Victims of terrorism speak out about attacks in America

Americans injured in Orlando and Fort Hood shootings speak out about extremism on a special edition of 'The Kelly File'

This is a rush transcript from "Kelly File," July 1, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MEGYN KELLY, HOST, "THE KELLY FILE": Breaking tonight, a country on alert as we hear new warnings from the director of the CIA about the risk of an attack on the homeland. Just weeks after the horror of Orlando.

Welcome to a "Kelly File' special: "Terror in America." I'm Megyn Kelly. Less than one day after terrorists killed 42 and wounded more than 200 others at one of the world's busiest airports, the CIA director answered questions on the record and basically said he would not be surprised if something similar happened here and soon. While the attack in Turkey involved sophisticated coordination and planning, America just experienced a terror attack of its own in Orlando, Florida, and saw the kind of horror that can be unleashed when one man, inspired by terror teachings, goes after a soft target like a nightclub, where no one saw it coming.

That was just the latest reminder, that from Boston to San Bernardino, from Fort Hood to the Pulse Nightclub in Florida, this threat is evolving. The methods are changing, and the only constant is the hatred for the American way of life. So is this our new normal? Do we have to just live with it? We wanted to have a serious conversation. So we put together one of the most powerful line-up of guests ever, including people who literally came face to face with some of these terrorists. And you'll meet them in a moment.

But first tonight, Trace Gallagher gets us up to speed on the threat. Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, in May, an audio recording thought to be from ISIS surfaced online calling for attacks on the West during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in early June and ends July 5th. The suicide bombing attack on Istanbul's airport certainly has the hallmarks of ISIS. And on June 12th, when Omar Mateen opened fire on the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, killing 49, Mateen called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Some witnesses have come forward claiming they had gay relationships with Mateen, but the FBI now says there is no evidence to support that. There is also no sign the FBI has immediate plans to arrest Mateen's wife in connection to the shooting. In fact, Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged last week that she does not know Noor Salman's current location. But Orlando marks the seventh terror attack on U.S. soil since President Obama took office.

In 2009, Abdul Hakeem Mohammed opened fire on an army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one soldier, wounding another. Mohammed converted to Islam as a teen, claimed he was affiliated with al Qaeda and called the shooting a jihadi attack. Also in 2009, former army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Food, killing 13 wounding dozens more. During his trial, Hasan claimed allegiance to the Taliban but later said he wanted to become a member of the Islamic State. In April 2013, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev bombed the Boston marathon killing three wounding hundreds.

Two police officers also died during the subsequent manhunt. Dzhokhar told police they were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs and learned how to build bombs from an al Qaeda magazine. In May of 2015, two men opened fire outside a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas. The suspects were quickly shot and killed by police, but ISIS claimed responsibility. In July 2015, al Qaeda follower Mohammad Abdulazeez went on a shooting rampage in Chattanooga killing five military members. And last December, husband and wife Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. ISIS immediately claimed responsibility-- Megyn.

GALLAGHER: Trace, thank you. Well, with terror again dominating the daily headlines, we wanted to discuss the threat and the answers with a group of people who could bring a unique perspective to the issue. This time, however, we wanted to not only talk with Intel pros and folks from Muslim communities. We decided to reach out to some folks who have actually lived it.

Joining us on our special panel tonight, we are honored to have with us Kimberly Munley, the hero of Fort Hood. She's a civilian police officer who ended the killing spree by Major Nidal Hasan when she shot him four times and was injured herself in the process.

Also with us, from the attack at Fort Hood, Staff Sargent Alonzo Lunsford, shot seven times, including once in the head, along with Sargent Shawn Manning, who was also shot multiple times and went on to be a vocal critic of the Obama administration for initially describing this attack for years they did as workplace violence. Rosa Leonette is with us tonight. She lost her brother-in-law on 9/11. Also with us, Joe Connor, he lost his father to FALN terrorists in the 1970s, then watched in horror from across the street as his own cousin died in the trade towers.

Some of you may recognize Patience Carter. She spent three hours as a hostage during the Pulse Nightclub terror attack in Orlando just a couple of weeks ago. Shot twice, her friend died next to her on the bathroom floor during the standoff. Also with Patience during that three-hour nightmare in Pulse Nightclub was Tiara Parker. She was shot once by Omar Mateen. It was her cousin who died on the bathroom floor next to her during the standoff.

