Trump, white working class voters and what the media miss
Author J.D. Vance explains on 'The Kelly File'
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," August 15, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
TRISH REGAN, GUEST HOST: Breaking tonight on a very busy evening, we're monitoring the streets of Milwaukee. After two straight nights of violent riots have erupted following the shooting death of an armed African- American man killed by an African-American police officer. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will join us live in an exclusive interview.
Welcome, everyone, to "The Kelly File," I'm Trish Regan, in for Megyn Kelly tonight.
Also breaking this evening, new details on a potential FBI investigation into corrupt ties between Hillary Clinton's State Department and the Clinton family's multibillion charity. But we begin with a major speech from Donald Trump. Mr. Trump speaking in Youngstown, Ohio, laying out his vision on foreign policy, defeating ISIS, and defending the United States homeland. Here's just some of what Mr. Trump had to say. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Just as we won the cold war in part by exposing the evils of communism and the virtues of free markets, so, too, must we take on the ideology of radical Islam. We should only admit into this country those who share our values and respect our people.
I call it extreme vetting. Assimilation is not an act of hostility but an expression of compassion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REGAN: Now, in just moments, we'll be joined by former CIA Director James Woolsey with his reaction to Donald Trump's speech, and then two experts with their fingers on the pulse of the Muslim and immigrant communities inside our nation.
Mohammed Chaudhry and Bridgett Gabrielle, but first, we begin with Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron who is on the road in Cleveland following the Trump campaign. Carl.
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Trish. Trump's speech was very well received by the audience. And he did stick to teleprompter. Very few deviations, not a lot of adlibs. And so generally, this was taken by his supporters as a sign of his ability to show some discipline on the campaign trail and talk about very important issues, obviously, the doing away of ISIS. He talked about a number of ways in which he would do that and he pretty aggressively criticized Hillary Clinton and President Obama for their handling of a whole series of conflict areas around the world.
He made the point that immigration has to change. He didn't exactly do away with his complete so-called temporary ban on Muslims coming to the U.S. but he modified it to say that there would be the extreme vetting that you heard him talk about there. And so, that there would be some countries where visas would not be granted because their vetting would be considered insufficient and there would have to be a lot of negotiation about that. And he said fighting terrorism should be compared to the cold war.
In other words, it would not just be a military battle. It would one of ideology of social and economic pressure and battles and penalties. This is the sort of thing that's already going on of course. And he criticized Mrs. Clinton, particularly on her judgment, questioned her moral character, questioned her mental capacity, and questioned her stamina to do the job. And then got very critical about how President Obama and his administration took the U.S. into conflict and military action in both Egypt and Libya.
Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: President Obama and Hillary Clinton should have never attempted to build a democracy in Libya, to push for immediate regime change in Syria, or to support the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMERON: One of the reasons why Donald Trump's judgment gets questioned is because of his sort of self-contradictory remarks and evolving positions. And back in 2011, he had an interview with Greta Van Susteren in which he complained that the U.S. was not doing enough in Libya and said that the Obama administration really should get involved to stop the violence militarily. And he also talked about Egypt and said that it was a good thing that then President Mubarak was ousted because he was a billionaire worth billions of dollars and was essentially bilking his people and abusing the population.
He also suggested that the U.S. should get into a closer relationship with Russia in order to fight ISIS. He said that that would be a good thing.
And it came on a day where his campaign chairman Paul Manafort was actually knocking down a front page article of the "New York Times" that suggested that he had received over $12 million in moneys according to accounting ledgers that were discovered by the Ukrainian Corruption Department. He denied there being anything untoward about that and called it yet another example of the liberal media biased against Donald Trump and all things, Trump being in this case, the campaign chairman -- Trish.
REGAN: All right. Thank you so much, Paul.
Here to react now to Mr. Trump's speech today, Ambassador James Woolsey, he is a former director of the CIA. Ambassador Woolsey, welcome.
AMBASSADOR JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Trish.
REGAN: In your view, did Donald Trump lay out a worthwhile plan?
WOOLSEY: I think largely, he did. I think this was his best speech. It was coherent. It moved by paragraph, not by sort of random wanderings off. It seemed to me to be something that he worked on hard, and his people had worked on hard with him. And it held together. So yes, I think he did a good job.
