clinton and I don't think I know the political ideation of a single FBI agent. So, I think to the premiere law enforcement agency in the world, I think that they're as apolitical as anything can be in this culture and I think they're going to go wherever the facts take them. But that's with respect to classified information. The completeness or the wholeness of the record, I frankly don't think that's what the bureau is looking into. That's what the inspector general wanted to look into. And when the bureau was through with the server, I hope they will turn that server over to the inspector general, so they can determine whether or not the record is full and complete.
WALLACE: Well, that raises the question. What if it turns out and this is actually what Clinton and her lawyer have said, the server has been scrubbed clean and any of those 30,000 e-mails that she destroyed, that she said were about yoga lessons and Chelsey's wedding, what if they're not available? What does that tell you?
GOWDY: Well, I'll tell you what it tells you, Chris. I don't know whether you do yoga or not, I don't. So, I don't have any yoga e-mails, but the greater steps that you take to clean something or delete something, that's a higher level of concealment. That's a higher level of consciousness of concealment. So, your viewers have to ask themselves to what lengths would they go to delete a yoga e-mail? Would they call in forensic experts to triple wash a server so they could get rid of bridesmaids' e-mails or yoga practice e-mails? Of course, not. We hit the delete button and we forget about it.
So, the more energy she put into cleansing or wiping this server clean, I think your viewers should take or infer from that that perhaps there was something on there she really didn't want us to see.
WALLACE: Congressman, I want to ask you a question that when I told folks that you were going to be on this show that they asked me, why is all of this your business? What does this have to do with investigating what happened around Benghazi?
GOWDY: Well, probably not much of anything. It was just us that determined this unique e-mail arrangement she had with herself. We have interviewed three dozen witnesses. Not a single one of them is named Clinton. In fact, while I'm happy to be on your show, had she not had this e-mail arrangement with herself, you wouldn't be talking to me this morning. So, my focus is on the four murdered Americans in Benghazi, but before I can write the final definitive accounting of that, I have to make sure that the public record is complete.
So, all of this started with my desire to get her e-mails and the e-mails of her top aides. That's when we learned she had this unprecedented e-mail arrangement with herself and thanks to, frankly, some folks in your line of work who did some good journalistic investigation and thanks in part, I guess, to my colleagues on the committee, we have determined that there's a lot more to her e-mail story than just the completeness of the record. In terms of what I'm interested in, it is doing a good job for those four murdered Americans and their families. The classified information, the rest of it, is in other people's jurisdiction and I'm content with that.
WALLACE: Now, and you know this, Clinton says this is all politics. Republicans like yourself trying to hurt her presidential campaign. Here she is in Iowa this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I won't get down in the mud with them. I won't play politics with national security or dishonor the memory of those who we lost. I won't pretend that this is anything other than what it is, the same old partisan games we've seen so many times before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Congressman Gowdy, same old partisan games?
GOWDY: Well, the inspector general isn't partisan. Neither one of them. In fact, they were nominated by President Obama and confirmed by Harry Reid-led Senate. The FBI is not partisan. I get that she's frustrated. Her poll numbers are tanking. Folks who never thought about getting in the race are getting in the race. But she need not blame House Republicans for having her own personal server for exclusively using private e-mail for telling us that (INAUDIBLE) all e-mails were unsolicited and then we later find out that they were not. For telling us there was no classified information and we later find out that there was. For telling us the public rec was complete and then we find 15 e-mails she never turned over to the State Department.
I get that she's frustrated. Sometimes when people are frustrated, they look in the mirror and they engage in a little bit of self-reflection. And sometimes they lash out and blame nonexistent right-wing conspiracy. Apparently, she's chosen to do the latter.
WALLACE: Yeah, but let me ask you about the non-existent right-wing conspiracy. I want to show a clip from a video that House Speaker John Boehner, Republican House Speaker John Boehner put out this week about your investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OHIO, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: If Hillary Clinton wants the Benghazi committee to finish their work, she could help them by turning over all of her e-mails sooner rather than later.
LOU DOBBS: We are not going away until we get it because it's really important.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Congressman Gowdy, I have got to say, it looks -- it sure looks like a negative campaign commercial.
GOWDY: Well, I haven't seen it. I can tell you this, Chris. We've interviewed three dozen witnesses. Not a single one of them has been named Clinton. She hasn't been called before the committee yet. Once she comes before the committee, I suspect people's interest in talking to me is going to dissipate down to being non-existent. We have gotten tens of thousands of pages from other executive branch entities that no other committee of Congress has gotten.
