This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 13, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Hi, I'm Greg Gutfeld with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Juan Williams, Eric Bolling, and a marble as her yoga ball, Dana Perino -- "The Five."
It was the mother of all bombs and the mother of all messages:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: At around 7 p.m. local time in Afghanistan, last night, the United States military used a GBU-43 weapon in Afghanistan. The GBU-43 is a large powerful and accurately delivered weapon. We targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. Military advisers and Afghan forces in the area. The United States takes the fight against ISIS very seriously and in order to defeat the group, we must deny them operational space, which we did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: So we just dropped a big, beautiful bomb and made ISIS pay for it. It smashed ISIS tunnels but it did more than that: it ruined North Korea's weekend. As you know, they're coming up on their founder's birthday which a means a missile test. And what did we do? We preempted it. We out-North Korea-ed North Korea. I mean, we just dropped the massive bomb that destroys underground stuff. Who has a lot of stuff underground? North Korea. Talk about a surprise for your birthday. It beats balloon animals and face painting.
See, if Earth is a village, North Korea is town drunk and we just smacked that drunk upside the head while beating the crap out of the village gang which is ISIS. Of course, North Korea will respond with their own party favors, but we've seen the act before and today, we hit first. It's like a jerky neighbor plans to throw a party and you decide to throw one earlier inviting the whole city and getting Van Halen to play with the original lineup. That is what we did.
North Korea looks lame, we looked persuasive, especially with President Trump's meeting with China, which could signal a change. And the good news about North Korea: Unlike the Middle East hotspots, there's no Islamic death cult waiting in the wings to fill a toppled regime's void. A change in North Korea could mean 25 million people who live like caged inmates, they'd finally be free. So it's not just about ousting a nut but liberating the world's largest prison camp. Maybe a big, fat, beautiful bomb is the laxative that will move things along.
Dana, everything in Trump's administration is always big. Like -- it's like the big -- it's not just a normal bomb. It is the big bomb.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: It's going to do it all.
GUTFELD: Yes. But I mean, this is -- what do you -- I mean, my thesis is that it's a -- it's a larger message. Is there any credence to that?
PERINO: Well, I think that -- well, part of the thing that's interesting is that we don't know because the Pentagon hasn't given us information yet, we don't have lot of details that will come and then of course we're going to have Jennifer Griffin in a bit, so maybe she's been able to find out some more. But I do think it is a return to taking the fight to the enemy because we can choose how we fight this war, and I think that because there had been increased activity in that region, especially with increased ISIS fighters and because they were mobile, they are going in and out of the Middle East through Afghanistan and that was proliferating.
They must have had really good intelligence that says this is a target of opportunity and they decided to take it. I would be interested to find out why they decided to use that bomb for the first time. I think that's really interesting and I do think it also sends a message to everybody else.
GUTFELD: Eric, does this -- is this smell like madness? It's seems like something very decisive and kind of like -- just like, you know where it's coming from.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: I think what's in -- what the last two weeks prove is that this North Korean situation is that big. And I do think that the Syrian situation was a heads up. Remember, those tomahawks were launched with President Xi of China sitting at the dinner table, hold on, I'll be back. Go ahead launch some tomahawks. Comes back and --
PERINO: Big beautiful chocolate.
BOLLING: -- finishes some cake. And look -- and then, the following week, we drop a 21,000-pound bomb, the size of five automobiles, a concussion bomb while Kim Jong-Un is now saying he may test his own form of bomb on Saturday. So, I think Trump realizes this is the hotspot that he has to worry about and the -- and the linchpin to all of this, the kingpin that solving the solution isn't Russia, isn't Putin, it's China and he must have had a very good meeting with China, with President Xi because China, don't forget, they voted to abstain at the U.N. yesterday, security council based in saying, we're with Trump on this one. I mean, because -- the last eight years, China would have voted against it just like Russia did but this time they said, you know what, we're with Trump. And that if Kim Jong-Un doesn't get the message from Trump, from China, he is in a whole heap of mess and trouble right now.
GUTFELD: What do you make of this, Kimberly? Was the timing -- was the -- is the timing the thing, that it happens today?
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: I think the timing, the execution, the position of it and they chose me that this is a president that's listening to the intelligence reports, that's actually listening to the people that he picked to come in, to help them stabilize our country, stabilize other regions that he knows are in our best interest to have national security that we can actually count on because we are playing catch-up from eight years, to be quite honest.
