Lynch talks gun control, ISIS threat and Clinton email probe
Chris Wallace sits down with the attorney general on 'Fox News Sunday'
This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," June 19, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I’m Chris Wallace.
In the wake of the Orlando massacre, a renewed debate over how to protect the homeland.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, D-CONNECTICUT: This Congress has mastered absolutely no response to mass shooting after mass shooting.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS: You don't defeat terrorism by taking away our guns. You defeat terrorism by using our guns.
WALLACE: Today, Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the president’s push for tougher gun control, the threat from ISIS and the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.
Then, on the trail. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton square off over terrorism.
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's going happen gain and again and again because we're not doing what we have to be doing.
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: A ban on Muslims would not have stopped the attack. Neither would a wall.
WALLACE: We’ll talk with top Trump supporter, Senator Jeff Sessions, about Trump's controversial response to Orlando and his strategy to defeat Clinton.
Plus, Trump's relations with the GOP go downhill.
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: He is a different kind of candidate.
WALLACE: As Trump slides in the polls, we’ll ask our Sunday panel if he can win while fighting his own party.
And our power player of the week, putting a fresh face on the people who built this country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A nation defines itself by the people who have created our history.
WALLACE: All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday".
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Hello again and happy Father's Day from Fox News in Washington.
As the country mourns the victims of the Orlando massacre, the debate has intensified over how to prevent it from happening again. In a moment, we’ll discuss the terror threat and guns with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and later with a key Trump adviser, Senator Jeff Sessions.
But, first, FOX News correspondent Peter Doocy has the latest from Orlando -- Peter.
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, this morning at 2:02, exactly one week to the minute after the first shots rang out here on Orange Avenue, church bells in town rang 49 times, once for every victim. And last night, the Orlando City Major League soccer club stopped playing for 49 minutes for a moment of silence, also leaving 49 seats in the stands empty.
Meanwhile, the nightclub turned crime scene is still sealed off here in Orlando, and investigators aren’t providing many updates as they trace terrorist Omar Mateen’s path to Pulse. But one victim now tells the Tribune News Service he remembers seeing Mateen laying among his dead and injured victims inside to hide from the police outside.
On Friday, the FBI interviewed a man at Omar Mateen’s mosque and a doctor listed as giving Mateen the psychological exam nearly a decade ago that he needed to carry a gun at his security job for the company G4S once known as Wackenhut now says her name shouldn’t be in those records.
Dr. Carol Nudelman Blumberg says, quote, "What I do know is that in September of 2007, I was not living or working in Florida. I was not performing any work for Wackenhut and I did not administer any type of examination to Omar Mateen."
The community is coming together to honor the dead as funerals continued today. Yesterday’s service for Cory James Connell, a 21-year-old who wanted to be a firefighter but will never get a chance, Orange County fire rescue made him an honorary member of their department. There are dozens of heartbreaking stories like Cory’s here in Central Florida. Meanwhile, 19 victims remain hospitalized at Orlando Regional Medical Center with gunshot wounds -- Chris.
WALLACE: Peter Doocy reporting from Orlando -- Peter, thanks for that.
Joining me now, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Welcome to "Fox News Sunday."
LORETTA LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: Good morning, Chris.
WALLACE: Why isn’t the wife of the Orlando shooter in jail? We know that she went on some of these scouting trips with Omar Mateen. She knew that he bought guns and that he was planning an attack. Why not charge her?
LYNCH: Well, where we are now is in the middle of a very aggressive investigation. And yes, we are talking to everyone who had contact with this killer and that, of course, includes the family members. We want to know what they know, what they saw, and what he said to them. The investigation is ongoing. We don’t have any announcements to make about other individuals at this time, but we are trying to recreate the days, the weeks, the months of this killer’s life before this attack. And we’re also asking people who had contact with him to come forward and give us that information as well.
WALLACE: Now, I know that you are going to Orlando yourself on Tuesday and that tomorrow, the government will release transcripts of all contacts between the FBI and Mateen when he was on the terror watch list. Any sense at this point that the government made a mistake when it first put him and then took him off the terror watch list?
LYNCH: Well, I am going to Orlando on Tuesday and I’ll be meeting with the team on the ground, as well as the victims and first responders, and meeting with this brave community, this LGBT community, and Latino community that was targeted in this terrible act of hate and terror.
What we are releasing tomorrow are actually the transcripts of the phone contact between the killer and the Orlando negotiators the night of the attacks. So, it will be a partial transcript of those calls. We’re trying to get information out. It's our goal to be as transparent as possible in this investigation.
With respect to the prior contact that we had with him, we're going go back and looking at that as well. We’re going to go back and look at everything we did in connection with him and be as transparent as possible about how it evolved, what developed and what changes we could have made.
WALLACE: The Senate is set to vote on Sunday on some gun control measures. Under a Republican plan, if someone who’s on a terror watch-list wants to buy a gun, the government would have three days, the sale would be halted, the government would have three days to prove probable cause to a judge.
