Could the United States be the next Paris?
ISIS threatens Washington in new video; Former Homeland Security adviser reacts on 'The Kelly File'
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," November 16, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, less than 72 hours after some 500 people are killed or injured in a bloody attack on Paris, there are growing questions about security here at home, as the White House admits now that we are at war but says no change in strategy is necessary.
Welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. With an active manhunt still underway for at least one of those behind, one of the worse terror attacks in European history, some of our nation's top Homeland Security voices are now suggesting, the Islamic state terror groups has the potential to pull an attack like this one off in the United States. In a moment for the first on camera here at "The Kelly File," we will be joined by Fran Townsend, who was a top counterterrorism adviser to President George Bush. Judge Napolitano is here with the numbers of Syrian refugees we are planning on taking. And what some states are now doing to stop it. Glenn Beck joins us on President Obama's assertion that this attack in Paris is just a setback and we have actually contained ISIS. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali who has a death sentence hanging over her now. Thanks to Islamic radicals, is here on the larger threat from radical Islam.
In fact, it was just hours ago that the Islamic State terror group posted a new video to one of their numerous social media sites, promising to, quote, "Strike America at its center in Washington." While the group often posts messages like these, they can take on a chilling new impact when you see pictures like this one. Look at this. Look at this. From inside the French concert hall moments before the terrorists attacked, and then compare that image to this one. A horrifying aftermath. We have blurred the bodies. As young men, armed with shotguns went from person to person inside that same concert hall, attempting to send a grisly message to the world.
With the death toll from this Paris attack likely to rise, our nation's leading homeland security voices are warning today and have been for months that this threat may already be on our doorstep.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've arrested over 70 ISIS followers in the United States over the last year. That's more than one per week. We have investigations in all 50 states. We have 900 investigations ongoing in the United States in the homeland as I speak. You know, you just can't stop it all, and this threat is magnifying, it's not shrinking, it's not going away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I certainly we're not considering -- it is clear to me that ISIL has an external agenda, that they are determined to carry out these types of attacks. It is not going to content itself with violence inside of Syria and Iraqi borders. It's going to be looking abroad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ISIL has used that ubiquitous social media to break the model and push into the United States, into the pocket, to the mobile devices of troubled souls throughout our country in all 50 states a twin message -- come or kill. Come or kill. Come to the so-called caliphate, live a life of glory, participate in the final battle between good and evil on God's side. Come to the caliphate. And if you can't come, kill where you are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: We begin tonight with Fran Townsend, former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush and president of the Counter Extremism Project. Fran, great to see you tonight.
FRAN TOWNSEND, PRESIDENT, COUNTER-EXTREMISM PROJECT: Good to be here.
KELLY: So you heard it there from our officials and just this weekend. "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board coming out and saying, America's day is coming and saying that President Obama needs to wake up to this reality. Your take on it?
TOWNSEND: Look, when you look at the numbers, you know you heard Chairman McCaul tell you, we understand that there are a minimum of 250 foreign fighters here in the United States. What do I mean? These are 250 people who traveled over, fought, were trained, and came back. In addition to that, the FBI has identified 1,000 subjects of investigations. What does that mean? That means individuals who have ties or affiliation with ISIS. It may be a social media account like Director Comey mentioned. It may be a common telephone number.
KELLY: That's already here in the United States?
TOWNSEND: These are people, this is 1250 folks here in the United States. Two hundred and fifty of which have actually fought. So what resources do they have against that? So, if you asked the FBI, at least privately, what they'll say is, they only have the resources to cover 60 to 70, 24-seven. That means the rest of that -- they have to make judgments every day about priorities. They may be right or wrong. By the way, they don't have the data they used to have from the metadata program due to encryptions. So they're making these priorities on limited information. So, you know, you never know if the guy that you decided not to cover is the guy who's going to pull off an attack like the Paris attack.
KELLY: President Obama says, we're not changing our strategy. You know, we may enhanced it, we may -- we're going to continue it more robustly. But we're going to continue doing this same old thing. If you were advising him in a way you advised President Bush, what would you tell him to do differently?
TOWNSEND: Well, look, it's one thing to say you want to defeat ISIS, it's another thing to have an actual strategy that adequately resourced to do it. And that's the problem. One, there's not a strategy. But two, it's not adequately resourced. When you look at the FBI's resources, MI-5. The Brits announced today they're going to add some 1200 additional intelligence agents. We ought to be doing that.