REGAN: He stuck to the teleprompter, then. Let me ask you about some of the specific proposals. He said that he is going to engage, and we will engage in extreme vetting and repeated that a few times. Extreme. What does that mean?
WOOLSEY: I'm not sure exactly what he has in mind, but people need to remember that during the cold war, we didn't let, for example, a Russian soviet family in into the United States to be tourists without extreme vetting. I mean, we didn't just do it. And it's his way, I suppose, of saying that if people from a country where there is a lot of disruption or potential -- Syria, say if someone from Syria is going to come to the United States, he needs to really get his background thoroughly analyzed and find out, do we need to find out a lot about him and so forth, whereas if it's somebody coming from New Zealand, it probably takes a minute if that long at the airport.
REGAN: Well, yet, ambassador, we know, and we know and we have seen this proven that you don't have to be from Syria to commit a terrorist attack.
WOOLSEY: Right.
REGAN: I mean, when you think about all the Europeans, for example, that could potentially come here because of our visa waiver program, many of them, and we have seen this play out unfortunately in Europe, has Islamic extremist tendencies. How do you vet against all of that?
WOOLSEY: You're exactly right, Trish. That's hard. You are going to miss people if you just rely on that kind of vetting. You've got to do other things. You've got to run agents that infiltrate overseas groups that might be inclined to terror. And see if any of them is planning to visit the United States. You've got to run a higher operation, a set of operations. You can't just sit there and look at whoever shows up on the airplane.
REGAN: Let me ask you about the reference he made to Russia, effectively being willing to extend an olive branch in that we're in this fight, as he would see it, together. In other words, we share a common enemy. When you think back in history, Ambassador, that's kind of what happened in World War II, right?
WOOLSEY: Exactly right.
REGAN: I mean, we linked up with the likes of Stalin because we needed to defeat the Nazis. Is history in some ways replaying itself here?
WOOLSEY: Trish, you're exactly right. We were allied for three years and eight months that we were in World War II. We were allied with the man who was at that point history's greatest killer. Stalin had killed more than anyone else in history at that point. Mao passed him a few years later.
But when Russian troops and tanks rolled into Eastern Europe, sadly, at the end of World War II and took over Eastern Europe, they rolled in on wheels made in Detroit. You have to hook up with and work cooperatively with some rather unsavory characters if you're going to operate in this real world.
And it's a shame, but you don't get to choose your friends. Or even your allies.
REGAN: Not if you want to win. Thank you so much. Good to have you here tonight, Ambassador.
WOOLSEY: Thank you, Trish.
REGAN: Here with additional reaction to Donald Trump's ideas for combatting radical Islam inside the U.S., Muhammad Chaudhry, he is communications director for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, USA. And Bridget Gabriel, she is the founder and CEO of Act For America, and author of "Because They Hate Us" or "Because They Hate."
Bridget, I'm going to start with you, I mean, a provocative book title, certainly. What was your assessment of this speech today and his plan to vet people, even like yourself, because you're a Christian, but you're from Lebanon. You would be someone who would be highly scrutinized under Donald Trump's plan. Are you okay with it?
BRIDGET GABRIEL, FOUNDER AND CEO, ACT FOR AMERICA: Actually, I love his speech today. It's about time we have a leader in this country who basically calls a spade a spade and does everything he can to defend the country. As an immigrant from Lebanon, I remember my country right now is run by Hezbollah. It's a terrorist organization. I escaped persecution to come to America because I wanted to live in freedom, as a legal immigrant. I came here because I wanted to be a part of the American fabric and contribute to this society.
Those are the type of immigrants we want. We do not want immigrants coming here who hate our way of life, who do not want to live under our constitution, who do not value equality between men and women, who bring a different set of values into this country. Those are not the immigrants we want. And I thought his speech today was fabulous.
REGAN: You know, of course, a lot of people are going to take issue with parts of it, in part, Muhammad, because he effectively is saying, look, if you are a Muslim, or if you're from one of these countries that practices Islam, we're going to look at your more carefully. How do you react to that?
MUHAMMAD CHAUDHRY, DIRECTOR, AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY, USA: You know, he continues to demonstrate fear mongering, and fear mongering is not a solution. Ignorance and bigotry is not a solution.
REGAN: But the role is, let me jump in. Because I don't know it's necessarily fear mongering. I mean, the reality is we're facing a threat.