Why isn’t that reasonable?
LYNCH: Well, what we’ve been looking at is the plan that currently would give the Department of Justice two very important tools. First, the ability to in fact stop a sale if someone is on the watch list, but second and more importantly, if there is litigation about that because, of course, people would have the right to challenge that, it does cover constitutional rights. It gives us the ability to set the procedures in place that let us protect sensitive and classified information in the adjudication of an appeal. Those two issues are very, very important to us. And that's why we're supporting the amendment that contains those two important issues.
WALLACE: What about the 72-hour deadline that you have to prove probable cause in 72 hours or the gun sale goes through?
LYNCH: Well, what we think is more appropriate is the one that gives us the most flexibility, the ability to stop that sale at the beginning, and the ability, again, if it's challenged to protect sensitive and classified information. Those are the concerns that law enforcement has had some time about how to manage this very, very difficult and important issue.
WALLACE: But you know what the critics say. They say that that means if you have maximum flexibility, that government will take weeks or months. The terror watch list has 800,000 names on it, and you know that some of them names are on there mistakenly. If you're going to take away someone's constitutional right, don't you have to give them due process and don’t you have to give them prompt due process?
LYNCH: Well, you have to give them both. And we feel that the amendment that gives us those two important tools lets us do that. In addition to providing due process, as you know that whenever constitutional right is implicated that has to be built into it, we have a very strong law enforcement interest in protecting the types of investigations that, in fact, put people on the watch list or that maybe around those individuals. And so, it's very important to us that we have the ability to conduct this in a way that lets us protect that information.
WALLACE: But is 72 hours too short a time?
LYNCH: Well, we think that having enough flexibility is the best way to achieve that. It lets us determine whether or not the sale should proceed first of all. We may be able to look at a person and make a determination even faster than that or we may not. We may, in fact, need more time.
And I think the American people deserve us to take the greatest amount of time and scrutiny that we can in the important decision of whether or not someone who’s been implicated on this matter should, in fact, be able to buy a firearm. But, of course, there has to be a redress. There has to be a way for people to challenge it, and we do want that, but we also in the course of that need to be able to protect sensitive and classified information.
WALLACE: On Monday, the day after the attack, Donald Trump said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When I’m elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The next day you said this, "We have to push back on the voices that prey on fear and that sow division."
Attorney General Lynch, were you talking about Donald Trump?
LYNCH: I was not talking about Mr. Trump or any specific person, but I was talking about the climate of fear that comes about after these terrorist attacks that often leads people to react without thinking and to react in fear and sadly allows them to take the law into their own hands and try, in fact, and go out and target other individuals.
I was talking about that climate that we have seen after so many of these attacks.
WALLACE: Do you think that Donald Trump contributes to that climate?
LYNCH: You know, I don't have a comment on Mr. Trump or any of the candidates. I think we have to keep our eye on a larger picture here, which is the victims of this crime were from a community that is often marginalized and that frankly the LGBT community is more often the victims of hate crimes than any other recognized group. That comes from a wide variety of sources. We have to push back against those voices that are speaking out now that are not supportive of that community.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: And we have to make sure that this country stays open and free and inclusive for everyone.
WALLACE,: But I guess the question is, is this to be viewed, and not to say it’s one or the other, as primarily a hate crime or as a terror attack?
Also this week, the CIA Director John Brennan said that ISIS is now focused on launching attacks outside the Middle East. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: The group is exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including in refugee flows, smuggling routes and legitimate methods of travel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Given that, is it unreasonable for Donald Trump to say stop, at least temporarily ban refugees from coming into this country?
LYNCH: Let me go to your first point, which is, what are we talking about when we talk about this terrible attack in Orlando?
And as the president has said, it is both an act on terror and an act of hate. Clearly, this is an individual who is inspired by terrorist ideology, but it was an attack that was directed against the LGBT community and the Latino community. We are trying to find out his motivations. We’re trying to find out everything we can about what lead him to this path, what put him in the night club that morning with that firearm.
Now, one of the things that we have talked about before is our concern about homegrown extremists -- individuals who consumed this radical violent ideology and then act on it. And, of course, what we're working on is making sure that our investigations pick up those individuals and also gather as much information that we can from the people who know them, from citizens who are concerned so that we can, in fact, intervene before this kind of tragedy happens gain.
WALLACE: I want to talk about one other subject with you. President Obama recently endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I’m with her.
I am fired up, and I cannot wait to get out there and campaign for Hillary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, you're a political appointee of the president. Does that create a conflict of interest for you? Does that make it harder for you to handle the criminal investigation into Clinton when your boss is saying he thinks she should be president?
LYNCH: Well, you know, I don't get involved on whom the president endorses and I don’t have comments, as I said before, on any of the candidates. The investigation into the State Department e-mail matter is going to be handled like any other matter. We’ve got career agents and lawyers looking at that. They will follow the facts and follow the evidence wherever it leads and come to a conclusion.