KELLY: We're not adding any.
TOWNSEND: No, that's exactly right. We ought to be adding law enforcement and intelligence officers to attack this problem, we ought to be trying to get them the tools they need. Rebrand metadata program. We ought to be, President Obama held a cyber summit in Silicon Valley. He ought to go to his partners in Silicon Valley and talk to them on the encryption issue and the damage --
KELLY: Those are the ones who can help us.
TOWNSEND: Exactly.
KELLY: We have the best experts at that in the world. Why can't they help us tap into these networks so we can hear what's going on? But here's the thing Fran, if there's something we like to believe that we have some special magic that might protect us. Notwithstanding 9/11, people still believe this. Some special magic that might protect us. That might snuff out these plots before they happen. Is that true?
TOWNSEND: Look, we have got the best capability in the world, but unfortunately, when all you're playing is defense, you're bound to lose. The guy is playing offense only has to be right once. You're playing defense, you have to be right every day. That's the problem. That's the law of averages are against you. And frankly, I do think part of this is, we have to play offense, we have to try to get them overseas. We need additional resources in Iraq and Syria. We need to increase the true presence in Iraq, we need to expand the rules of engagement. I mean, there's a whole series of things. If I was advising the President, I'd advised him not to play offense about --
KELLY: You make a good point about increasing our resources here first and foremost, which is not something that we've been told what he's going to do. Fran, thank you for being here.
TOWNSEND: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: Well, for weeks now. We've heard warnings that there's no way to adequately screen Middle Eastern refugees coming to the United States. And now that Paris has been attacked, the Obama administration is getting serious pushback to its plan to allow 10,000 refugees from Syria into this country. In just the past 24 hours, a number of governors say they do not want these refugees. The House Homeland Security Chair has called for a temporary stop to the program. And a leading senator is calling on Congress to reconsider funding for the effort. For his part, President Obama argues that doing that, disallowing them would be down-right un- American. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: My first priority is the safety of the American people. And that's why even as we accept more refugees, including Syrians, we do so only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks. We also have to remember that many of these refugees are the victims of terrorism themselves. That's what they're fleeing. Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values. Our nations can welcome refugees, who are desperately seeking safety. And ensure our own security. We can and must do both.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Judge Andrew Napolitano is our Fox News senior judicial analyst. So now we know Judge that at least one of the killers in Paris was a man who had posed as a refugee coming in via other countries but ultimately into Paris claiming that he needed, you know, sanctuary.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: Well, that's the problem. I don't think anybody disputes what the President says, that some of these people are themselves victims and some of them are bona fide refugees. The problem is, that hidden among them will be some of the worst people we could ever want in the United States and people about whose presence we all should be fearful and fight politically to prevent from happening. The other problem that the President must know is that your ability to search a person's background is only as good as the database to which you have access.
KELLY: Right?
NAPOLITANO: Now there are some limited databases that these people traveled to United Emirates or the Saudi Arabia that they might be on those lists. But for the most part, Syria is such a mess, that there's an inadequate database in order to search the backgrounds of the people coming here. I'm not talking about their medical backgrounds, I'm talking about their political and legal backgrounds.
KELLY: That's how it sounded this weekend, when the White House was in sharp disagreement with Pete King about just how good the screening process is. Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN RHODES, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: We have very extensive screening procedures for all Syrian refugees who have come to the United States. There's a very careful vetting process that includes our intelligence community, our national counterterrorism center, the Department of Homeland Security.
REP. PETE KING, R-N.Y., HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: What he just said about the robust vetting of refugees is untrue. There's virtually no vetting because there are no databases in Syria, there are no government records, we don't know who these people are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: So now at least eight governors are saying we're not taking them. But there's a question about whether legally they are allowed to do that.
NAPOLITANO: I think that the President will probably order the Department of Homeland Security to ignore the governors. My heart is with the governors, but let's face it, this is a federal issue. The president makes these decisions, under federal law, there is no cap, no cap on the number of refugees that he can admit here for political asylum purposes or humanitarian purposes. But he has a paramount obligation to make sure the databases that they search exist and are up to date and have accurate information.
KELLY: Whose database are we going to get the information from?