Sargent Robert Bartlett is with us tonight. He was severely injured by Iranian made IEDs while on duty in Iraq. As is Carl Higbie, a navy S.E.A.L. who watched three of his buddies die. Also thanks to an IED in Iraq. With the different perspective, we have Imam Hamad Ahmad, he argues that radical Islamists do not practice the true faith. Theresa Hubble is here from New Jersey. She represents that group we like to call Security Moms.

Brigitte Gabriel survived a terror attack as an Arab-Christian growing up in Lebanon. She's now an anti-terror activist. Ron Cobey is a defense attorney specializing in civil rights. Salaum Body (ph) is an Islamic attorney. Bernie Carrick is with us tonight, he's the former NYC Police Commissioner who oversaw the New York Law Enforcement response to 9/11. Muhammed Chaudhry is communications director for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Cairn Greenberg (ph) is a civil rights attorney and noted expert on national security. Zee Hahn Hamid (ph) is president of the Council on Pakistan U.S. Relations. Bill Daly here tonight, former agent with the FBI. Casham Rashid (ph) is a Harvard fellow in the Department of Islamic Studies. Beau Dietl is here as well, a former NYPD detective. Sue hey Kahn (ph) is a Republican Muslim who worked with the Bush administration and with the RNC. Courtney Emerson is a writer and activist who studied women's rights in the Arab world while at Princeton. Sawaub Ajuan (ph) is a Muslim writer, and Chris Johnny is a Muslim convert.

That is our panel with us tonight. Thank you all so much for being here. Very grateful to have you.

So, let's just start with the status of terror today in America. And for that, I'm going to start with our two guests who were in the Pulse Nightclub and ask you something that so many people have said to me anecdotally over the past couple of weeks, which is can you believe how quickly it has faded from the national conversation?

PATIENCE CARTER, ORLANDO TERROR ATTACK SURVIVOR: I think something like this shouldn't be taken as a trend. It's not a trend. This is an actual issue that America is facing. There's actual people who are out here that want to kill Americans and we have to deal with that issue. And because people are afraid to deal with that issue, they quickly brush over it because people are scared. But we have to face this issue. If not, more things like this are going to happen.

KELLY: Uh-hm. Kimberly, you shot the terrorist in Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan. What is your take on it as somebody who has stood face to face with a terrorist and taken him down?

KIMBERLY MUNLEY, FORT HOOD POLICE SERGEANT WHO SHOT TERRORIST: I think all the terrorist attacks do not need to go in the back door and in the back page of any headline whatsoever, whether it happened two weeks ago, two years ago, or almost seven years ago for us. I think the community needs to continue to be educated on the threat that will not go away. As soon as we let our guard down, it's going to continue to happen, and even possibly worse. I also think now we're forging into a new mentality of how do we respond as victims of a potential terrorist attack.

You know, what do you do? You know, we've always kind of juggled with in our school systems, how do we teach our children instead of staying there and being a target, to actually fight if it needs to be.

KELLY: Uh-hm.

MUNLEY: And all the terrorist attacks have taken place, and if it's on a military post, those soldiers are trained to react. If it's in a club where you're just trying to enjoy yourself, they are not.

KELLY: I want to ask you, Sergeant Lunsford, because I know that you have suffered greatly, physically, and you spoke with me a couple years ago about some PTSD and just what that had done to you having been shot so many times. When you see something like this happen in Orlando or what we saw in Istanbul, does it bring that back for you? What does it do?

ALONZO LUNSFORD, RETIRED STAFF SERGEANT, FORT HOOD SURVIVOR: Oh, it does. It brings back the actual event that happened that day to us in 2009. But also it makes one wonder what are we going to do to minimize the blow that these terrorists are doing to us on our own soil? And years ago we had talked about soft targets, hard targets or soft targets. What they're trying to do is they're identifying soft targets because of the psychological effect that it has on Americans.

So what we need to do, in my opinion, is that we need to work more closely together between military and law enforcement so we're all speaking the same language. We also need to practice response times. But we don't need to necessarily identify large cities. We need to look at small-town America as well because that's where the soft targets are.

KELLY: You feel like they've given up on that? I mean, the messaging that we've gotten in recent days has been, you know, this is something that in modern-day America, we may have to learn to live with because we can't find all of the threats.