WALLACE: So, does this create a conflict of interest for you?
LYNCH: No, this is not a conflict for me and for the department or for anyone. We will continue to do all of our work in the same language we always have, with the interest of the American people first and foremost.
WALLACE: Now, the same day that Clinton was endorsed by the president, you met with the president at the White House. Did you in any way, shape or form discuss the Clinton case with the president?
LYNCH: We’ve never discussed the Clinton case. I have never spoken about it with the president or really with anyone at the White House. That's not the kind of relationship that I have with people there and it would be inappropriate to do so.
WALLACE: Attorney General Lynch, thank you. Thanks for your time today.
LYNCH: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Pleasure to talk with you. Please come back.
LYNCH: Thank you.
WALLACE: Up next, Senator Jeff Sessions, a key policy adviser to Trump on his candidate’s call for President Obama to resign and Trump's plan to talk with the NRA about gun control.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: A look at the growing memorial in Orlando, Florida, with the 49 people who were killed in last Sunday’s massacre.
After that terror attack at the night club, Donald Trump doubled down on his plan to ban foreign Muslims from the U.S. And he called on President Obama to resign.
Joining me now is the chair of Trump’s national security advisory committee, Senator Jeff Sessions.
And, Senator, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday".
SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, R-ALABAMA: Chris, good to be with you.
WALLACE: You just heard Attorney General Lynch defend the administration’s position on and policies on protecting the homeland. Your reaction?
SESSIONS: Well, I think it’s still -- the whole administrative agenda is out of touch with the reality. We have a very toxic extremist group within Islam that is attacking the United States. We have convicted or charged 580 people since 9/11, almost all Islamic terrorist threats. This is a real threat to America. We need to do much more to defend ourselves against it.
President Obama won’t even call the name of the threat. So, that’s the kind of thing that if he is not going to leave, not going to be able to be a force for protecting our security, maybe he should step aside. I think that's what Trump was saying.
WALLACE: You're not really serious, are you?
SESSIONS: No, you know, he doesn’t mean he is going to resign or step aside, but the point is, this kind of rhetorical phrasing, you either get in and lead or get out of the way.
WALLACE: All right. I want to get to some of those other issues in a moment. But I want to begin by drilling down on the guns. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted this, put it up on the screen. "I will be meeting with the NRA, who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list or the no fly list to buy guns."
Senator, do you support your candidate on that?
SESSIONS: Yes, I think that it's great to talk with the NRA and see if we can work out the language on this. We're so close on this issue. It ought to be able to be fixed easily.
The problem is the Democratic colleagues are pushing this to try to create an impression that guns were the responsible cause of this attack in Orlando, when it’s really a toxic ideology. That’s what caused it. That's what seduced this man into doing this kind of thing.
And we can tighten up the law some, it won’t make a big difference in my opinion in securing America’s safety. But we -- people on the terrorist watch list, I believe, should be denied the right to bear -- get a gun, but they should have a chance to protest that they're wrongfully on the list. I think that's fair and we should be able to reach language among the --
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Well, let's talk about that, because that's what I went through with Attorney General Lynch a couple of moments ago. The Cornyn Amendment, the plan that the Republicans are putting, says you get 72 hours to give probable cause, prove that, satisfy a judge; Democrats and you could hear Attorney General Lynch basically saying, no, we may need longer than that.
Trump said again yesterday, no one on the terror watch list should be able to buy a gun. He didn’t say anything about delaying, you know, for a certain period of time for probable cause. He said, I’d like to see that. It’s just simpler.
Are you saying that you support Trump on that?
SESSIONS: Well, I don’t think Trump is saying he never let somebody get off the list if they were wrongfully put on it. So, I think that’s probably a misquote. But Attorney General Lynch said was pretty close to where I’m comfortable be. You have a delay. You have a chance for the Department of Justice to prove this person shouldn’t be able to execute a constitutional right and you shouldn’t have to reveal too much of your internal data that could be compromised our intelligence sources in the process. I think something like that could be worked out. I think Trump is trying to be a positive force.
WALLACE: How leaders react after a tragedy like the Orlando massacre gives people an insight into what kind of a leader or what kind of a potential president they would be. And I want to ask you about some of the things that Donald Trump has done in the last week, Senator.
First, his comments the day after the tragedy that seemed to imply that President Obama is sympathetic to the terrorists. Here he is.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TRUMP: He doesn’t get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. It’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable. We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he’s got something else in mind.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: Question: Do you know what that something else Trump refers to that he thinks that President Obama has in mind?
SESSIONS: No, I don't. I don't know what he was referring to there. But I do believe he is correct to raise the question that the policies of this administration, from going back to 2011 when we withdrew all our troops from Iraq and allowed ISIS to form and become an entity probably would never have happened otherwise. Certainly, not spread as much as it has.