NAPOLITANO: Congressman King is correct. Mr. Rhodes is speaking the political line. Congressman King is speaking the intelligence line. The databases don't exist. How can the President possibly assure us that these folks he's going to admit here will not have among their number the type of people that perpetrated that monstrosity Friday night in Paris?
KELLY: Judge, thank you.
NAPOLITANO: You're welcome.
KELLY: Well, when the president met the cameras this morning, he spent more than 40 minutes defending his plans for tackling these terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: What I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or American winning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Up next, Glenn Beck joins us on the road ahead in the war on terror. Don't miss this.
Plus, President Obama said you cannot equate events in Paris with the religion of Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is here. A woman who has a death sentence hanging over her. Thanks to Islamic radicals. She will discuss that argument.
And then Chris Stirewalt is here on how this is already changing the GOP race for the White House, just ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Obama has consistently abandoned and alienated our friends and allies and has coddled and appeased our enemies. And that is never more true than with radical Islam and terrorism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: What I'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Well, that was President Obama today, defending his plan for taking on the terrorists in a news conference that ran almost an hour and was dominated by events in Paris. The President spoke from the G-20 summit in Turkey and was forceful when it came to rejecting calls for the U.S. to change its strategy. Glenn Beck is here with reaction but we begin with Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen.
JAMES ROSEN, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, good evening, a setback. A terrible and sickening setback, that's how President Obama referred to the Paris attacks this morning. In an hour-long news conference capping the G-20 economic summit in Turkey, the President flashed anger only once when he rejected Republicans call to limit the number of Syrian refugees allowed into the U.S. However, Mr. Obama also expressed irritation at one point at the number of questions he was getting from reporters suggesting he hand underestimated ISIS, the terror group which he once called the jayvee team in which he declared hours before the Paris attacks to be effectively contained in Syria and Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Some of them seem to think that if I were just more bellicose in expressing what we're doing, that that would make a difference, because that seems to be the only thing that they're doing, is talking as if they're tough. But I haven't seen particular strategies that they would suggest that would make a real difference.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEN: The President also defended his use of the term violent extremist groups saying we should not define the terrorism problem as a Muslim problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: You know, those kinds of stereotypes are counterproductive. They were wrong. They will lead, I think, to greater recruitment in the terrorist organizations over time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEN: However, the President did also call on Muslim leaders around the world to start asking themselves, quote, "Very serious questions" about how and why their children are infected with Jihadist ideology -- Megyn.
KELLY: James Rosen, thank you.
Joining us now with more, Glenn Beck.
GLENN BECK, AUTHOR, "THE IMMORTAL NICHOLAS": I can't take it. I can't take it.
KELLY: All right, Glenn.
BECK: I can't take it.
KELLY: What do you mean?
BECK: This guy's judgment is off every single time. If I may, let me take it to my chalkboard real quick. You want to trust the President in what he's saying? Okay, good. Let's look at where the President has been in the past. Remember the fruit cart guy. The fruit cart that set himself on fire in Tunisia? The President said that was Rosa Parks. Let me show you how we got to Paris. He sets himself on fire, that trips into the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring goes into the collapse of Libya. Because of the collapse of Libya, we have an immigration problem in Spain, Italy and France, the migrants who start going over.
We realize that because all these things are collapsing, we know that Syria is on the verge of collapse. We start running guns out of Benghazi into Syria. Because we run guns, we create ISIS. All of these decisions that the President has championed, that causes the refugee crisis in Germany, in France, and all over Europe. And that's how we get to Paris. This guy's wrong every single time. Every time he's wrong. And when he says that we don't have a way to screen them, it's funny, Megyn, because we have a way to screen them. We have -- how many answer this and I know you haven't done any research, but I know you're smart enough to figure this one out. How many Christian members of ISIL or ISIS are there?
KELLY: Uh-huh. I know that you have -- right, I know. And I know that you've set up a screening process yourself to try to get Christian refugees in particular. But before we get to the refugees, I want to ask you about this.
BECK: Yes.
KELLY: What the President said today was, look, basically it's hard, and what he said was, when you're talking about the ability with a handful of people, with not wildly sophisticated military equipment and weapons, who are willing to die, they can kill a lot of people and preventing them is challenging for every country.
BECK: Can I ask you a question, Megyn? How is it? You know where France got the co-ordinance of the big ISIS base that they just bombed? From us. How is it that we had those co-ordinates and we didn't hit them if we were trying to destroy and run them into oblivion?