And at the very beginning of that speech, he did something that many might say was quite effective in that he just listed the terror attacks that we have experienced recently in this nation one after another and then went through what Europe is facing. And so there's a reality there, which is not necessarily about fear mongering. It's about what we all feel given this threat.
CHAUDHRY: Well, there's two problems. One, he needs to do his homework before he comes up with a solution. First, he needs to join me in visiting a mosque and seeing what is Islam versus extremism. He needs to meet with Muslim leaders, like the Khalifa of Islam, his holiness, Hazrat Mirza Ahmad the largest Muslim leader in the world, to understand what he's doing against this. What, the issue here is, if it's not fear mongering, 97 percent of the people of these extremists kill are Muslims. So, this is
not Islam versus Muslim --
REGAN: So, let me ask you this. How do you fix it? And that was one of the principles of his speech today as well. That we need to call on the Muslim community and work with the Muslim community to get the Muslim community onboard to fix this. How do you change it?
CHAUDHRY: That's a great point. And the campaign we launched in America is called true Islam. True Islam takes 11 points of these extremists use to manipulate religion to radicalize youth in particular. And we have the counter narrative. The counter ideology, like he talked about today, the counter ideology of these 11 points, I invite Donald Trump to endorse these eleven points, like freedom of religion, like having equity with women, like no terrorism. So we have a campaign in place in America where we're inviting Muslims and non-Muslims to come join us. And that's how we're going to provide a counter-ideology. The only people that agree are the extremists and the Islamophobes that this is religion. This is not Islam.
REGAN: Well, Bridget, you want to respond to that?
GABRIEL: Absolutely. We need to keep mind that what Mahmoud represents here is he represents the Ahmadiyya movement who only account for 20 million Muslims worldwide. It's a fraction. Their movement started only in the 19th Century, last century. He believes in angels, so is his followers. These are not the Muslims we are worried about. This is the peaceful movements that's reformed Islam. So, we want more people like Mahmoud, but he does not represent the radical Islam we are dealing with today and that Trump is talking about.
REGAN: Bridget, Muhammad, thank you so much. Good to have you here.
New reaction tonight to Donald Trump's meteoric rise from businessman to Republican nominee. Our next guest explains Trump's seemingly unstoppable rise by framing it in terms of some of his most loyal supporters. Working- class white Americans. Author J.D. Vance joins me next.
Plus, fears we could see another night of riots in Milwaukee tonight after protests over a police-involved shooting this weekend leave one major U.S.
city on edge. Governor Scott Walker is here exclusively.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Burning down (bleep) ain't going help nothing. You're burning down (bleep). We need in our community. That that (bleep) to the suburbs. Bur that (bleep) down!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REGAN: All right. New reaction tonight to a best-selling book that shot to the top of the charts amid praise from conservative circles. Its thesis that Donald Trump's swift and seemingly unstoppable rise was boosted largely from support of working class white Americans. A community some argue has been largely forgotten. And one that our next guest has shed much light on.
Joining me right now, a marine veteran who served in Iraq and is a Yale law school graduate. J.D. Vance, he has written a memoir full of passion and hard about the working class white folks he grew up with. J.D., good to have you here. That book I should point out is the best-selling "Hillbilly Elegy." A memoir of a family and culture in crisis. He joins us now.
Let me start by asking, so many pundits, so many politicos, experts, they were all stunned by the rise of Trump. They kept saying, he's not going to get the nomination. There's just no way. You were not. How come?
J.D. VANCE, AUTHOR, "HILLBILLY ELEGY": Well, I went home in I think November of 2015, around the time of Thanksgiving, and I remember coming back and telling my wife that I really thought Donald Trump was going to win because he was clearly tapping into something. And it was pretty clear that no one else, no Republican candidate certainly in the past 20 or 30 years had tapped into anything remotely similar.
REGAN: And what was that that he was tapping into?
VANCE: Well, for the folks who grew up in these areas, for the folks who live in these areas, I think they're beset by a really strong sense of social crisis. So, on the one hand, you have declining manufacturing jobs and other blue-collar industries. And a very heavily blue-collar area.
But on the other hand, you have the things that move in when these jobs go away. You have rising mortality rates, rising heroin epidemic, and even, you know, rising family breakdown rates.