So, I think he --
WALLACE: Forgive me. I just want to go through what Trump said. He said, "Either he doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anyone understands, he’s got something else in mind."
I mean, that certainly seems to imply that he is sympathetic to radical Islam.
SESSIONS: No, I don't think that he means that, but I think he’s going -- I think he is criticizing him, President Obama, for going too far, for not understanding the threat. The president and Clinton now say she wants to go from 10,000 Syrian refugees to 65,000 Syrian refugees, when Mr. Brennan, CIA director, says we can't do vetting on that, when we know that right now, a team from the European leader are heading to Europe to attack Europe from Syria.
So, we can’t vet these people because we don't have any background on them. There's no way to go into their communities and check their records, their arrest records or their business records. All you have is what they tell you. And we know, as the CIA director said, refugees provide an opportunity to enter the United States and create attacks.
WALLACE: Then, Trump said, and we kind of touch on this before, that President Obama should resign and Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race because of their refusal or failure to say the phrase "radical Islam."
Here is how the president responded to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: There's no magic to the phrase "radical Islam." It's a political talking point. It's not a strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, I understand the argument you can’t beat the enemy unless you identify the enemy and clearly, there is an Islamist jihadist component in this. But I think would you agree with the president that even if you say the names, that the real key is, what's your plan, what's your strategy to beat ISIS?
SESSIONS: Well, I don't understand the president's view on this at all. I think it’s totally inexplicable.
And when Donald Trump went directly at Hillary Clinton on this, for the first time, she said the words "Islamic extremism" or something to that affect, because she has taken an indefensible position. Of course, that's what it is, you know? Of course, this is what the threat is.
It is out there. It is growing and CIA director indicated it looks like it will continue to grow. Even though we can have some battlefield victories against ISIS, the threat is still expanding.
WALLACE: Then, Trump upset some veterans by accusing American soldiers of stealing some of the millions of dollars that the U.S. was supplying to help with reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I want to know who are the soldiers that had the job because I think they're living well right now, whoever they may be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, the Trump campaign said that they were talking about the Iraq soldiers. But, Senator, he talked about the same thing last September and it was clearer then that he was talking about U.S. soldiers with millions of dollars that they were handing out for reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
SESSIONS: Well, we put a huge amount of money in Iraq and Afghanistan, so much of it was wasted and abused and used corruptly. It’s just no doubt about it.
WALLACE: Do you think that U.S. soldiers were stealing it?
SESSIONS: No, not in general. But we -- some were convicted. Some U.S. people have been convicted of offenses dealing directly with the abuse of that money. So, I think we do have a big problem with our allies, with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a lot of the money has been poor spent, and we need a tough leader to tighten it up. We don't have any money to waste on corruption.
WALLACE: Let's turn to the state of relation between Trump and his own party, GOP leaders. Here is some of what they had to say about Trump this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY., MAJORITY LEADER: I was asked about every incident last week. I’ve already said I disapprove of them time and time and time again.
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: He is a different kind of candidate. This is a different time of the year. I’m going to be myself and speak up in defense of our principles.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
WALLACE: Now, Trump said after that they should, quote, "be quiet" and that he might run alone. Can Trump run aside, apart, alone from the Republican Party without all of the infrastructure and the field organization, the database, the fundraising operation that they have and that he doesn’t have?
SESSIONS: Well, I think that we're going to get the unity. Trump has met with the leaders.
WALLACE: When?
SESSIONS: Well, he’s met with people repeatedly. He has talked with Congressman Ryan, he’s talked to Senator McConnell on the phone, in addition to those personal meetings. He’s been reaching out to them.
But let me give advice to my Republican colleagues. They need to look at the election returns. They need to understand that the American people are not happy with the gridlock in America.
They're not happy their wages have fallen since 2000 instead steadily. They're not happy that we have a high unemployment. They’re not happy that we have an open border and lawlessness at our border. They believe we should have a lawful system of immigration. It serves their interests.
They don’t believe these trade deals have worked with them. So I think -- for them. So, I think our leaders on both sides need to be considering what the American people are saying in this election and they need to be a part of the unity, too.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: Meaning get on the Trump train?
SESSIONS: They need to be participating in assisting some of these things. We haven’t been effective in fixing illegal immigration, the trade deal, we’ve got a lot of votes and support in the Congress, on the Democrats and Republicans. So, I think there’s a lot of things we need to learn from the American people.
WALLACE: Let's look at the polls and talking about the American people. On May 23rd, after Trump wrapped up the nomination, the Real Clear Politics average had him tied with Clinton. But now, he is trailing by six points, and in some polls, by double digits.
Senator, with all of the controversies of the last month, especially going after the judge and the Trump University case, hasn’t Trump squandered the last few weeks?
SESSIONS: Well, I don't think he squandered it, but it’s been a difficult time. People want the vote for him. He is correct on the issues, and I think tone can improve over time.