KELLY: Now, Catherine Herridge was reporting here today that the number of airstrikes has actually diminished over the past months or so and challenging the President's assertion otherwise in his remarks today.
BECK: Yes. This is -- this is --
KELLY: So what, his heart is not in it, is that what you're saying? He doesn't want to fight this fight?
BECK: I don't know. I stopped guessing what the President has in mind, what he really wants or what he's trying to do. I'll just tell you this. For him to let Gitmo prisoners out this weekend, on this weekend above all weekends, and then to say, I don't care what the governors say, I don't care what anybody says, we're going to up, not just continue, we're going to up our Syrian refugees here in the United States. That man is surrounded by behavioral scientists. He's always hiring more behavioral scientists to tell us exactly what to get out of the American people. What is it he's trying to get us to react to? How is he wanting us to react? Because I can tell you how the American people are wanting to react. Look at the support behind the anger of Donald Trump. They're reacting and they're very angry. What is the President doing? He's not listening to the people. Exactly the same thing that happened in France. They're not listening to the people.
KELLY: Well, and there's a question of whether he is listening to his advisers, because we had Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who used to head up the CIA, basically the defense sister to the CIA, saying, read the damn intelligence. That's a quote, "read the damn intelligence," he's saying to the President. And at the same time, you have a bunch of intelligence analyst coming out and saying, that's not the problem. We give them the intelligence, and then we're being told by the administration to change it so that it comports better with the narrative the White House once out there.
BECK: Let me tell you this. James Clapper said, and this just happened on Sunday if I had the exact quote, James Clapper just said that you just had a report that he had what, 1250 people that the FBI is watching? James Clapper says there are thousands of fighters that have traveled to Syria and returned to Europe. But the number being tracked here in America is only around 40.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
BECK: So which is it, is it 1250 or is it 40, Mr. President?
KELLY: Glenn, stand by. Thank you.
BECK: Thank you.
KELLY: Back to Glenn in one minute. It did not get a lot of attention in the middle of the breaking news out of France. But some of the folks upset about racism on college campuses were not happy with coverage of events overseas. Glenn has some thoughts on that just ahead.
Plus, we go to Bill Hemmer, who is standing by in Paris with the story from the streets of a city on edge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're scared, but we know we have to fight back and the only way to fight back is to keep on living the way we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(SCREAMS)
KELLY: Paris on edge today. The video you just saw taken during a vigil that ended in panic over the weekend when mourners thought they had heard gunshots. What they reportedly heard was firecrackers.
Bill Hemmer reports tonight from Paris. Bill, where are we tonight?
BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Megyn, good evening. They believe they have the mastermind, they just don't know where he is. Belgium Abdelhamid Abaaoud believe to be in Syria. Megyn, you remember he's the same one who they believe masterminded the August shooting on that train from Amsterdam to Paris when a gunman hopped onboard in Brussels, taken down by three Americans. Two of them served in the U.S. military. They're looking for a possible eight attacker tonight who they believed survive survived, Megyn, age 26 Salah Abdeslam, one of two brothers involved. His brother is dead. Police stopped this 26-year-old from Belgium earlier, and apparently he was questioned and let go.
The circumstances we don't know. But that's the story we're getting tonight. The French president under enormous pressure here in his home country, has a state of emergency that will extend about 12 days. He's asking parliament to give them three months, three months of a state of emergency. That is how seriously he's taking these threats, has to be approved by the government here. We don't know if that will fly. But if it does, unprecedented in the modern history of this great country that tonight, Megyn, says it is at war.
KELLY: Bill, today we heard from Parisians, saying they're scared. That they're trying to go about their business, they're trying to go to work, they're trying to do things they would normally do so the terrorists don't win, but the reality is, of course they are scared.
HEMMER: The traffic on the street will belie that. Morning rush hour was packed, both directions, everywhere, traffic hasn't let up all day. The businesses and shops were open. Schools were back open again today. They will tell you they are resilient and they want the world to know it, they will not bend or give in. But if you move to my right, 15 minutes from here, Megyn, and if you get a sense of where these restaurants are, where these gunman throw their car up and fired these bullets, one after the other, restaurant after the next, and you imagine at 9:00 on a Friday, how many hundreds of people were in these locations, they knew the target they were going after, Megyn, and they knew that target was frankly easy to hit.