But nevertheless, he is the president now, he is deciding what to do, he's relying on McMaster, he is relying on Mattis and I think those are excellent decisions in terms of how they handled it and I like the fact that he's not afraid to make a decision that he's not going to equivocate for eight years. He's going to get stuff done. North Korea should be very concerned, specifically Kim Jong-Un because nobody seems to want to tolerate his conduct anymore.
And I think it was very decisive that China has at this very pivotal time, decided to lean towards the United States. And I think there was lot of diplomacy and talks that went on, definitely benefited by the time alone that President Trump had with President Xi and Florida and how well that when in terms of their interpersonal relationship.
Let me follow this up. In these meetings and dinner and subsequent meetings, the fact that Trump said, and assessment of his campaign promises, going to name and label China a currency manipulator, the fact that he came out and said, we are going to rethink that, he probably made a deal and said, look, kim jong-Un is going to be a problem for us and for you. We'll play ball with you on this currency manipulation, which is not a small thing.
GUTFELD: Can I just -- I know we want to get one in here but let me file this up within these meetings, in this dinner, in these subsequent meetings with China. The fact that Trump said and this is one of his campaign promises we're going to name and label China a currency manipulator from the very get-go. The fact that he came out and say we're going to rethink that policy right now, proves that the man is wanting to make a deal. He didn't go right after China right away, he probably made a deal and said, look, Kim Jong-Un is going to be a problem for us and for you, we'll play ball with you on this currency manipulation which is not a small thing in global --
BOLLING: I mean, that was Trump's main --
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: But it's also a major setback for Chinese-U.S. trade if he did -- went ahead and went for that. And so that may be part of the deal making that --
GUILFOYLE: Well, yes. You certainly can't let him slap them around and label them a currency manipulator, make that the lead when you need their cooperation right now. So I think that's what --
BOLLING: But that is -- yes. That's quite a shift. Juan, am I -- am I being absurd in linking these two things? The bombing and North Korea? Or does it make sense that this is not just going after ISIS but sending a message.
(CROSSTALK)
JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: I don't think that it's anything necessarily about the power of the bomb, although everybody is writing the headlines about the most powerful non-nuclear bomb.
GUTFELD: The mother of all bombs.
WILLIAMS: That's what they say.
GUTFELD: Why can't it be father?
WILLIAMS: Well, it could be. I could say that.
GUTFELD: That's it.
WILLIAMS: But we have even more powerful bombs but the issue here to me is the symbolism. And I think that is what Trump really plays on, it's the symbol. And so what extend to North Korea to that extent that it would say to the whole world, we're not afraid to use massive military power. You know, earlier in the week we saw, I think they were 18 Syrians killed by unintentionally civilians killed by U.S. bombing.
So, in the aftermath of that, I think he is making a symbolic statement about his willingness to use military might. It pleases, I think, his base, you know, the base that always was going after Obama after being to cool, thoughtful, relying on sanctions and diplomacy. When the National Security Adviser McMaster gave him options here. I think Trump went for the biggest show. You know, a little bit of shock and awe.
BOLLING: I'm not sure it pleases his base, I'm not sure that's his base. I think his base was -- you know, he ran on quite a bit of his, you know, economic and foreign policy nationalists.
WILLIAMS: He flip-flop on a lot of things in the last --
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: No, no. I mean, I heard Kimberly right away, you know, he's making up for the last eight years. Listen, since 1953 when we signed a deal with North Korea, we've had successive administrations, republican and democrat that have not gone directly after this guy and tried to play ball, try to find a way to encourage him to stop the bad behavior. Not this guy in particular but three generations of leadership there.
So to suddenly blame it on anybody, I don't think it's fear but I will say this about what you saw from President Trump, is that Trump is a guy who doesn't know what to do with North Korea right now. And he is trying to get the Chinese. The Chinese have already pulled back on coal imports, but in fact, they are still doing a great deal of business with North Korea.
BOLLING: I mean, you say -- you said that come up for six decades, we've had presidents on both side of the aisle who have known what to do with them. So, you're saying Trump doesn't know or guess what, maybe a -- the mother -- dropping a MOAB on Afghanistan and two weeks ago sending 59 tomahawks in the Syria may shake this guy up, Kim Jong-Un, that's the way no one else had.
WILLIAMS: Well, here's the thing. I think it was John McCain who called Kim Jong-Un a fat crazy kid and angered him to no end in, right?
GUTFELD: Angered me too.
WILLIAMS: It did you too because you're a sensitive soul. But I think there are lots of people who think he's a fat, crazy kid and his paranoid.