But I would just say, I remember former President Bush Sr. was down 15 points at the time of convention, in August, and then won with a huge victory. So I just think this is premature.
But I would say to you the issue on what is going to work and what will work for Donald Trump -- trade, immigration, wages, jobs, gridlock in Washington. He is going break that up and move us in the right direction. And I believe the numbers are going to move his way steadily as these issues are joined in the fall.
WALLACE: Final questions. Some delegates to the Republican convention are now talking about trying to change the rules in Cleveland to make it that no delegates are legally bound and that they could nominate someone other than Donald Trump.
How seriously do you take that?
SESSIONS: I don't take it seriously at all. I hear somebody says as many as 30. Well, there are 2,400 delegates. Trump has swept this election. He had the biggest percentage -- biggest number of votes ever in the Republican primary. He drew in more votes than the Democrats.
The Republican primaries has cast 2 million more votes than the Democrats. He drew independents, he drew Democrats into the Republican primary. That’s a historic thing.
WALLACE: Senator Sessions, thank you. Thanks for coming in today. Always good to talk to you, sir.
SESSIONS: Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: Up next, we’ll bring in our Sunday group to discuss after Orlando how to protect the homeland.
Plus, what would you like to ask the panel about President Obama’s focus on gun control as a way to stop mass shootings? Just go to Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday and we may use your question on the air.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Coming up, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate gun control.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: If the FBI is watching you, you should not be able to buy a gun.
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: We’ll ask our Sunday panel how the debate in Congress will play in the 2016 race.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders. And as a result, ISIL’s under more pressure than ever before.
JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: President Obama and his CIA director with very different assessments of the threat from ISIS in the wake of the Orlando terror act.
And it's time now for our Sunday group. Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Amy Walter from the Cook Political Report, syndicated columnist George Will, and Fox News political analyst Juan Williams.
Well, Brit, that was a pretty stunning contradiction on Tuesday. You h ad the president talking about making significant progress against ISIS, and then the very next day you had the CIA director testifying before Congress saying, yes, we are rolling back some of their territory, yes, we are killing some of their people, but, in fact, they’re a greater threat than ever to the west.
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: So, obviously, what the CIA director is saying is that this -- that this policy and practice that the administration has put into place against ISIS is not working. The threat is growing. The president would never say that. I don’t -- I don’t think -- I don’t think Brennan’s going to get fired. But you put that together with all of this argument about the use of the term, you know, radical Islamist terrorism, the refusal to use it by the administration, this is a point of vulnerable for the administration. At a moment when the president's approval rating had been rising, which is of enestible (ph) help to -- to his party’s candidate, in this case Hillary Clinton. But this attack, I think, is -- is -- is for -- for the time being, anyway, a game changer on that and has thrown the administration on the defensive and the Brennan testimony hammers that home.
WALLACE: We're -- we’re going to get to the political aspects of this in the next segment, but let’s talk about the substance of what we do.
Juan, for all the talk about immigration and gun control and we’ll get to those in a moment, isn’t the best way to stop the terror attacks and win the war against ISIS?
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that's part of the answer. I mean clearly if you diminish the leadership, and the United States has been killing off a great number of the leader of the terror group, and you cut in terms of their territory this week we saw them push back in Fallujah, for example. So there’s progress there on the battle field.
The problem is that they are now relying on alternative strategies. So they’re, for example, expanding their presence in places like Nigeria and Libya, so they’re a bigger presence there, and, secondly, relying on social media to spread their cancerous ideology. So that’s a -- that’s an issue there. And they’re also now saying, excuse me, that they can rely on infiltrating refugee flows and these lone wolf attacks.
So this is a different set of issues. I mean you can wipe them out in term of their presence in Syria, Iraq, but the presence in Africa, the presence on social media, the threat in terms of the refuge flows, that remains, even if you beat them on the battlefield.
HUME: Well, we’d like to know with the -- what would happen if they were beaten on the battlefield. And the fact is, although gains have been made, they have not been beaten. Their territory, their headquarters in Raqqa, it remains secure so far as we can tell. So the question that is raised by all of this is, how inspired would -- would Omar Mateen have been if the image of ISIS was not that of a winner whose power is growing, but of a loser whose defeat is inevitable and coming soon?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that they know that the defeat’s on the way, Brit, because, in fact, what they’re saying to people is, don't come into the battlefield anymore because, guess what, we’re losing. Instead, engage in these lone wolf attacks.
WALLACE: Let me turn to another aspect of this, because as usual in the wake of a mass shooting, we talk about guns, George. And the debate here in Washington, as they’re going to vote up in that building behind me on Monday, on four proposals on gun control, moderate Republicans Senator Susan Collins of Maine is proposing a compromise that would bar people, not on the terror watch list, which, as we say, has 800,000 people, but on two smaller, more targeted lists from buying guns. Does that make any sense and do you think there’s any chance that Congress will pass it?