And so for the folks who grew up in these areas, what they have seen, frankly, as a community and neighborhood, cities that are really struggling in a lot of different ways and they have seen a Republican Party and Democratic Party that hasn't really responded or appreciated the fact that they're struggling.
REGAN: You know, is there some irony to the fact that the guy who's a billionaire, this businessman who has more money than Mitt Romney, for example, who was one of the wealthiest to have run, he comes in and he relates to the working class American in a way that so few politicians have been able to do?
VANCE: Absolutely. It is a little weird, but I think it provides a really interesting lesson. And that's sometimes the bar can be really low because of the failures of other politicians. So yes, Trump is a billionaire, and yes, I don't think he understands at a personal level what a lot of folks are going through, but he at least tried to diagnose the problems that they're suffering from. He at least tried to talk about the problems that they're facing and the feelings that set in when you feel like your life and your community isn't going too well.
REGAN: JD, I just have a few seconds left. So, I want to ask you, do you think the Republican Party as a result of Donald Trump and the success he has had with these working class Americans, has it forever changed?
VANCE: Well, I hope that it has because I don't want the Republican Party to go back to being a party that's so disconnected from its base. But I think that, you know, Trump, it looks like he's not going to win, and if he doesn't win, the party is going to have to figure something out about these voters and about how to appeal to them where they're going to suffer.
REGAN: They need him. Okay. Thank you so much, JD. Good to have you here.
More reaction tonight to Donald Trump's campaign. This time, a series of headlines that could point to trouble for the candidate. First, from the Wall Street Journal. A scathing rebuke of Trump's conduct from their editorial board. They write, quote, "If they can't get Mr. Trump to change his act by Labor Day, the GOP will have no choice but to write off the nominee as hopeless. He needs to decide if he wants to behave like someone who wants to be president or turn the nomination over to Mike Pence."
Then from the Washington Post, noting his struggle among millennial voters, the papers write, "Is Trump destroying the GOP? This new poll will terrify Republicans."
Joining me now, CEO of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, Pastor Darrell Scott. Pastor Scott, welcome. What do you say?
PASTOR DARRELL SCOTT, NEW SPIRIT REVIVAL CENTER: Thank you.
To what the "Wall Street Journal" said there as well as the Washington Post? Let's start with the journal. Basically, you need to get your act together and stay on script or else.
SCOTT: Or else what? I mean, to be honest --
REGAN: Or else you might lose.
SCOTT: Well, you know, but they're talking about he needs to show signs of improvement, but what determines, you know, what is a sign of improvement.
Is it acceptable? You know, they're acting like Trump is some bad kid in school that's on double secret probation. And that if he doesn't get it together, they're going to suspend him or expel him.
REGAN: No, no. I mean, one of the interesting points came in the second paragraph there in the op-ed where they said, look, you know, Republicans historically are challenged in terms of the media. The media, mainstream media just doesn't like those on the right. So he needs to accept that and basically not give them anything else to pull that. And let me just add, he may have changed things beginning today, although we said this before, outlining his policy on how to defeat ISIS. Your thoughts.
SCOTT: You know, if Donald Trump sneezes, it's going to be headlines.
REGAN: Right.
SCOTT: And so, you know, for him to endeavor to try to downplay, the media creates hysteria all the time to drive the news cycle. You know this. I remember we had Ebola scare. We thought that Ebola, everyone was going to catch Ebola. Now we don't even think about Ebola anymore. We had Zika scare, but it seems as if the media creates a Trump hysteria every week.
There's a narrative about some new -- I mean, they were questioning Trump's mental capacity, insinuating this guy was mentally ill a couple of weeks ago. Every week has the new media created hysteria --
REGAN: But can he do something to get out in front of that in a stronger way? Can he get his surrogates onboard to say, you know, look, when Hillary Clinton, for example, goes after me and suggests that I am suggesting assassination, then guess what. You better fire back with, you know, dig up that 2008 clip where she talked about Bobby Kennedy's assassination when referencing why she shouldn't get out of the race against now-President Obama.
SCOTT: Well, you know what. To be honest, with Donald Trump, you know, he's darned if he does and darned if he doesn't. Anything he says can and will be used against him by the media in the court of public opinion.
That's the fact of the matter.
REGAN: Well, you know, I think you're on to something.