LUNSFORD: Well, we can find the threats. But I think that a lot of censorship has been going on whereas Americans, they see it, they hear it, but they don't really know exactly what it feels like. And this panel that we're having today is going to answer a lot of those questions because they're getting it from all of us who have been there, who know what it feels like, who have actually been on the front line. So that they can understand what we need to do to strengthen our nation as a whole.

KELLY: And I know, Sergeant Manning, you've been saying the first thing we need to do is call it what it is, which is not workplace violence in the case of Fort Hood. When you see that, when we just run sort of the video of Fort Hood, as we go through the terror attacks that have happened in the United States, what does that make you feel? You lived it. For us, it's just b roll we put on a screen. It's like, oh, yes, Fort Hood, that was terrible, and then we move on.

SHAWN MANNING, RETIRED STAFF SERGEANT, FORT HOOD SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I mean it's sickness. I mean it's become so common place that we just kind of accepted it. And that's not good for me. I think we need to try to do something about it rather than just gloss over it and move on to the next thing and think, oh, this is just normal.

KELLY: Uh-hm.

MANNING: And we're focus on things that we shouldn't be focused on to miss-focus from the problems.

KELLY: Uh-hm. How frustrating is that to you? I mean, for so long to have had that attack on your life misidentified?

MANNING: Extremely frustrating. I mean it took them five years to actually say Fort Hood was a domestic terrorist attack. I mean that's ridiculous based on the facts. I mean, they knew from day one that it was a terrorist attack and they refused to acknowledge it. And it seems like all these attacks, they try to reframe it into another narrative to try to avoid talking about the difficult things.

KELLY: What did you think when we saw that in Orlando when they scrubbed the reports of this terrorist's pledging allegiance to Allah. They changed the word Allah to God. They scrubbed out Islamic State references --

MANNING: Exactly the same thing. Again, they're trying to miss-focus the public at large and trying to create a narrative that isn't factual.

KELLY: Rosa, when you, I mean, you suffered a loss on 9/11, and of course that was the terror attack of them all here in the United States.

ROSA LEONETTE, BROTHER-IN-LAW KILLED ON SEPTEMBER 9/11: You know, my niece just graduated from high school here in Manhattan and is going to Boston College. And when I look around and I don't see her father and I see my sister sitting there, crying, 15 years later, I'm -- I -- I'm so angry, angry. We've given -- we'd rather be politically correct at this point than call it what it is and pander to -- pander to, you know, the political correctness just for votes, just for power. Fifteen years later, we have learned absolutely nothing.

KELLY: Joe, you've been involved -- you've been the victim of and had somebody you love in two terrorist attacks.

JOSEPH CONNOR, FATHER AND COUSIN KILLED IN TERROR ATTACKS: Yep.

KELLY: In the United States.

CONNOR: Yes.

KELLY: Have we made any progress? I mean when you look at how we're handling it now?

CONNOR: You know, it's an interesting point. I mean, I'd say we do talk about political correctness, and it's to be sort of a nuisance in our lives. Now it's a noose and it's killing us. It's choking us. It's around our necks. And I think that's one thing that I think most Americans have learned. I'm not sure our government has learned it. And I think we have to understand that. When my father was murdered in 1975, it was a Puerto Rican terrorist group. They went to prison for a long time.

Until 1999 when politically it was expedient for the Clintons to release these terrorists, so they did. So Hillary Clinton was involved in their release when she was running for senator for New York. We're still seeing some of that now. I mean you look at what happened with Benghazi. You look at how terrorism has been used for politics, and what you said is in a lot of ways, we've learned nothing. And it's very frustrating to me, I mean, as a 9/11 family member and I witnessed the attacks. My poor cousin, Steve, was murdered. And my father who was his godfather was murdered a generation before.

You know, I see that we did come together for a while after 9/11, and we went to war to avenge that attack. And then I look what happened with my father, and we released those terrorists, and it was all for political reasons. So I still struggle with this dichotomy between how we have fought a war on one hand, but how we pander and give in to the politics on the other. And it's -- it's disgraceful. We should be way further along in our war against terrorists now than we are.

KELLY: The question is whether anything can be done now about the metastasis of ISIS that happened during the last couple of years. I mean, in particular since 2014, and we're going to talk about that next. We're going to talk about the Obama administration's response and what can be done as this group has popped in so many cities and so many countries abroad because this terror threat is clearly evolved. And the critics say that President Obama's response has not.