PERINO: (INAUDIBLE)
WILLIAMS: And so, one of the things that I think McMaster and others have suggested is, let's go kill him.
GUTFELD: Well, but you can't.
WILLIAMS: He is -- he is hiding, it's illegal, I know that, Dana.
PERINO: But wait, you think that they -- you think that McMaster had said, let's go kill him?
WILLIAMS: No. I think -- I think if you asked me for options in terms of the power arrangement in North Korea given they have so few alternative actions, I would say, if you want to stop this guy, the fat crazy kid, go kill him.
GUTFELD: What do you -- Dana, I mean, the point is, is that -- it's like a ritual. With every new president after the inauguration comes the North Korea challenge. It's like they --
PERINO: And also they -- I like, you know, ruining their weekend before they can ruin ouse.
GUTFELD: Right. I'm so tired of us having to wait for them to -- oh, look what they did. Now they're going like, look at what America did.
PERINO: I think the other reason that we -- hopefully we'll get more information about this soon from the administration to the extent they can tell us. But part of the reason you've been doing this for six decades is we've been trying to prevent the proliferation. But the clock is running out. And that's why I think you've seen increase activity. The other thing that Chinese have recently is they have used their newspaper that goes into North Korea to basically warn the North Koreans not to do it because Trump is serious. And so that was interesting that's coming from - -
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: You know, one other factor to consider along what Dana is saying is that we have so many troops in South Korea, so the North Koreans have lots of troops too. So, if we do something there short of taking out the leader, it could be that they then rush in exactly. That's a whole different dynamic than what we're seeing in Afghanistan.
GUILFOYLE: But that's part of the complexity of the situation. But when you say that, you know, President Trump doesn't know what to do with North Korea, I think he does know what to do with North Korea and he is doing it.
WILLIAMS: Well, do you think that is.
GUILFOYLE: Well, if a multifaceted approach. Part of it is diplomacy in terms of relying on allies and getting people to partner with us in order to do something about situation like Dana said that we run out of time and that's what I was ranging for the eight years. He's using President Xi to help him, and we've already seen that development. You know, abstaining the coal back.
WILLIAMS: Yes. And -- but I think every other president.
GUILFOYLE: Abstaining in the vote, you know, at the U.N. So all of these things are part of that peace and that relationship, partners that's going forward.
GUTFELD: It has to change though. You can't just keep the Vinson off shore and hope they don't test this nuke over the weekend or test their ballistic capabilities because eventually they will and eventually they'll use it. So, to your point, where is the change and where do you -- how do you get Kim Jong-Un as he pointed out, since the founder, the grandfather, it's been the same family ruling North Korea. How do you make that --
PERINO: He's got to go.
GUILFOYLE: To whom? Is it -- is it, you know, is it --
PERINO: I think we know how.
GUILFOYLE: -- a Korean -- and United Korean Peninsula? Is it Chinese? I mean, It gets chippy.
BOLLING: You know, the one -- he one last thing --
GUILFOYLE: Maybe somebody takes him out for all of the people that he killed, maybe going to get some revenge.
BOLLING: Yes. They were just waiting.
WILLIAMS: The one last thing I would say on this is, you know, he -- I don't think he has the capacity, according to Sean Spicer to hit us, the United States yet with an intercontinental.
GUILFOYLE: Well, there's conflicting report --
WILLIAMS: That's what -- that's why this is why this is so important right now. Stop him before he gets there.
GUTFELD: All right. Ahead, the inside story on what happened with that monster bombing in Afghanistan today. U.S. dropping the mother of all bombs to crush ISIS. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: Back now to our major offensive against ISIS and Afghanistan today. The U.S. dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in our arsenal on tunnels and caves used by the terror network. Here is what our commander- in-chief said about the mission earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are so proud of our military and it was another successful event.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you authorize it?
TRUMP: Everybody knows exactly what happened, so -- and what I do is I authorize my military. We have the greatest military in the world and they've done their job as usual. So, we have given them toal authorization and that's what they're doing. And frankly, that's why they've been so successful lately. If you look at what has happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what's happened over the last eight years, you'll see there is a tremendous difference.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: For more, let's bring in national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin live at the Pentagon. He's been with -- following the story since it broke. Let me ask you couple of things. With the president just said, was he referring to possibly changes in terms of delegation and making the National Security council at the White House a little less micromanaging of the pentagon? Is that what he was referring to just now?
JENNIFER GRIFFIN, NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems like he is referring to the fact that there has been an apparent shift from the last administration where are you remember, Dana, the biggest criticism and it was written about by Bob Gates and Leon Panetta and others in their biographies that they were -- there was frustration in the military that they would have to call and there was actual targeting being done by the National Security Council.