GEORGE WILL, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, here’s the problem, we have a list of lists now. You’ve demonstrated in your questions. The attorney general -- that the watch list is cumbersome, too large to be meaningful, and doesn’t have much consequence. To put someone on a Selectee List, that is you can’t buy a gun if you’re on the Selectee List, all that means if you’re on that list, you get exposed to more rigorous examination when you try to board an airplane. Well, that --
WALLACE: You’re selected out for special security--
WILL: That’s -- that’s right. But you would -- you would be attaching to that status the loss of a Constitutional right, which we’ve now established under the Heller decision is the right to buy a gun. On the -- if you're on the no fly list, you’ve already lost a fundamental constitutional right, the right to travel. So they raise different due process questions.
But when you start changing people’s rights, all kinds of panoply of due process comes in and it gets complicated. Now, people are saying, no, this man in Orlando was very odd, lot of indications of instability and danger. Something should have been done. But it's not clear what that something can be, again, under a constitutional society with a rule of law.
A lot of -- I think the average Americans say when they hear these proposals, how would it have prevented the most resent outrage? And it's not clear that it would have had any effect on this at all. And a lot of Americans when they -- the subject becomes assault weapons, what they describe as an assault weapon is really a machine gun, which, of course, has been banned in this country for 82 years, since 1934. That is a gun in with a single pull of the trigger will result in a constant flow of -- of -- of bullets. So there's an enormous amount of confusion, an enormous separation between the perceived dangers and the effect of any proposal we're hearing.
WALLACE: Let's bring in the panel because we asked you for questions for the panel here and we got one -- an interesting question from Marc Baker on Facebook. He writes, "a terrorist without an AR-15 is still capable of mass murder. An AR-15 without a terrorist is not. Why does the administration choose to focus on this one variable and not the one common denominator?"
Amy, how do you answer Marc? And -- and, you know, it’s so interesting because on one hand you -- you had Attorney General Lynch saying, look, give due process, give them time. She’s saying kind of an unlimited due process. Then you get Republicans saying, look, give them the 72 hours. Wouldn’t you think there’d be the ability to find --
AMY WALTER, THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Something in the middle?
WALLACE: Something in the middle there?
WALTER: Wouldn’t that be amazing. And I think that the person who wrote in is suggesting that too. But we live in a world right now where partisanship defies policy. And so when you look at, well, how do Americans feel about what happened in Orlando, if you’re a Democrat, you think this is about guns. If you're a Republican, overwhelmingly you think this is about terrorism. And these two things are not meeting anywhere in the middle. Gallup went out and asked, how do we prevent another Orlando? And what a majority of Americans -- overwhelming majority said, do something about guns. The Muslims ban, very, very far down on the list of how this would prevent another Orlando.
I went back and I looked at the last time that we had compromise on gun legislation. Back in the Clinton era in the 1994 assault weapons ban. Back then you had 38 Republicans that voted for it in the House, you had 77 Democrats voting against it. That era doesn’t exist anymore. This idea that you could have moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats, and then could come up with a compromise. Those people are gone. And the only people left in Congress are people who believe in the partisanship and the ideology that drives their party.
WALLACE: One more thing, Brit. I want to go back to CIA Director Brennan’s warning that as they're losing territory, that -- that ISIS is focusing more on foreign attacks. And he specifically talked about using the flow of refugees into the west. In a sense, doesn't that track with what Donald Trump has been saying?
HUME: It does. And it illustrates that -- why Trump rings a bell with so many people on the issue. You know, it’s -- it’s been a paradox of this primary season, Chris, that in the polling that was done in state after state among Republican voters, immigration was ranked very low. But there's no other way to look at Trump's success without concluding that his stand on immigration, which I think in a lot of people's minds just kind of blends into limiting all immigration, legal and illegal, has been a winner for him and may continue to be if -- if, you know, this process goes on. If as he says there are more of these attacks, and he says there will be, I think that -- that helps him.
WALTER: Well, that's what’s interesting is that the issue of immigration was very low and yet an overwhelming majority of Republicans supported the ban on Muslims coming into the country. So they were calling it. In their own mind, they don’t think of that as immigration.
HUME: No. No, they think of it as terrorism.
WALTER: But it is an issue of immigration. Exactly.
WALLACE: All right. We have to take a break here. When we come back, we’ll discuss the politics of this latest terror attack and the growing divide between Donald Trump and the GOP.
Plus, what do you think? Will Trump pivot and become a more effective candidate for the general election? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @foxnewssunday and use the #fns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: A ban on Muslim would not have stopped this attack. Neither would a wall. I don’t know how one builds a wall to keep the Internet out.
TRUMP: She’s in total denial and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the entire world. True weakness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: The Orlando massacre revived the debate between Trump and Clinton this week over how they would fight the war or terror. And we’re back now with the panel.