Up next, we'll investigate that. Don't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. BARACK OBAMA, D-UNITED STATES: We will not rest until we have dismantled these networks of hate that have an impact on the entire civilized world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Welcome back. When Omar Mateen killed or injured almost 100 people at the Pulse Nightclub, there was a range of reaction from the Obama administration. While the President and his team initially acknowledged that this was clearly a terror attack, they went on in the coming days to focus on a range of issues that had little to do with identifying terrorists. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be.

LORETTA LYNCH, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: We stand with you to say that the good in this world far outweighs the evil, that our common humanity transcends our differences and that our most effective response to terror and to hatred is compassion, unity, and it's love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: I want to bring back our panel. Let's just pick up with what Loretta Lynch said there at the end. Anybody have any thoughts on that? Go ahead, Carl Higbie.

CARL HIGBIE, FORMER NAVY SEAL: The, I mean passion and love, they're talking about, you know, loving the very people that are trying to tear us down. We need to look at this on multiple fronts, and one of the fronts is we have to be willing to fight this enemy head-on with force. But also we have to wage a social war too. I mean you have let's say 10 percent of Muslims are radicalized and willing to do harm.

Twenty percent are perfectly willing to live within our customs and our ideology. But then you have that 70 percent in the middle that's unwilling to report the suicide vests that they see from their friend or report the radicalization of anybody that they know. You also have America that is afraid to speak out. We need to fight this on all these fronts and it's not going to be done through love.

KELLY: Anybody else? Go ahead, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's interesting hearing these made-up statistics. Ten percent of Muslims are radicalized. I assume that was just invented because it sounds like a good number. Twenty percent aren't willing to report. You can talk about criticizing political correctness, but that's a bumper sticker. That's a slogan. That's not a strategy. That's not a plan. And the notion that -- take Omar Mateen. Okay? This was a racist, homophobic, misogynist domestic abuser with serious mental health issues.

KELLY: That's describes by the way most of these terrorists. Most of these Islamic radical, this radical -- they're all the things you just said.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. That's fine. But where does he end up? He ends up as a juvenile intake officer in the Florida Department of Corrections. Were they too politically correct? Then he ends up working for one of the world's largest private security agencies. Were they too politically correct? I mean, this is not a single dimensional problem where you attack Muslims or political correctness or demand a whole community come out in a daily denunciation to no other community in this country is asked to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the conversations that's been lost here is that Mateen was an abuser, and there's ample data that indicates that those who are abusers will become further violent and commit mass violence. The FBI released a report on this.

KELLY: Are you drawing a line between the fact that he was a radical Islamic terrorist and the fact that he was a man who abused his wife? Are you trying to say this is the extreme act of a female abuser?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm saying that what we have in America is a country where the leading cause of injury to women is domestic violence.

KELLY: Let me get one of the victims of his attack to respond to you. Go ahead, Tiara.

TIARA PARKER, ORLANDO TERROR ATTACK SURVIVOR: It doesn't matter whether you show a person love or not. You can show somebody all the love in the world, but that doesn't change his actions and some of the things he's done. What he's done was a terrorist attack. Now, I'm not saying that it's something against Muslims or anything like that. However, he still showed -- he still acted as a terrorist. And that's what he did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a terrorist, and there's no one doubting that. I think if you doubt that, you're delusional. No doubt he is a terrorist. My point is to the comment on what love and compassion and education can do. If we use those to train our youth and to focus on our youth, you know, when we're talking about how to end terrorism, it doesn't happen with more bombs and more guns. It happens by getting to our youth sooner and younger and creating a narrative for tolerance early on.

KELLY: Okay. Muhammad, go ahead.

MUHAMMED CHAUDHRY, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY: One terrorist who claims to be Muslim is one too many as well. Whatever the percentages to me are irrelevant. But I think the solutions here is to look at a proven model versus shallow theories.

KELLY: But how is this practically going to be applied? Are you telling all the other Muslims that they need to become this kind of Muslim? That doesn't sound very productive.

CHAUDHRY: No. So, what we're doing is, two things.

KELLY: Quickly.

CHAUDHRY: One is, we've lost a true Islam campaign where we've looked at 11 points that the extremists are using to radicalize these terrorists and we're saying here is the counter narratives. So, short term solution, law enforcement, all of those things --

KELLY: You need to go to the mosques and get them to repeat that.