That being said, we asked the Pentagon today if there'd been changes to the rules of engagement in Afghanistan and they said not officially. There have been no official rules of engagement that were change. General Nicholson who's the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, he has had the authority as they say that he needed to go after ISIS and Al-Qaeda-linked groups and the rest of the mission in Afghanistan has been basically train, advise, and assist and that has not changed.
PERINO: All right. We're going to take it around the table. Greg? You want to kick it off?
GUTFELD: I just want to go back to my original thesis and ask you if it holds any water. Is the -- is the size and type of the bomb some kind of message to our adversaries?
GRIFFIN: Absolutely, Greg. There is a reason that this size bomb, 21,000 pounds, it has a blast radius of a mile wide, the plume that would come from using a bomb like this is 10,000 feet in the air. The last time they tested it in 2003, that's how high the cloud rose up. So, inevitably, this has a psychological effect. But it also is used -- it was used in a very remote part of Afghanistan in Nangarhar Province down near Tora Bora.
These were tunnels that it was not uninhabited area per se with villagers around. But back and forth, it is very close to the Pakistan border and I can't help but think as much as the Pentagon is saying this was a tactical weapon that t also had geostrategic significance. The timing just two days before North Korea is expected to perhaps carry out another nuclear test to mark a holiday there, the fact that Pakistan has not done enough to stop the Taliban and ISIS fighters from passing back and forth across that border.
And the fact that today the Syrian President said that the U.S. had made up the -- had concocted the chemical weapons accusations and actually had carried out the attack with ISIS fighters in Syria. All of this and then also, just a day after Rex Tillerson was in Moscow, again, this is designed to send a psychological message as much as it was designed to kill anything.
PERINO: All right. Eric Bolling?
BOLLING: You talk about it one-mile blast radius. You know, we're so used to seeing reports of, you know, the actual blast. You know, did we hit the intended target? I understand it's a concussion bomb, so it explodes over the air and tries to push the tunnels now but did they come back as a successful mission?
GRIFFIN: Well, right now it's nighttime in Afghanistan and were told the Air Force is scrubbing video of the strike. They do plan to release video of it as soon as that's declassified. Again, the reason to use a weapon like this would be partially a psychological effect. So, they're going to want to release video of it to show what it was capable of. But we do not have many reports from, you know, the bomb damage assessment is still being done, conducted by the Pentagon. There are some reports, local reports, from the Afghan governor of that province who said that that it is not a populated area and Pentagon says that they -- and the White House say that they took measures to avoid civilian casualties.
PERINO: Juan Williams?
WILLIAMS: Hi, Jen. Over the weekend, Saturday, a member of our special forces was killed in Afghanistan, Mark de Alencar, 74, Edgewood, Maryland. And I'm wondering if that might have triggered the idea that, you know what, we need to go in there and send what you describe is a very powerful symbolic message. And I was told that he was killed in the midst of a combat fight against ISIS and that ISIS has recently killed about 88 members of the Afghani forces that the U.S. is training. But the interesting part to me was that there only are like --a very few, actually, members of ISIS in Afghanistan and most of them are Pakistani. So, a lot of craziness in this story. I wonder if you know more about the sad death of our soldier.
GRIFFIN: Well, the Pentagon says that it is merely a coincidence, the timing of the use of this weapon. But certainly it's notable, Juan, that just last Saturday this Green Beret member of the seventh group was killed in -- by small arms fire, conducting an operation against these very ISIS tunnels. So -- but again, the Pentagon saying it is not in retaliation for the death of that Special Forces army soldier.
PERINO: All right. Kimberly Guilfoyle?
GUILFOYLE: Yes. I'm just curious, Jennifer, you know, in terms of some of the intelligence reports that perhaps they were getting and how they received that information, I guess, and the timeframe in terms of making this decision to act and drop this bomb.
GRIFFIN: Well, I think there's several things going on here. Right now, General Nicholson is noticing an optic of not only Taliban attacks, Taliban taking over areas especially down in the Helmand Province, but also these ISIS fighters, some of the, foreign fighters from Pakistan, they are not necessarily ISIS fighters who have come from Syria. Foreign fighters. These are guys who essentially change their uniforms and go with whatever they think the winning team is.
But their -- the estimates, the latest intelligence estimates suggest that there are about 1,000 of these ISIS fighters inside Afghanistan. And I think that this is part of the larger strategy of taking on ISIS basis wherever they crop out around the world.