Amy, a couple of segments ago we talked with Senator Sessions about how Trump’s poll numbers are dropping. One of the few areas where he leads Clinton is on the issue of who would be better to take on and defeat ISIS. But on the other hand, this also plays into Clinton attack on Trump as being unfit, not having the temperament to be president. So how do you see the attack in Orlando and the growing fear about terrorism cutting politically in the Trump/Clinton race?
WALTER: Well, it is an interesting dichotomy and I don’t -- I think voters overwhelming, when they look to see who they want to vote for president, they don’t go down a checklist --
WALLACE: Right.
WALTER: And go issue by issue. This person’s better on this. This person -- they just have a sense of which person they think could do the job and is fit to do the job. And I think that's obviously why Hillary Clinton is trying to make the issue, not that -- just that he’s unpredictable, but that he’s dangerous, that his -- he doesn’t have the temperament or the judgment.
The thing is, there’s a very strong case to be prosecuted against the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton, their roles in the last eight years in dealing with ISIS, in dealing with Syria, in dealing with Libya. But instead of being focused and disciplined on this message, where Donald Trump goes is he talks about the Muslim ban, he gets in fights with these candidates. He is even dividing his own party about this issue, about how do you deal with this issue of a Muslim ban. And so there's nobody there making that case. There’s no -- it’s not just the Trump campaign. He has no surrogates doing this. There is no money being spent on television ads doing this. There’s no super PACs defending him and doing this. He’s literally an island among himself --
WALLACE: Unto.
WALTER: Unto himself. Thank you. Unto himself. And there's no reinforcements that he’s getting. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is making the case every day and her allies are making the case every day, both on television and in focused, direct messaging to -- to voters.
WALLACE: Brit, I’d love to continue on this -- this same issue because, on the one hand, you know, as -- as Amy says, to the degree that -- that you have these terror attacks, that ISIS is still on the march, you can make the case against Obama and indirectly against Clinton as his -- as his secretary of state. On the other hand, as we went through with Senator Sessions, you know, here we have this terrible tragedy and Trump is talking about what else Barack Obama has in mind.
HUME: Exactly right. And it’s worth noting here, Chris, that in every campaign cycle, general election cycle, there are moments when the candidate gets a fresh look from the voters. And when you lock up the nominations is one such moment. These moments are few, and you can’t afford to waste them. And there will be a few more, but Trump had one and he finished, you may recall, he wrapped it up before she had. So he had some open country there and an opportunity to, you know, get people to take a fresh look at him. A disciplined, active, well-planned campaign focusing on the issues that -- that could broaden his appeal would have helped him.
And as Amy just pointed out, he hasn’t done any of that, really. I mean he’s -- he’s undisciplined. He’s all over the place. You know, he gets in this fight over the -- over the -- over the ethnic background of -- of a federal judge that has to do with a -- with a case involving Trump University. Totally unrelated to the campaign.
You know, he overstates the case against Obama by suggesting the president may be -- is somehow sympathetic possibly to the bad guys and all the rest of it. And it’s -- and it all adds up to a wasted opportunity and an opening for Hillary Clinton, who has moved aggressively. Her camp -- it’s very hard to think about what her campaign is really about. Right now it’s about, I'm not Trump and you don’t want him and it may -- and it looks as if it’s working.
WALLACE: George, I want to flip this a little bit to something else we talked about with Senator Sessions, and that’s that Trump was not just fighting with Clinton and Obama this week, he was also fighting with his own party and he -- at one point he basically said he could walk away are from the party. And as we showed in the clips of McConnell and Paul Ryan, they were talking about walking away from him. Can Trump win without the RNC and -- and the infrastructure in terms of field organization, money, database that the RNC has built?
WILL: I think we’re going to find out. I like Amy’s use of the metaphor of an island. It turns out John Dunn (ph) was wrong when he said, no man is an island. Trump is an island and he’s delighted to remain so, evidently.
This week, Governor Hogan of Maryland joined the list of those who said I don’t --
WALLACE: Republican governor.
WILL: Republican governor. Jeff Flake, a senator from Arizona, a Republican, who’s resistant to Donald Trump, points out that Trump got 13 million votes in the primaries. He’ll probably need 65 million votes to win the presidency. Where is he going to get the other 52 million? That’s a lot of votes. Donald Trump's assumption clearly at this point is that running in a primary against 16 opponents is pretty much the same as running in a protracted general election against one, well-funded, tough Democratic machine. That's unlikely because what the Democrats have is a get out the vote mechanism. But this is going to be a mobilization election, not a persuasion election. There aren’t’ that many Americans waiting to be persuaded on either side. So if he doesn’t have a get out the vote mechanism, what does he have? What he has is crowds. And like a real amateur in politics, he seems to confuse the enthusiasm of the crowds in front of him at a moment in the high school auditorium with the larger electorate. Whereas, in fact, crowds are definitionally (ph) a -- not representative selection of the American people.