So again, I would just tell you this, had it not been for this unusual e- mail arrangement that she had with herself, you and I would not be talking this morning. You don't know the name of a single other person we've interviewed as a part of our committee. You haven't seen any of the documents that we've acquired from the executive branch entities. We're trying to run the investigation the way that serious investigations are run.
But lo and behold, we find something that all seven of those other committees that she claims looked into Benghazi never found. So, we're going to follow the facts wherever they go and if that impacts people's perception of her fitness to be commander-in-chief, so be it. I can just tell you this, for the first three public hearings, I never mentioned her name.
WALLACE: But let me -- let me ask you about this. Because Clinton's lawyer says that she will testify before your committee on October 22nd. And I'm a little confused. Have you agreed to that date and have you and the Clinton team agreed on the ground rules for that testimony?
GOWDY: We have agreed on the date and the ground rules are simple. You're going to stay there until all of the questions are asked and answered with respect to Benghazi and Libya, and part of that is ensuring that the public record is whole and complete, which means we necessarily have to discuss your unusual e-mail practices, but we're going to stay there until all of the questions -- if she's going to insist, Chris, that she's only coming once, I'm going to insist that once be fully constructed, which means she's going to be there for a while.
WALLACE: I understand, and you made it clear that the mishandling of the classified information is not part of the jurisdiction of your committee. But I want to ask you about something very interesting that Secretary of State John Kerry said this week. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT PELLEY, CBS ANCHOR: Do you think the Chinese and/or the Russians are reading your e-mails?
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: The answer is, it is very likely. It is not without -- you know, outside the realm of possibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Question, Congressman. When the inspector general for the intelligence committee says that on these private e-mails was information that came from satellite intercepts, imagery or electronic surveillance and you have got John Kerry saying, it's very likely that foreign powers are reading his e-mails, does that raise the stakes here?
GOWDY: Absolutely. It was one of the most reckless decisions that have been made in public service in a long time. And the notion that she did this for convenience -- I would just ask you, Chris, convenient for whom? Because it sure hasn't turned out to be convenient for the American people or for our intelligence apparatus. It may have been convenient for her, but it hasn't been convenient for anyone else. I don't know who's accessed her e-mail. I know that members of Congress have not. But I don't know who has.
WALLACE: Finally, as we had mentioned, Clinton's position in all this is evolved. First, she said that there was no classified information. Then she said there was no information that was classified at the time. Now she says there was no information that had been marked as classified at the time. And I know the State Department is checking into whether or not any aides, officials, advisers, may have changed the marking on some of those to remove the classified designation.
What do you think are the chances that one of her aides will take the fall for this and that that will get Hillary Clinton off the hook?
GOWDY: Well, I don't know about getting someone off the hook. If you are talking about criminal exposure, I would leave that up to the bureau. If you are talking about the court of public opinion, I don't think it ever works when the person in charge blames those under him or her. It's never worked in any position I've ever been in in life. She's the secretary of state. She's the top diplomat for the country. And either she knew or should have known what was being sent to her. So, the notion that somebody under you is going to take the fall metaphorically speaking, I think my fellow citizens would reject that. She wanted to be the secretary of state. In fact, now, she's auditioning for a job even more important than that. With that comes responsibility. And I think my fellow citizens, if that proves to be correct, that classified information was mishandled, I think they will apportion the culpability appropriately.
WALLACE: Congressman Gowdy, thank you. Thanks for coming in today. We'll stay on top of this story.
GOWDY: Yes, sir, thank you.
Next, we'll bring back to panel -- have more results from the latest Fox News national poll. This time, on the Democratic race. Plus, what do you think? Will Clinton's troubles draw more rivals into the race? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @foxnewssunday and use the hashtag FNS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail. There is no classified material.
I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received.
The State Department has confirmed that I did not send nor receive material marked classified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Marked classified. Hillary Clinton's changing accounts since last spring on whether she had any classified information on her private e- mail server. According to our Fox News poll, the e-mail scandal is hurting Clinton. She still leads the Democratic field with 49 percent, but that's down ten points from last month. And in some head to head matchups, Jeb Bush now leads Clinton by two points. Marco Rubio beats Clinton for the first time although well within the margin of error and Donald Trump has narrowed his gap to five points down from 17 two months ago.
And we're back now with the panel. Well, Bob Woodward, you've covered a scandal or two. How big a development, you think, it is now that Clinton has been forced to turn her e-mail server over to the FBI? That this is no longer politician versus politician, but it's being handled by law enforcement and the courts. And do you see any parallels to the Nixon tapes?