CHAUDHRY: And the problem is inconsistent Muslim leadership.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I bet probably they have not responded. And the problem is you are the minority. What we have right now is Muslim mosques in America radicalized, harboring terrorists, knowing that there are radicals within the mosques and they're not reporting about it. And when you talk about the issue of terrorism, you have the gentleman in the back, the perfect excuse of how he can hijack a conversation about terrorism to make it about women and the guy was an abuser, and therefore that's why he did what he did.

CHAUDHRY: Let me tell you, what we have is the largest Muslim community. We have over 100 cities, seven mosques in America where they're wide open. Police, law enforcement, we're open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the majority of mosques in America are not listening to moderates like you and moderates like the --

KELLY: All right. We're going to pick it up right there, right there right after this break. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PATRICIA STARK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: This is a FOX News alert. I'm Patricia Stark. A hostage situation continues in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attack on a popular restaurant, which left at least two policemen dead. At least two dozen people are being treated for injuries. The exact number of hostages is not known but is believed to be around 20. State Department Spokesman John Kirby says, all American citizens assigned to the U.S. diplomatic mission are accounted for. Other Americans are being told to shelter in place.

Meantime, in Israel, a deadly attack by a Palestinian gunman on an Israeli family in the West Bank. Investigators say the suspect opened fire on a couple and two teenagers riding in a car. They say the father died. The mother and the teens were wounded. It's just the latest in a nine-month wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

I'm Patricia Stark. And now back to a KELLY FILE special.

KELLY: And we're back now with our panel. Beau Dietl, you wanted to weigh in.

BEAU DIETL, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: You know, I listened to the gentleman next to me. We talked about Sharia Law where you can whack your wife around. I mean, that's abuse of women. Then you get the president of the United States on television talking about gun control. Hey, the guys in Boston didn't use guns. They used pressure cookers. It's an idealistic value that they want Americans dead to certain amount of people. What we have to do is educate the younger Muslims that this is not the way to go.

KELLY: Bill Daly, go ahead, former FBI --

BILL DALY, FORMER FBI INVESTIGATOR: I think, ultimately I have to stay stripping away all of this conversation here, what is really driving this people to do it? And the thing is that they're being influenced, they're being inspired by active participation, by ISIS, by al Qaeda to draw them in. ISIS and al Qaeda don't care whether these people have other aggression issues -- or whatever their problems are.

They just want them to act out in their behalf. They had to meet them, they'd have to talk to them, but they're induced and inspire them to do it and that ultimately is the issue, is that we have people out there and ISIS and Al Qaeda with very slick marketing mechanisms where we can't to these people, whether by information they see on TV.

KELLY: And then they pull up these Anwar al-Awlaki videos where, I mean, he's dead and he's still influencing the next generation of terrorist.

DALY: Exactly. And that's what we have to get out, the crux of this serpent, which are the people who are doing it from afar and stop it.

KELLY: Go ahead sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people that are gunning other people down, they're not following Islam. That's for sure. What's the problem? The problem is, is that the true message of Islam is not getting to them either. And I think it's a challenge with the media because what happens is, is that the media -- all they portray is ISIS, Taliban, all this and that - they don't portray what Muslims are really doing in America, what Muslims really are doing around the world.

KELLY: I want to ask you Sergeant Bartlett, I mean you were wounded in Iraq, fighting, by an Iranian IED. You actually put your life on the line to fight terrorism for this country. Your thoughts on the dialogue we're having right now?

ROBERT BARTLETT, RETIRED IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I think some great points were made. They were talking about education. We need to educate. Well, the problem is the education that we're fighting is if you look at Iran or any of these countries where these radical regimes are pushing the message out, they're saying, you know, death to America, death to Israel, death to Jews, death to Christians, death to anybody who isn't following Islam and who isn't following their version of Islam.

So, they've killed their own people and they do it often, right? But now they're killing us too and so how do you combat that? We have to combat entire regimes that are pushing out that message. It's not just a small band of ISIS members. It's a very large regimes that are pushing these things out.

KELLY: Go ahead Carl (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you know, these are nice ideas that we want to fight it through education and things like that and domestic abuse. That's fine and dandy, but the fact is right now we know that 100 percent of the terrorists I shot in the face didn't get back up and commit terrorist attacks. If we have to go to their country and do that to protect the homeland, I'm willing to sign back up and go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'd do it.