SCOTT: How he retaliate, he's portrayed as a bad guy. This guy Khan came after him in the DNC and Trump asked a rhetorical question and they paint him as a bad guy. No matter what he's painted as a bad guy.
REGAN: But he has to be careful not to take the bait because they're going to keep trying that stuff. And he doesn't have a lot of time left.
SCOTT: Last this. Now, when they say Trump needs to act presidential, what's presidential? Don't be emotional? Act -- be evasive? Is Hillary presidential when she lies through her teeth all the time? Is it presidential to dance on "Ellen" or blow a saxophone on Arsenio Hall? Show me exactly what is presidential.
REGAN: Fair points. Pastor, great to see you. Thank you.
Coming up, everyone, members of Congress will get their hands soon on key evidence from the FBI's probe of Hillary Clinton's private server. While interference from the Obama State Department could delay that process, and growing fears of riots in Milwaukee tonight after weekend protests over a police shooting left parts of the city looking like a war zone. We have got new details about the shocking relationship between the two men involved in this shooting.
Next, we speak with Governor Scott Walker exclusively on if he expects rioting in his state tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This boy knew my brother personally from high school. They knew each other. You know exactly how my brother was, and you shot and killed him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REGAN: Growing fears of riots tonight in one major U.S. city. After police-involved shooting this weekend leaves part of Milwaukee looking like a war zone. A handful of police were injured. Their patrol cars torched, and half a dozen businesses nearly burnt to the ground on Saturday in protests that erupted over the fatal shooting of a black man by police on Saturday. Things got so bad that the National Guard was requested on Sunday. And while they were never officially called in to action, we did see more arrests, more looting, and more officers injured.
In preparation for what could be a long night, a 10:00 p.m. curfew has been put in place for teenagers in Milwaukee tonight. And amid reports that journalists are being attacked as well by these so-called protesters, some residents are prepared for another potentially tense night. In just moments, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will join us for a "Kelly File" exclusive.
But first, we go to Matt Finn in Milwaukee with more on what to expect tonight. Matt.
MATT FINN, FOX NEWS NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good evening. Well, anyone in this immediate area in this community is on edge yet again. Police and neighbors hoping that this is not night three of these violent protests that we have seen. Last night, we were there and watched as police officers were hit with bricks and bottles. It was very painful to watch as
they walked, limping away.
The mayor is pleading for peace in the streets and has urged parents to find their kids and, quote, "Pull them in the house by the ear if needed."
Police say 75 different separate incidents of shots fired. An 18-year-old male was shot in the neck last night. He's expected to be okay. Twelve police officers overall have been hurt. This is all sparked by that shooting on Saturday when a black police officer shot and killed Sylville Smith. Police say the traffic stop went bad when smith took off running. He was armed with a fully loaded semiautomatic weapon.
Police say he did not comply with an order to drop his weapon. Friends and family and neighbors tonight have gathered at a nearby vigil, and Smith's own father says he was a bad role model and takes blame for his son's death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK SMITH, FATHER OF SYLVILLES SMITH: I have to blame myself for a lot of things, too, because your own hero is your dad and I played a very big part in my family's role model as far as being on the streets, doing things up the street like entertaining drug dealing and pimping.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FINN: That 10:00 p.m. curfew issued tonight, neighbors waiting to see if that will agitate teenagers, whether or not they will comply with police. The National Guard is here, although they are not deployed on the street. And there is new information tonight that the victim's sister alleges that her brother knew the police officer who killed him. We have not independently confirmed that and we will keep your guys posted as the situation develops tonight. Back to you New York.
REGAN: Thanks, Matt.
Joining us right now for a "Kelly File" exclusive is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Governor, welcome.
GOV. SCOTT WALKER, R-WIS.: Good evening. Good to be with you. Sorry about the circumstances, obviously.
REGAN: Yeah, I know, of course. Who they blame for this right now?
WALKER: Well, the individuals that responded, first and foremost, the individual who was involved in a crime and fled from officers, put us in a difficult position in the first place here. And then we had a number of people who decided that instead of taking it out through the normal legal process, weighing out their objections or whatever that might be, they decided to take it to the streets, and that's the problem. That's criminal activity, and that's going to not be accepted in the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County or in the state of Wisconsin.
REGAN: How concerned are you about additional violence tonight?