KELLY: Bill Hemmer, thank you, my friend.
HEMMER: Sure.
KELLY: Well, President Obama today said, you cannot equate events in Paris with the religion of Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is here. She is a woman who has a death sentence hanging over her. Thanks to Islamic radicals. She will discuss that argument.
And up next, Chris Stirewalt and Ed Henry are here with a look at the impact the Paris attacks are having on the presidential race.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WRIGHT: This is a Fox News alert, I'm Kelly Wright. France and Belgium conducting dozens of raids at this hour, as they hunt for those responsible for Friday's horrific coordinated attacks in Paris, the raids netting the arrest of more than 100 people and the seizure of 31 weapons, including automatic firearms and even a rocket launcher. A massive manhunt is still underway, law enforcement working around the clock to get hold of Salah Abdeslam, the so-called eighth attacker who survived and got away. Authorities also releasing the name of the suspected mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, he's a 27-year-old Belgium man who has fought with the Islamic state in Syria. He's also believed to be linked to the thwart attacks on a Paris bound high speed train and a church, earlier this year. That is the local news at this hour, we return now to The Kelly File.
KELLY: Breaking tonight. From the moment the news of the attacks started coming in from Paris, reactions start to coming in from the campaign trail and it has not stopped. With republican candidates hammering home how their approach differs from that of the democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLY FIORINA, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am angry that just yesterday morning, our president, against all evidence, declared ISIS contained and took a victory lap. ISIS is not a JV team, Mr. President. They are not contained. They are at our shores and their measure their victories in body counts.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a clash of civilizations. And as I said at the debate earlier this week, there is no middle ground on this, either they win or we win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Chris Stirewalt is our Fox News digital politics editor, he's with me now. Chris, so is there any real difference between the republicans now on how to deal with the threat of ISIS?
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS DIGITAL POLITICS EDITOR: Well, the question is, boots on the ground, how many? There is sort of a wing of the Republican Party that favors massive ordinance air power to obliterate the region. And then there are others.
KELLY: Lindsay Graham.
STIREWALT: Well, Lindsey Graham would be more in the Jeb Bush camp which says, you got to have some boots on the ground. You got afford to deploy, you got to do these things so you can work it out. I would say that you talk to the other side that would be more in the heavy air power space. I don't -- I won't characterize anybody's view for them in that case, but that's a strong vein in the Republican Party, sort of Curtis Lemay branch of the Republican Party says, light them up.
KELLY: And so how do the voters react when they hear the republicans coming out and saying, Obama, Obama, Obama -- I mean, presumably GOP primary voters say, "Yes, right. We agree this is Obama's fault." But, is there -- does it sort of help separate the wheat from the chaff when they're figuring out who to vote for in the GOP side?
STIREWALT: So the migrant issue is enormous. And all of the candidates are coming to one point of view which is at the very least, they're now where Rubio and Carson and arguably, Donald Trump were, originally, which is not now, at least not now, a freeze. Those who were talking about sorting out Muslims from Christians, et cetera. That will also to sort out and everybody will get to know more migrants. The question now is, voters change. So the politicians change as the events where around them warrant, but voters change because they become more serious. When the world infringes on the fantasy play of primary election, oh, I like Bernie Sanders. Oh, I don't know -- he's a Carson, he's a Trump. He is this, he is that. When you have world events impinged on your primary, you start to think of things differently and more seriously.
KELLY: And the last point is we're hearing a lot about the NSA and the curtailing of that program, opportunity for somebody like Christie, hurtful for someone like Rand Paul?
STIREWALT: Well, in so far, as either of those two candidates can still be helped or hurt, I suppose yes, but no.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: Chris, great to see you.
STIREWALT: You bet.
KELLY: Well, Friday's attacks in Paris also had an immediate impact on the democratic race. As it quickly became the focus of Saturday night presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, with the candidates being asked, is America at war with radical Islam? Ed Henry is in Washington with the story, Ed?
ED HENRY, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Megyn, you're absolutely right. And that shift in focus to terror should have been in the wheel house of the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Instead, she found herself on defense with moderator John Dickerson of CBS, suggesting she, and President Obama repeatedly underestimated ISIS. Today, Jeb Bush, a republican candidate of course, declared Clinton and the rest of the democrats in the race have no clue on national security, in part because of this exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN DICKERSON, FACE THE NATION HOST: Secretary Clinton, you mentioned radical jihadist.