KELLY: On that Bernard (ph) and then we're going to take a quick break.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, probably more than half of the people here started out what the problem is, all right? The biggest problem is that we don't have a long-term strategy. We know -- we know exactly what the problems are. This administration has no long-term strategy.

KELLY: Stand by. Much more after the break. While many influential Muslims issued a statement condemning the attacks in Orlando, and one Muslim actually did report Omar Mateen as a suspected problem, it did not satisfy all the critics. We discuss that with our panel next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Well, after we learned that Omar Mateen stopped in the middle of the Orlando terror attack to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State, some in the Muslim community realized they would again to be called on to explain how folks become radicalized, and in this case to answer for some of Islam's teachings against homosexuality.

More than 200 Muslims including dozens of American imams and scholars issued a joint statement condemning the attacks. But that did not satisfy some of the critics. Let's again turn to our panel. Let's go back to the discussion we were just having about whether some of these beliefs are baked into the Islamic faith and I'll ask you about that sir, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See, I've studied the Quran for seven years and nowhere in the Quran does it condone killing of an innocent human being. It actually says killing one person is equal to killing all of humanity.

KELLY: The question is how can we expand this brand beyond this community?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's a great question. That's exactly what we need do where Americans -- non-Muslims need to understand what the Quran actually says so, when these extremists use the Quran -- by the way, 97 percent of the people killed by these extremist are Muslims so, it's not about Muslim versus Christian versus Jews. It's about extremists killing for their own ideology and the counter ideology that we all come together and present.

KELLY: But all of the extremists that we saw in those seven attacks were Muslim extremists.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were.

KELLY: They were all Muslim extremist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were.

KELLY: I mean you don't deny -- because this is where people get upset -- If you deny that that is a real problem in the country. We saw -- these people in the front row, their relatives died in the twin towers that were knocked down by radical Muslims.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Megyn, I've had people, I've had family members die. I've had -- I've had -- Lots of Muslims have family members die from this too. It's a terrible thing and I can empathize. But what I can also tell you is unless you separate out -- what I would tell the administration today is, until you separate the extremists from the religion and what i would tell...

KELLY: This administration is doing that. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm saying when someone is killing someone, Allahu Akbar, he's doing it in the name of his God and that's extreme Islam. And that's the fact, and when we start covering it up, there are good people, but the point is we have to try to get the good people to turn the bad people.

KELLY: Go ahead, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, when the interpretations of groups like ISIS are effective at recruiting people, they're also effective because these people are excluded politically, socially, economically. We know that that has to be part of the conversation. And so when presidential candidates say we should ban entire communities from entering the United States, we are feeding into that fear. We are feeding into that process, which is equally a problem.

KELLY: What about that, because the studies have shown as we saw in Orlando that too often it's second-generation Americans whose parents emigrated, who the parents do fine because they still have their culture of origin. But the second generation, like Omar Mateen, do not do that well because they -- for many reasons, one of which is they feel ostracized and disliked. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I mean, I can tell you as a convert growing up, I grew up in the south, and I know plenty of Christians that I grew up with, people that they claim, you know, Jesus is the greatest and they're sitting there and they're saying that they are saying that they are Christians and they live by that standard that's in the bible, and yet we see people in those areas -- I grew up watching people beat somebody of a different color.

I saw somebody beat somebody because of their sexual preference. And in that case, they're saying you're against what God says, and you're against this, and it's still coming out with a Christian ideology in that case. And I personally grew up with those things. And so I saw that and for me I look at it and I'd say...

KELLY: But there's an entire group of people -- go ahead, Joe. Go ahead Joe. No, this is Joe in the front.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That doesn't make sense. We see states -- Islamic states murdering homosexuals and stoning people who have affairs and that. So, it's part of the state culture. Whether it's...

KELLY: Is this a false equivalence, I mean...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's ridiculous. I mean, one guy going out and beating somebody is a terrible thing. But the state making it the policy, that we're going to stone adulterers, or we're going to throw homosexuals off of buildings. That's a different thing (ph) all together.

KELLY: Yes, but let me just ask you this. What is the difference (ph) because why can't you have both ideas in your head, that Islam is a peace- loving religion, but that it can be corrupted to a place where it's political and it's radical and it's dangerous?

(CROSSTALK)

KELLY: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, when the Tea Party was up and coming, they had no problem throwing out, you know, throwing the Tea Party under the bus and calling them racist. Why can't they call it what it is? How do you fight something that you can't call out? You need to call it out. You need to stop thinking about these kumbaya and your bumper sticker is bleeding all over the place so spare me.