WALLACE: You know, Juan, it’s not as if Hillary Clinton isn’t a vulnerable candidate herself. Her unfavorable numbers, they’re not 70 percent, but they're 55 percent. She’s got a criminal investigation going on and on at the FBI. To the degree that you're not happy with Obama policies, she can be held responsible for those. And yet to the degree that they make this a referendum on Trump, not on her, those issues may not come up.
WILLIAMS: That's exactly right. So it’s a matter of, don't vote for the other guy. I thought Brit was on target here. It's about Trump. So we can talk about Hillary Clinton’s deficits, but, in fact, right now, all the emphasis, all the analysis, all the public attention is on Trump and he’s, you know, at least from my perspective, an unattractive alternative. So you say, well, who else is in this race? It's one 16 other person, as George was saying, it’s one person. So the alternative to save us from Trump is then Hillary Clinton.
And among Republicans, Ryan’s in a tight spot. He says this guy’s practicing textbook racism and then he says to his Republican colleagues running for Congress and the Senate, oh, just rely on your conscience. But the base is going say, the establishment didn’t back Trump and that's why he lost. And they will blame Paul Ryan if Trump loses. So I think Ryan, McConnell, all those guys right now are trying to like just look the other way.
WALLACE: Less than a minute, Amy. The frustration is so much and I -- it’s, look, it’s just a handful, we’re talking about 30 people, some Republican convention delegates are saying, let’s go to Cleveland, let’s change the rules, let’s unbind everybody and have a free vote. Is that got any chance?
WALTER: I -- I think it would tear the party apart, much more so than it is now. I do not understand how that would help anything other than -- than --
WALLACE: You mean the idea of 13 million people vote for this guy and you’re going to --
WALTER: The idea -- exactly, and then you take it out for him. And also, if you think that Donald Trump is just going to walk away after that and go, oh, you’re right, you guys, you -- you -- I didn’t get the nomination, I’m just going to go sit here quietly, give me a break.
HUME: Let's -- let’s see what happens if Hillary’s lead grows to something between 15 and 20 points. I think that would change the atmosphere dramatically. I doubt it will happen, but it’s possible.
WALLACE: So you think this is serious?
Thank you, panel. See you all next Sunday.
Up next, our "Power Player of the Week," putting a fresh face on American history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: In this high-tech world, museums face new challenges attracting visitors and staying relevant. But the head of one museum here in Washington loves thinking outside the box. And she’s our "Power Player of the Week."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIM SAJET, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY: We define ourselves and our nation defines itself by the people who have created our history.
WALLACE (voice-over): Kim Sajet is director of the National Portrait Gallery. The remarkable collection that chronicles the people who built America. But since she took over three years ago, Sajet, who was raised in Australia, is trying to expand our understanding of who those people are.
SAJET: He hated this picture. He had to put on his wig and it was very sort of formal.
WALLACE: We begin in the most traditional part and the museum, America’s presidents, with a painting of Thomas Jefferson. In fact, they have 1,600 portraits of our 44 presidents.
But then she took us to a different collection called (INAUDIBLE), a multimedia portrait of the founders of Google, that keeps changing.
SAJET: This is real time. So every word they say then conjures up images in the back. And, in fact, every word is being Googled.
WALLACE (on camera): So it’s, in effect, Goggling the Google guys.
SAJET: And it is current today literally as at the moment you’re standing in front of it. It will be different in three seconds from now.
WALLACE (voice-over): But more than different kinds of portraits, Sajet has tried to deal with the fact most are of dead white man. Only 25 percent of the collection portrays women, even fewer people of color.
SAJET: We do not believe in going back in time and trying to guess, for examples, what somebody looked like. But what we are trying to do is sort of talk about the presence of absence.
WALLACE: And so they put on performance art. In this case, of a Civil War nurse.
SAJET: Warren H. Mills (ph), Delaware.
WALLACE: The commissioned a composite portrait on six acres of the National Mall called "Out of Many, One."
And Sajet has started a new program called "The American Portrait Gala," honoring people whose pictures are in the collection, from Aretha Franklin to Hank Aaron. Last year, Ted Cruz and other conservatives objected to a bust of Margaret Sanger (ph), one of the pioneers of birth control, who’s been accused of trying to limit black reproduction.
WALLACE (on camera): As someone who wants this museum as to be as contemporary and relevant as possible, do you kind of like these controversies?
SAJET: I like having the conversation with the American public.
WALLACE (voice-over): Sajet sees museums as community meeting places, where people will put down their electronic devices and engage with the art and each other.
SAJET: If I can just create an environment where people stop for a minute and think about where they are, where they’ve been, perhaps where they’d like to go, that's a win.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Sajet is planning an all video exhibition of portraits this fall. She says she wants it to be so moving it makes people cry.
And that's it for today. Have a happy Father's Day. For all you kids out there, especially mine, call your dad and we’ll see you next "Fox News Sunday."
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