WALKER: We're hoping that things have eased down. I just talked to my friend Sheriff David Clarke who made the request early on Sunday morning after a long, late Saturday night and early Sunday morning with the problems we saw in Milwaukee. I talked earlier to the police chief and to the mayor and actually talked to the members of the Wisconsin National Guard who I activated and we sent here to the Milwaukee area to be ready to support them.
Things got a little bit quieter last night although there were still disturbances, but our hope is tonight things will finally quiet down thanks in large part to the leadership of many pastors and other church leaders in the Milwaukee community.
REGAN: You know, governor, the Black Lives Matter movement believes that this is racially motivated. But in this particular case, this was a black officer who shot a black victim. What role in your view does race play in all of this right now?
WALKER: Well, I mean, I think the facts should be clear in this case. In Wisconsin, we're the first state to have a law, one of the few states that currently have a law, and I think others will follow, that requires any time there's an officer-related shooting that leads to a death, an independent review is done by the state's Department of Justice. They're going to look at this case just like they would look at any other case, and independently investigate it and then give a report as to what happened.
I think in the vast, vast majority of times when law enforcement regardless of race are doing what they're trained to do, which is to keep not only themselves but their community safe, they're going to be supported. The rare instances, the very, very rare instances we have seen around the country where they haven't done that, then obviously here and anywhere else, they should be held accountable. But we have to respect and support law enforcement who are doing their best to try and keep us safe, whether it's here or anywhere else across the country.
REGAN: You know, you think about what we're going through right now as a nation, I mean not just in Milwaukee, but nationwide we're seeing these problems and this backlash against police, and the rise of Black Lives Matter. President Obama is an African-American who has become the president of the United States and when you look at the challenges that we have faced as a nation in terms of racial discord, it seems as though right now despite his success and hopefully all the strides we have made, we seem to be going back to times that we haven't seen since the 1960s. Why is that?
WALKER: Well, it's unfortunate. We need leadership at all levels. We need it from the president, we need it from elected officials, we need it from churches, and we need it from local communities. And the frustrating part is when you see things like what happened the other night, you see it in other communities across the nation, the biggest losers are people who live in those communities.
The people who are striving for more economic opportunity, who are striving for better schools, who are striving for more businesses to find better employment. Well, when you see things like a fire or a riot, individuals are less likely to invest in those communities. Now, I hope that's not what happens here. I hope we can put in a renewed focus and recognize the people in Sherman Park, this neighborhood that was affected, my kids were born just a few blocks away at St. Joseph's Hospital.
They are good, decent people with great employers, great businesses, and great churches in the area. I don't think it's a reflection of the people who live in that neighborhood. Unfortunately, few have drawn attention to it, but we need people to stand up and say we're not going to take this anymore. We're going to demand that people follow the law and follow the right ways to get people back to work and to get better schools in our nation.
WALKER: Final question to you. Donald Trump will be in Wisconsin tomorrow. Do you anticipate being at his event?
WALKER: Yeah, I hope to. My hope is that things have quieted down enough.
Today, I spent my day with the State Patrol, or excuse me, with the National Guard. Our State Patrol is here as well. With the Milwaukee Police Department, of course I just saw Sheriff Clarke. And if things are calmed down so that I can shift gears tomorrow night, I hope to join him.
WALJER: All right. Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight, Governor Walker.
WALKER: Thank you.
REGAN: All right, as we mentioned, there are growing concerns over whether people will listen to these calls for calm. And while Sylville Smith's sister joins Governor Walker and others in condemning the violence that unfolded in her neighborhood, it was her recommendation that protesters take that violence elsewhere that has some people pretty upset.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're burning down (bleep) ain't going to help nothing. You're burning down (bleep) we need in our community. Take that to the suburbs. Burn that (bleep) down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REGAN: Kevin Jackson is a Fox News contributor and executive director of Blackfear.net. Eric Guster is an attorney and a political commentator. Good to have both of you guys here. Kevin, I'll start with you. In this particular situation, you have a black officer, clearly felt under threat, and there happens to be body camera evidence, video of Mr. Sylville's weapon to show exactly the kind of threat he was facing. That doesn't seem to matter to the Black Lives Matter folks, however. They are using this incident to protest something they believe is far larger.