KELLY: Kimberly, go ahead. Go ahead Kimberly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I completely agree with you because we toss up the word political correctness. Well, I'm sorry, that's the problem because if we exclude his pledge to ISIS during the attack. We exclude Hasan being able to go up in his own free will and announce his pledge to what at the time was the Taliban and then he switched over to ISIS, whatever is the going factor at the time. And we suppressed that information. That information is not put out to the public because it's politically sensitive.

KELLY: What do you think of the push on guns? I'm curious.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The push on guns is a whole different story. They can throw that out there on every serious, you know, terrorist attack out there. That's not the problem. He was on a watch list. He shouldn't have been able to buy a weapon. That's plain and simple. But that's not the solution because they're going to get the weapons. They're going to get the-- whatever, the pressure cookers. They're going to get whatever they want to get to accomplish the goal.

KELLY: Go ahead. I've got to go, but you go ahead, sir.

ALONZO LUNSFORD, FORT HOOD FORMER STAFF SARGEANT: Where the problem lies is that you look at our young future leaders. Just like they were saying that these kids don't have anything to look up to because our administration has failed, because of economics, because of how they're teaching our kids. They are spending more time teaching our kids to pass the integrated test than they are teaching about the values that make this country great, then, when someone said that the Islamics, when they're going to kill people, they're only looking for Muslim to kill.

When we got hit (inaudible) started to ask those 14 people that died that day, if you were Muslim, if you were Christian, if you were Jewish, or you whatever. He just started shooting and said Allahu Akbar. And even when we were having the trial, the man said inshallah, "it's God's will." We got to call it what it is because you've got to grab the stick by the head and you've got to kill it. And you cannot do it nice.

I've never seen anybody win a fight fighting nice. You've got to change the rules of engagement because as military personnel here, we've been there and we've done that. It's hard when you see somebody making an IED and you can't take the person out because you've got to get permission from the higher ups. That's the snake right there. As far as gun is concerned, I'm a dad, and I'm a schoolteacher.

When I went down, my son -- I was a single father, therefore, my son came into my hospital room, and he said, "Dad, from now on, if you should fall, I will step up." He knows how to operate everything in my arsenal, and that's how it's going to be. Yes, you have to fight fire with fire.

(APPLAUSE)

KELLY: Sergeant, thank you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: Well, we mentioned earlier that there has now been seven successful terror attacks carried out in the U.S. since President Obama took office. We're about one per year. But here are a couple of other numbers to think about. Omar Mateen, in the 103rd -- is the 103rd ISIS supporter to be killed or arrested on U.S. soil in the last two years, 103rd. That's 50 a year.

And a recent report by the Homeland Security Committee listed some 800 ISIS-linked investigations under way in all 50 states. Our panel is back with us now. I mean that's chilling. I want to get to Karen -- I want to get to Karen just because she's been raising her hand. Your thoughts on it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we should also mention in this, Newtown. We should talk about Aurora. We should talk about the fact that the United States is in the middle of a wave of violence by young mostly men, some of whom are in the name of ISIS and some of whom aren't. And if we keep focusing on how ISIS in the Middle East and ISIS in the United States is the same thing, which I think it's quite different in the ways it's behaving, then we are missing the point.

KELLY: Theresa go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gun control has been mentioned, Newtown and Aurora and Orlando were all target-rich environments because people were not armed. And this push from the left to disarm the innocent, the law-abiding like myself, I am my own security. I do not have a security force. The government cannot protect us at all times. We need to accept this. We need to take personal responsibility for our own safety and security.

KELLY: I want to get to Patience Carter. Go ahead.

PATIENCE CARTER, ORLAND TERRROR ATTACK SURVIVOR: We're losing sight even right now of what the perp -- he said what he said that tell America to stop bombing our country and we need to deal with that part of it .

KELLY: Omar Mateen?

CARTER: Yes, Omar Mateen.

KELLY: As she was shooting.

CARTER: As he was shooting people in the back, and that we need to deal with that part as far as prevention, as far as security. What are we doing as Americans as far as the administration to make sure that we're protecting our American people on our soil? What are we doing? If you met this man or you interviewed this person by the FBI multiple times before this even happened, how did he get his access to guns? How did he get into that backroom to kill so many people?