WOODWARD: Fascinating question. First of all, I think this potentially is a really big deal. First of all, because the volume. We're talking about potentially 60,000 e-mails and for people to make declarations it never had this, or it might have that, we don't know. It would take somebody a month to just go through and sort this stuff out. And the other thing is you know yourself. I mean suppose somebody got all of your e-mail. You may think it's clean and everything is fine. But then when you start looking at things, there's going to be some problematic interchanges and somebody would send you something and no one wants all their e-mail out. And so, this is going to be -- you know, what about e-mail 22,974? I mean we're going to go through endless process here. In fairness, nothing has been proven and I think the Clinton team wants to make sure this is not a protracted legal fight like happened with Nixon and his tapes. But if you look at Nixon in the history of this on the tapes, Nixon would always say, oh, yeah, everything was fine. It looked good. He didn't remember the bad stuff. And that's human nature. We don't remember the bad stuff and 60,000 e-mails, my god.
WALLACE: That ends the conversation. But it doesn't. Arthur, how much trouble is Hillary Clinton in legally and politically?
BROOKS: We don't know how much trouble she's in legally. Although, I would suspect that it's going to get worse, a lot worse before it gets better. The problem is inevitability of this. This is what happens when a party chooses coronation over competition. And the whole idea that there's only one candidate, and you put all of the eggs in this basket and that this is somebody who has not succeeded in the past of getting the nomination. Four years ago George and I had lunch. I bet you don't remember it. And I was asking you what about Mitt Romney? And you said something that was very telling. You said political markets one time found him wanting and they will again. Now, this is actually in modern political campaigns this is what you find. Once you lose, you typically lose again. The astonishing thing about the Democratic Party today is only alternatives that they can come up with are people who lost in the past. Kerry. We are talking about Gore. I mean why not just dust off Dukakis? Isn't he around at some place, but let's fill out the line for the people who could be alternatives. This is a big problem for the Democratic Party.
WOODWARD: There was a guy named Nixon who lost in the .
BROOKS: But the point is, in the new environment, political markets are much more efficient than they were in the past. And this bodes very, very poorly for the Democrats.
WOODWARD: Still no rules.
WALLACE: All right. Let's -- this moves us exactly to what I want to discuss with you, Anne. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and you'll enjoy these videos, were playing golf yesterday on Martha's Vineyard. Seem to be enjoying themselves. But while they were having a good time, I want to ask you, Anne, what's the mood inside the Democratic Party? How worried are they about Hillary? How vulnerable do they say -- think she is and how seriously do you take this talk about people like Joe Biden or even Al Gore this week getting into the race?
GEARAN: Well, I'll break those into two. How worried are Democrats? A lot more worried than they were a month ago. We just a couple of my colleagues and I heard quite a bit over the last week from supporters of Hillary Clinton who said we still think she's going to be the nominee and we think she can win the White House. We just wish she was doing it better. And .
WALLACE: And is there a specific thing that's been the turning point?
GEARAN: They point to two things. They point to Sanders not so much the surge, because that's just happening, it's her reaction to it. How fast on her feet does she appear and does her campaign appear in responding to that. She never says his name. She doesn't address him directly. And that is a calculated decision by the campaign to only attack Republicans at this point and to save whatever she is going to have to say.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: . that's flat-footed?
GEARAN: Well, they do think it's flat-footed. Not so much that she should be punching him in the nose every day, but she should be speaking to some of the same things that is fueling the surge.
WALLACE: All right. How about these rivals?
GEARAN: Well, the other thing that they are saying, is the e-mail issue. That people are worried about it. They don't know where it's going. Any time you get the words FBI in front of the public consciousness that is a risk. So people are worried about that. And on the rivals, I mean, it is more plausible this week than last that Joe Biden could see a path for himself. He still has huge structural issues that he would have to overcome in order to be a viable candidate. He's been around the track a few times. He would know that. I think it's not hugely likely that he eventually gets into the race. But the fact that he's being discussed first of all, have to be -- I mean there's a reason, right? He should be a viable candidate.
WALLACE: And what about somebody out of left field as Arthur suggests, Cuomo, Elizabeth Warren, you know, somebody in the new Democratic Party and not a failed presidential nominee?
GEARAN: I mean, we're not hearing that. It certainly could happen. I mean Andrew Cuomo could be looking at this from afar. And thinking wow, if she continues to look weak, if things don't turn around fairly quickly, that there might be a path to run, maybe not to win, but to get out there and be a part of it. We're certainly seeing that dynamic on the Republican side and it could happen on the Democratic side.