HILLARY CLINTON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.
DICKERSON: Marco Rubio, also running for president said that this attack showed, and the attack in Paris showed that we are at war with radical Islam. Do you agree with that characterization, radical Islam?
CLINTON: I don't think we're at war with Islam. I don't think we're at war with all Muslims. I think we're at war with jihadists who have just.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: He didn't say all Muslims, he just said radical Islam. Is that a phrase you don't.
CLINTON: I think that you can talk about Islamists who clearly are also jihadists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, a Clinton aide told me today she will not say we're at war with radical Islam because it offends Muslim countries. She'll need to work with if she's elected president. And Clinton's chief rival democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, he agreed in the debate that using the phrase radical Islam is not important as his words, and he doubled down in his previous claim that America's biggest security threat right now is climate change, which shows that Clinton statements are probably not going to have a major impact on her march to the democratic nomination, but it could buy there in the general election, Megyn.
KELLY: Ed, thank you. For more on this now, we turn to Robert Zimmerman, a Hillary Clinton supporter and a democratic national committee member from New York. Robert, good to see you.
ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good to be with you.
KELLY: What of that? Because there's a fascinating piece in the Daily Beast today, that argues that they are betraying their ignorance or their inability to grapple with the true nature of this enemy by not just naming it what it is, radical Islam.
ZIMMERMAN: It's just the opposite, Megyn. If you watch what Secretary Clinton has been saying, President Obama, they're following exactly what President George W. Bush did when he avoided at great length referring to radical Islam. Remember the.
KELLY: Out of a desire to do what?
ZIMMERMAN: Out of desire to keep the focus on the jihadists and the terrorists. Remember the role.
KELLY: And avoid stereotyping Muslims? Is that the end result here or avoid enflaming anger on that?
ZIMMERMAN: Here's the deal.
KELLY: Enemy part.
ZIMMERMAN: Every ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorist has one objective, to unite the Muslim community, 1.6 billion of them, to convince them that they are at war with the United States.
KELLY: And if we say we're at war with radical Islam, that's going to do that?
ZIMMERMAN: If we make the case that we're at war with Islam. If we.
KELLY: No one is saying we're at war with Islam.
ZIMMERMAN: I know what you're saying, but that's how it will be interpreted. The more important point is that it's having this obnoxious semantics debate. Let's focus on what can really be done. Why hasn't Ted Cruz stood up and supported a war resolution.
KELLY: But let me challenge you on that.
ZIMMERMAN: Against ISIS.
KELLY: Let me challenge you on that.
ZIMMERMAN: That's the real issue. Where's Marco Rubio on that?
KELLY: It's not an obnoxious debate. It isn't. Thoughtful people, including General Jack Keane and former -- head of the DIA, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn said we have to name the enemy, and their argument.
ZIMMERMAN: And their enemy is called?
KELLY: Their argument is that you can only understand what we're fighting by naming it adequately. General Keane makes the point that we are not even studying. If you want to study radical Islam at a university today, it's nearly impossible to do it because we don't talk about it. We don't identify it. We like to pretend it isn't there.
ZIMMERMAN: Megyn, the target is very clear. We've got thousands of bombs of our allies on the target. It is ISIS. It is al-Qaeda. And the reality here is that the republicans running for president have any sincerity as suppose it's just playing politics. They'd be advocating a war resolution against ISIS. Do you know the republican Senate has not even confirmed the undersecretary to oversee counterterrorism activities and to oversee financial crimes, which deals with freezing money for terrorists? That's where the real battle is.
KELLY: Do you know that the Intel analysts.
ZIMMERMAN: Not in playing these semantic games.
KELLY: You know that the Intel analyst are coming out and saying that the Intel, they're generating, showing that we're not doing very well in this fight, are having their reports diminished and downplayed by this administration. That's what they say.
ZIMMERMAN: And very frankly, what we're seeing is the republican candidates for president are all based on the adopting the same position as President Obama.
KELLY: You're not, but you're --
ZIMMERMAN: And that's the point.
KELLY: They're not true.
ZIMMERMAN: The point is.
KELLY: You're suggesting the republicans.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: They're not in a position to receive these reports. You've got the top Intel analyst in the country coming out and saying, "He's ignoring our reports on how bad this fight is going."