KELLY: Just quickly in the back. You saw how (ph) in the news...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that this is an ideological battle for those that are being radicalized in the United States. We need to establish the peaceful narrative of Islam if we're going to save these people from being radicalized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First of all, the problem that I see is that we keep fighting the media. We keep fighting the rhetoric against Islam that continues to demonize Muslims. When you demonize Muslims, you put them -- youth like me --

KELLY: The media?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ...you put them aside and say that your religion is going to, you know, promotes this. Then that's what they're going to accept.

KELLY: I want to get you sir because you have your hand up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. We have to, united as Americans defeat ISIS. We have to defeat Boko Haram. We have to defeat Al Qaeda and anybody else who in any way wants to harm innocent people whether they're American or otherwise. We need to do that united as Americans. And that means all Americans whether they're Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or other faith, and you join together.

We don't need to divide ourselves. Muslims should be on the front line. They are on the front line, especially on the local level. They need to partner with local law enforcement. If they see something, if they see somebody radicalizing, they need to work with law enforcement to stop that before they become violent. If they're getting close to violence, they need to work with law enforcement.

That also means not trying to scare the community and that's why this whole idea of surveillance or deporting or locking up people before they're done anything, we need to stay with the constitution as well and adhere to the constitutional principle that made us great as a country.

KELLY: I'm going to give Sergeant Bartlett the last word.

BARTLETT: I think America just needs to make peace with, hey, we're in a 100-year war. That's the reality. The other reality is, you know what, I've been on your show a couple of times. Muslims give me a lift to your show, right? They say, I wish the FBI would vet us so they know who we are and that we're not terrorists. So that's saying that a Muslim is telling me, hey, we want the FBI to investigate me so that they know I'm a good person. So why aren't we doing that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Including the mosques.

KELLY: But it's so hard, I mean, it's so hard for some Muslims in this country right now, who see the attack in Orlando and they say, "Oh, God, now it's going to come." You know, peace-loving men in particular who say because of the act of this man, now I'm going to be treated like a terrorist. Now my son is going to be treated like a terrorist. People who are peace-loving, and so...

BARTLETT: That's where these Muslims come in.

KELLY: There has to be an understanding on everybody's part that just because you're Muslim doesn't mean you want to kill Americans.

BARTLETT: No, they need to scope (for) for pulling together speaking up.

(CROSSTALK)

KELLY: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are speaking now, but where Muslim scholars, several on this stage, speaking up and saying nobody here defends terrorism. Nobody here defends these seven attacks. Nobody here defends ISIS. But when we give the logic and rationale of how we can win this ideological war, we have people who don't have a shred of academic integrity are saying that, "Oh, you're lying and you're making things up." We need you on our side to fight this ideological war. We can winn this together. We definitely win it.

KELLY: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe if we kill another 2 million Iraqis because starting in 1991, with all due respect to my friends in the military, we have been killing Iraqis since 1991. We've killed them by the millions, and I hear here they're ready to go skill some more. I don't think that's made us any safer. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if we just kill another 2 million, we'll be a lot safer.

KELLY: With all due respect, with all due respect, we have a lot of veterans here today who have served our country honorably and to dismiss their service as just wanting to kill Iraqis is diminishing, and I would ask you to keep it at a higher level than that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After all of the wars that we fought, after all the Iraqis that have been killed in the name of the United States of America since 1991, all the blood that's been spilled -- no doubt, no doubt heroically, we are still no safer. So maybe we should start to think of ways of dealing with this that does not directly involve killing more people or having more wars. Crazy liberal idea, I know.

KELLY: Okay. I have to let a veteran respond to that, and then we are going to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem is ISIS sprung up when we stopped going in the area and we stopped killing bad guys in the area. So you can go love them and stick your head in the sand and then they come back and kill your family, I'll be there to back you up.

KELLY: All right, I got to leave it at that. Thank you. Obviously, it's tough. I mean this is a passionate issue for everyone for obvious reasons. But you guys have been respectful, and I thank you for that. Thank you all so much. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY: I want to say a big thank you to all here on our panel tonight. It's a difficult discussion but an important one. And we thank you for watching as well. Go to facebook.com/thekellyfile. We are on Twitter with @megynkelly and let me know what your thoughts are. Thank you very much for watching. I'm Megyn Kelly, and this is "The Kelly File."

END

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