WALLACE: George, how politically vulnerable is Hillary Clinton right now and do you see a land rush of Democrats getting into the race?
WILL: I don't see the land rush, but then we don't know yet whether Michael Mukasey, the former attorney general, how right he was in his opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal" yesterday saying that she's vulnerable to prosecution for one misdemeanor and three felonies. We don't know, also, whether the Justice Department will be less like (INAUDIBLE) about this than it has been about the Internal Revenue Service scandals.
Good news for her is the bad news for the Democratic Party. In 2010 and 2014 because of Obama and ObamaCare, the Democratic Party suffered wave elections that wiped out a generation of potential competitors for her. There are now 60 some fewer members of the House, 11 fewer senators, many fewer governors than there would have been if he hadn't been such a disaster for the Democratic Party. Peter Hart, a very talented Democratic poll taker says go back to all the elections since the Second World War starting with (INAUDIBLE) -- In every election except the Nixon elections, the most likable candidate wins. Hillary Clinton to many people radiates a kind of solemn sense of entitlement and fury, barely suppressed fury that she has to work for the nomination. This does not bode well for her. >
WALLACE: Just quickly, because we only have a couple of seconds left. I read the Mukasey article as well. I found it very interesting. Both talking about her legal liability or potentially jeopardy and also this question of her common sense, the fact that it just seems reckless what she did.
WILL: He said, legal -- the felonies and the prosecution. She -- her judgment suggests she's not qualified for the office she had or that she's seeking.
WALLACE: Thank you, panel. See you next Sunday.
Up next, our power player of the week. The man who keeps America's clock ticking on time.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: A look at the Iowa State Fair. A must stop for presidential candidates this time of year. Time is a big deal in television news. This show starts on time and ends on time. But as we asked in October, what does that really mean? Here's our power player of the week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. DEMETRIOS MATSAKIS, CHIEF SCIENTIST TIME SERVICES, USNO: I would not say I'm obsessed with time, but I do think about time all the time.
WALLACE: Dr. Demetrios Matsakis is talking about his job at the U.S. Naval Observatory's Time Service Department.
MATSAKIS: We provide the official time for the Department of Defense and for GPS and via GPS, it goes to much of the world.
WALLACE: So, it's not an exaggeration to say you're the time keeper?
MATSAKIS: Yes, we are the time keeper.
WALLACE: And keeping time, precise time, is important. For the financial system, for the Internet, for the Pentagon. The department has more than 100 atomic clocks and there are three different types. One measures the oscillation of cesium atoms.
(on camera): Well, how often does this cesium atom oscillate in one second?
MATSAKIS: 9 billion 192 million 631,770 times. That's a definition of a second.
WALLACE (voice over): Dr. Matsakis took us to see another kind of clock called an atomic fountain.
MATSAKIS: We use lasers to freeze atoms to about a million -- degree of absolute zero and then we launch them.
WALLACE: All that information, which varies by nanoseconds is then fed here.
(on camera): This is the nation's master clock. All of those hundred clocks --
MATSAKIS: This is the national clock -- the national clocks for the Department of Defense.
WALLACE (voice over): Next door, the time transfer room sends the time out to the nation and the world. Even that phone number you call to get the time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the tone Eastern and daylight time 15 hours 50 minutes exactly.
WALLACE: Matsakis headed at the time service department for 16 years, starting in 1997. He's now the chief scientist. And he says the job comes with a certain amount of time pressure.
MATSAKIS: There have been three times in my tenure when the master clock itself has broken. Always when I've been on an airplane. When people leave working for time service, it doesn't take long, maybe a week or two, when they realize that they're not chittering anymore.
WALLACE: All this talk about time got me thinking.
(on camera): I got 3:15, what do you got?
MATSAKIS: I don't wear a watch. I don't wear a watch.
WALLACE (voice over): Matsakis explains he doesn't want the measurement of time, especially something as imprecise as a watch to get confused with time as an objective reality. It's the pursuit of that absolute truth that drives it.
MATSAKIS: Beauty, beauty is a satisfaction. There's a tremendous beauty to it. What's beautiful is an explanation of how things are happening, an explanation of what's going on. What's beautiful is doing the job right. That's all beautiful. That's the only way to put it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Dr. Matsakis says his atomic fountain clocks are so accurate that taken together, they won't lose or gain a full second in 300 million years. But he says, they're working on a new master clock that will be even more accurate. And that's it for today. Have a great week. And we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."
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