ZIMMERMAN: First of all, by every measure, this White House has taken the fight very seriously, and in fact.
KELLY: I know. It's just a setback in Paris.
ZIMMERMAN: No, it's not the point. Let me tell you something. Even the fact checker of this network uses public -- PolitiFact has documented what President Obama.
KELLY: That is not our fact checker.
ZIMMERMAN: You reported many time in this network.
KELLY: That's not our fact checker.
ZIMMERMAN: OK.
KELLY: That's not our fact checker.
ZIMMERMAN: It's been used in one of the Pulitzer Prize. They said President Obama was correct when he said that ISIS has being contained in Iraq and Syria. The real issue is.
KELLY: The point now that.
ZIMMERMAN: I know we brought in our coalition.
KELLY: That the point is the suggestion that ISIS has been contained in Iraq and Syria is completely blind to what they are doing in other parts of the world.
ZIMMERMAN: No one is blind.
KELLY: In Beirut, and the Russian airliner and now in Paris. It's a myopic statement that doesn't take into account the metasthesis of this deadly group.
ZIMMERMAN: Everyone is right. Conscious about.
KELLY: I got to go.
ZIMMERMAN: The way you fight it, Megyn, is by building coalitions for our allies, reaching out to moderate Muslims.
KELLY: We're trying that.
ZIMMERMAN: And Sunni Muslims.
KELLY: We've been trying that. They're getting stronger.
ZIMMERMAN: And bet you're helping. You don't do it by attacking the Muslim faith. That's what the.
KELLY: No one's doing that.
ZIMMERMAN: Yes.
KELLY: Radical Islam is much different than Islam. I got to leave it that.
ZIMMERMAN: OK.
KELLY: I gonna pick up this debate with my next guest.
ZIMMERMAN: OK.
KELLY: Great to see you at all.
ZIMMERMAN: Good to be with you.
KELLY: When it comes to the fight against radical Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has lectured on this issue for years, and it earned her a death sentence. She'll join us next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: To the degree that anyone would equate the terrible actions that took place in Paris with the abuse of Islam, those kinds of stereotypes are counterproductive, they're wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight. Hillary Clinton is not the only one who will not identify this enemy as radical Islam. Here is President Obama, just earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: And, so to the degree that anyone would equate the terrible actions that took place in Paris with the abuse of Islam, those kinds of stereotypes are counterproductive, they're wrong. They will lead, I think to greater recruitment in the terrorist organizations over time if this becomes somehow defined as a Muslim problem as suppose to a terrorist problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Joining me now, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She is the author of the book Heretic and founder of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali foundation. Ayaan was raised Muslim and was forcibly mutilated before renouncing the religion and its ideals, Ayaan, thank you very much for being with us tonight. So what of that argument? We've heard that argument from the president and his supporters that if we call it a war on radical Islam, we're going to alienate the rest of the Muslim world, not just the radical Islamists, but the rest of the Muslim world.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI, FOUNDER OF AYAAN HIRSI ALI FOUNDATION: I think the president is right. The United States of America and the western civilization is not at war with Islam, but Islamic extremists is invoking Islamic theology, and aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, the most prominent which is Saudi Arabia and the other one is Qatar are waging war on us. And the strategy from 9/11 that is indeed the former President Bush, but also other western leaders, the strategy that if we equate, if we say this is something within Islam, we're going to lose the battle to them, that has been tried and it is failing as we are seeing now in Paris. I lived in Europe, and the entire leadership agreed on this argument, but what we are witnessing now is a failure of that strategy. We need to face the problem and we should start by naming it.
KELLY: We look at this over and over again, and we believed here in America, many, that if we wouldn't use that terminology, and did -- and pulled back from the Middle East somewhat, perhaps, they wouldn't hate us so much. Perhaps, they wouldn't want to hit us. Perhaps, there would be some detente with these people. It now appears that hasn't worked.
HIRSI ALI: It hasn't worked. We -- listen, one of the things that we really have to digest is that Islamic extremism is older than this election cycle and the last one and 9/11. It is at least, Sunni Islamic extremism is at least 95 to 98-years-old. And it's going to outlast this election cycle. This is -- this problem is just stay with us. It's not what we do or say what we don't do or we don't say, we have a substantial number of people on the planet who are Muslim, invoking Islamic theology, who have declared war on our way of life. The association between men and women on our tolerance, our freedoms, the call on everything that western civilization is, we need to acknowledge that and defend ourselves. And the way to first thing to do is to acknowledge.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: I want to ask you that. That's the thing.