KEVIN JACKSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, the idea is that the black community is being targeted by blacks. It's been a systematic issue for decades and so on and so forth, when in fact it's really not true. It's anecdotal, and you do recognize that there can be some bad police officers, but for the most part, many of the things that are plaguing the black community has nothing to do with the police. They have to do with the liberal policies that have lead to the type of criminality that occurs in the black community and this particular case with so...
REGAN: Such as?
JACKSON: Well, the fact that you have a lot of people that have been rounded into these areas that -- we shouldn't even know what a black neighborhood is. That shouldn't even be a term we use in America, but we know what it means. It means bad schools. It means businesses are not owned by blacks. It means businesses that are not going -- the companies are not going to relocate there to do business there because of the non-sensible...
REGAN: So Kevin, it sounds like this is a socioeconomic problem. It' not a racial problem.
JACKSON: Absolutely. Absolutely it's a socioeconomical problem.
REGAN: Eric, I look at some of these statistics, I mean, 73 percent of African-American babies born to unmarried mothers. Unemployment for African-Americans doubled, basically, what it is for whites. And you look at the poverty rate, which among African-Americans is more than triple.
So, as much as we want to blame race in this situation or some, I should say, perhaps the Black Lives Matter movement wants to blame race, it seems to me that this is about more than that. It's about policies that have set this community back.
ERIC GUSTER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it's about policies in Milwaukee that, for example, Governor Scott Walker, he shut down the light rail proposal that would allow people from the inner city to go and get jobs in the suburbs. Milwaukee is a tale of two cities, where you have the people with and the people without. And many of those people without are stuck in a situation where they have failing schools, they have limited jobs...
REGAN: So why not go out and change it?
GUSTER: ...and that's why they're trying -- their voices aren't being heard.
REGAN: Eric? OK, so why not go out and change it? Why take to the streets?
Why loot? Why destroy businesses? Why destroy your own community? Why not call for change among your lawmakers?
GUSTER: They have called for change. They asked the Department of Justice to come in a couple years ago based upon a shooting and they did not do that. Just like we saw in the Ferguson report, just like we saw in the Baltimore report. Many of these police department...
REGAN: So let me ask you this, why is the solution now...
GUSTER: They have policies that go against certain segments of the population.
REGAN: So you're going to torch police cars and by the way, we got this reports tonight, journalists are being chased down by these thugs. Two separate reports, one (inaudible) journalist who goes out and covers protest who said, "I got to get out of here. This place is just isn't safe."
GUSTER: Now Trish, let me be clear. I'm not supporting going out and burning up cars and doing all that. I'm not supporting that at all. When people are unheard, when they're being ignored, they have -- they feel they have no voice and that's the way they are...
JACKSON: All right, that's nonsense. Hey, Trish.
REGAN: Yes, Kevin.
JACKSON: This is a very simple question. Look, and the majority of these cases we're talking about, if the person that was approached by police had simply surrendered and gotten it handled at the precinct, we wouldn't be talking about any of these cases, but Eric isn't talking about that. The Black Lives Matter Movement isn't talking about somebody -- this particular kid wouldn't have been shot had he just obeyed the law, gotten out of the car, done what he needed to do. He'd be alive.
(CROSSTALK)
REGAN: It seems to me there has to be a better way. I got to leave it there gentlemen. Thank you so much. Coming up, a local imam is fatally ambushed on the streets of New York City, and Donald Trump is blamed? There's a surprising twist tonight on the real motivations of this killing.
Plus, as the FBI prepares to send findings from its probe of Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server to members of Congress, the Obama State Department steps in. Former FBI assistant director Ron Hosko and democratic strategist Chris Kofinis are next on that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REGAN: All right, developing tonight, at any moment now, members of Congress are set to receive key documents from the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server. But now, guess what? We're learning there's some last-minute interference from the State Department.
For more, I'm joined by Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI and president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, and Chris Kofinis, a former senior adviser to the presidential campaigns of Leslie Clark and John Edwards. So Ron, starting with you, I mean, I don't get it. I mean the notes were supposed to be delivered to members of Congress. Why would the State Department try and stall that process?
RON HOSKO, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: I'm not sure I get it either, whether this is an attempt to prevent the House, the Congress from re- litigating, from re-investigating that which the FBI has already investigated and conclude. My supposition would be that's the goal here. By state, the spokespersons at state have been relentless in their defense of Mrs. Clinton and this could be yet another attempt...
REGAN: Part of the ongoing process? Chris, have you got an explanation for why it's happening?
CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, my guess is they want to review them just in case there's any kind of classified material or any type of questions they have to be aware of. But in terms of them being able to block it, I don't see how the State Department can block the FBI transmitting something to Congress. If you actually read the statement that the State Department spokesman gave today about it, they made very clear that they respect Congress' oversight authority and my guess is...
REGAN: Okay, so hopefully it's just a small delay and members of Congress will get it soon because I think, Ron, there are a lot of questions right now about this cozy relationship between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department that need to be answered. Ron.
HOSKO: Well, there are a lot of questions about it. In fact, I was a bit surprised this morning. I woke up and found myself in actual agreement with the "Washington Post" who had this editorial piece raising questions about a porous ethical wall between Hillary's State Department and the foundation. I think it raises important questions from an organization, the "Post," that is a relentless Hillary supporter.
And I think they are important questions, questions that certainly I think the FBI is looking at now. There have been other similar questions raised in recent weeks. Two weeks ago in another prominent publication, talking about connections and the intermingling of Russian funds, American funds, State Department business, and a foundation being set up in Russia that some thought was for the purpose of technology transfer to Russia.
REGAN: Right. Many questions. I mean, Chris, politics aside for a minute. Don't these questions deserve to be answered? I mean, this appearance of conflict, I should think, is enough to bother anyone regardless of what political side you're on.
KOFINIS: Well, I mean, I don't think you can put politics aside from this.
Let's be real honest here.
REGAN: No, but hear me out. Why can't you? Because, I mean, think about a judge, right, a federal judge. If a case comes before that judge involving, say a company that, that judge personally own stock in, well, guess what. That judge has to recuse him or herself from the case because of the appearance of a conflict. I mean, how can her husband be taking donations from the same country that she is trying to negotiate with as Secretary of State?
KOFINIS: Has there been an investigation that you are concluding that basically determines that the Clintons have done something wrong or Secretary Clinton did something wrong? I mean if you know the outcome of an investigation that's happened, I would love to know. The reality is I understand people are going to glob on to whatever they believe they want to believe about the Clintons. And I get it. That is politics. But the reality...
REGAN: No, I think there are standards. I mean, we're American citizens that deserve better than that. We don't need, for example, our State Department working on behalf of UBS to get some clients out of being examined and then suddenly Bill Clinton gets $1.5 million from UBS. I got to run. I'm up against a hard break, but thank you so much gentlemen. We're back with more of THE KELLY FILE right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REGAN: Developing tonight, new details are revealing a possible motive behind an execution style shooting that unfolded steps away from a New York City mosque causing the death of a local imam and his associate and instant finger pointing at GOP nominee Donald Trump. For more on that, we turn to Trace Gallagher in our West Coast Newsroom, Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Trish, it happened moments after Saturday prayers. The imam and his friends were walking outside the mosque in Queens, New York when both were ambushed and shot in the head at close range. The killings appeared to have been captured on surveillance video and it wasn't long after the shootings that some Muslims who lived in the neighborhood called it a hate crime blaming Donald Trump saying his anti- Muslim rhetoric set the stage for this attack. That sentiment was also echoed by Muslim leaders around the world. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For those in leadership like Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani and other members of other institutions that project Islam and Muslims as the enemy, this is the end result of the wickedness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGER: Even New York mayor Bill de Blasio suggested this is a case of the Muslims being in the "perpetual cross hairs of bigotry" but New York police say there is no evidence this had anything to do with religion, instead they point to an ongoing feud between Muslims and Hispanics in the neighborhood saying this may have been a payback after a group of Muslims allegedly attacked some Hispanics a few weeks ago.
And tonight, police say they have a Hispanic man in custody who they think is the killer. The Trump campaign also responded to being blamed calling it highly irresponsible and obviously politically motivated.
REGAN: All right, thank you Trace. We're going to be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REGAN: Thanks for watching everyone. I really hope to see you tomorrow at
2:00 p.m. eastern on the Fox Business Network where I am every day pushing for answers for you on "The Intelligence Report," 2:00 p.m. eastern. We're going to have an in depth look at Donald Trump's plan to topple ISIS and why defeating our enemy is so critical to our economic future right now. I am Trish Regan in for Megyn. This is "The Kelly File."
Have a terrific night. "Hannity" is next.
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