HIRSI ALI: Ideology for instance.
KELLY: That's the thing is that, it doesn't matter -- it doesn't, doesn't matter what we call them or what we do, it seems -- they object to our belief system. They left -- object to our way of life. They object to the fact that we don't necessarily believe in Allah. That we have the First Amendment, that we have the (inaudible). They object to so much about who we are and the way we live. And so, you wrote.
HIRSI ALI: Absolutely. And by ignoring all of that.
KELLY: How, how we could -- as a practical matter, go about protecting ourselves and the first thing in your article was learn from Israel.
HIRSI ALI: Absolutely. Israel, from the time it was founded, had to deal with this. And over time, and in a painful way, Israel developed an infrastructure. It is legal. It is counterterrorism measures. It's intelligence. They know what they're doing. We should stop demonizing Israel. We should start learning from them. And by my knowledge, it's -- you know, Israel really doesn't call -- doesn't -- hasn't declared war on Islam. Israel collaborates with some of the Muslim countries when they want to collaborate with Israel. But Israel is at a place now where I think, in terms of fighting domestic terrorism, they have made such headway that the scenes we've seen in Paris are unthinkable. Yes, the terrorists are using knives and cars and other desperate measures, but the mass murder of Israelis on Israelis soil is now unthinkable because of the measures that they put in place. And I think we have a lot to learn from them.
KELLY: I recommend -- it is for everybody. It's fascinating. It offers so many smart insights as we always expect from you, Ayaan, thank you for being here tonight.
HIRSI ALI: Thank you, Megyn. Thank you.
KELLY: It did not get a lot of attention in the middle of the Breaking News outside of France -- out of France, but some of the folks upset about racism and insults on college campuses, were not happy with coverage of events overseas. Glenn Beck is back with us and has some thoughts on that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Millions across the world have expressed solidarity with the French people, but some here in the United States express frustration, complaining that the terror attack in Paris appear to be stealing the media spotlight from allegations of racial discrimination and unfairness on the campus of the University of Missouri. One supporter of the Mizzou protest tweeted, quote, "Interesting how the news reports are covering the Paris terrorist attacks, but said nothing about the terrorist attack at #Mizzou." Glenn Beck is back with us now. So bad were a couple of these tweets, Glenn, that the university came out and said, "These are not from inside the Mizzou community. We don't really know who these people are." And yet, there have been at least a couple, including one from DeRay Mckesson, who is a supporter of the.
GLENN BECK, FOUNDER THEBLAZE: But we didn't know who.
KELLY: Black lives matter and says, "Look, there's no rank order to injustice. You can keep all the tragedies in mind simultaneously."
BECK: We -- I just want you to know we didn't know who was driving the truck. We also don't know who said -- used the N-word, and yet somebody lost their job over it. What kind of double standard is this? The tweets are outrageous. And you know it shows you that their agenda matters. Black lives matter, if black lives matter, they'd be in Chicago right now and raising hell over the 9-year-old that was killed in cold blood, lured into an alley and killed in cold blood last week. So it's not black lives matter. I don't even think its lives matter. It is just agenda matters. Let me give you this. This comes from the African Black Coalition created in 2003 to spread through the California University system. They just wrote a new article and posted it, a new constitution or a bullet. Let me just give you a couple of lines from it. "We do not have the right -- do we not have the right to abolish the laws that oppress us? It's time we demand a new constitution or tell America that she'll get the bullet. If America doesn't protect us, then it's our human right to defend ourselves by any means necessary, our human right to overthrow a government that's been destructive to our people. We must pick up with the black panthers left off and declare a new constitution or it will be the bullet." What's happening in our university system is being led by the professors and the leftists and the anarchists and the socialist in our university systems. It's how revolution always happens. They seeded it in the universities. We have got to find our way to each other in universities because I really truly believe, 2016 is going to look an awful lot like 1968.
KELLY: Glenn, thank you.
BECK: Thank you.
KELLY: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: The president of France addressed the French parliament today. And before he left, they sang the French national anthem. France is hurting, but united and supported by the prayers and resolve of the American people. I'm Megyn Kelly. Good night.
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