PERINO: All right. Jennifer Griffin, you've been working all day and I know you got more to come. So thank you so much.
GRIFFIN: Thank you.
PERINO: All right. Coming up on The Five, CIA, excuse me, Director Mike Pompeo issuing a blistering attack on WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange accusing them of doing great harm to our national security encouraged by none other, Russia. We'll hear from him next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: Some very sharp words today from our seat CIA Director for Julian Assange. The founder of WikiLeaks. In his first public speech since taking charge of the agency, Mike Pompeo shredded Assange for leaking confidential information and threatening our democracy.
MIKE POMPEO, CIA DIRECTOR: We say upon the celebration of entities like WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. It is time to call it WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-sate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. Their champion, nothing but their own celebrity. They currency is clickbait. Their moral compass, non-existent. Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom.
They have pretended that America's First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. Assange is a narcissist who has created nothing of value. He relies on the dirty work of others to make himself famous. He is a fraud, a coward hiding behind a screen -- that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for.
BOLLING: Any questions? (INAUDIBLE)
PERINO: I mean, can we run that again? I was -- I go -- I listen to that and sleep well at night. So this -- I thought this is very interesting. This is the CIA Director's first public comments, he knew the speech would be picked up and he decided that this is going to be the moment that he laid down the law and it comes just a day or two after Julian Assange published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he said that, you know, he sacrificed so much and that he -- but he is doing it in the name of truth and the truth will set you free. And the truth is actually what Mike Pompeo just said and laying it on the line. And I thought it was really good also to say that we can't allow free speech for them to be able to crush us with that, like those are our values, we have to protect them. The CIA and intelligence community has work to do in terms of shoring up the security of our information to make sure it doesn't get into their hands. But I thought it was very strong. And calling out Russia, just interesting timing.
BOLLING: Yes, it was. Very interesting, K.G.
GUILFOYLE: Yes. So that was the second Mother of All Bombs.
GUTFELD: Yes.
GUILFOYLE: Pompeo just dropped on WikiLeaks' Assange. So how is he feeling now?
I thought this was fantastic. It was strong; it was forceful, and I bet the people that work at the agency really did appreciate his comments, and he thanked them and talked about the difficult work that they do every day.
And he made it very clear -- and I think this was an important point -- that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, they said, is making it harder for them to keep Americans safe. And that, I think, needed to be said in terms of the collateral damage that people during the campaign, stuff was released. There's much larger security interests that are affected by this information that's released, personal information, private information. And it sounds like somebody's got a target on their back.
BOLLING: All right. Juan, before I let you take down these two ladies, we'll let Greg jump on, pile on top of them. Let you have at it.
GUTFELD: OK, the -- he makes a really -- he asks, why is this guy romanticized? Well, generally because people romanticize people who speak truth to power or fight against government forces.
However, the true hypocrisy is that he's choosing a republic like the United States, which is the freest country in the history of the world, that's done more to free people than any other country. He's not -- you know, it would be one thing if he was, like, leaking against Cuba or Venezuela or...
PERINO: Or Russia.
GUTFELD: ... or Russia.
GUILFOYLE: Or North Korea.
GUTFELD: So the fact that people lionize in or romanticize him, because he's fighting the government. Remember, in this case, the government is the good guy. He's the bad guy. Because what he's doing is, he's enabling terrorists to take advantage of the stuff that he leaks. So he's putting our guys at risk. He is a traitor. Well, he can't be a traitor, because he's not American.
PERINO: Also in that op-ed, he compared himself to John Pulitzer. He literally did, the last line.
BOLLING: Counter to these very cogent arguments is that Julian Assange isn't the leaker; he's just the one who -- who brings the leaks that are given to him to the public. And that -- and Snowden was actually a whistleblower, not a leaker.
WILLIAMS: Well, let's -- if you want to break it down, I think that he's a stooge. I mean, I think he's used by the Russians. I don't think there's any question about this.
Going back to the election, you saw what Trump did. He was encouraging the Russians to get information on Hillary Clinton and then channel it through cannot guess who? Assange.
BOLLING: That was kind of a joke, though. It was tongue in cheek.
WILLIAMS: That was no joke. I mean, obviously, we know now, it's so real, Eric. It's not a joke.
But the thing about this is, I've been back and forth on...
BOLLING: Can we just clarify that?
WILLIAMS: Can I finish a thought? Am I allowed to finish a thought on this show?
BOLLING: Yes, but he -- he joked about Hillary...
WILLIAMS: Jeez Louise.
BOLLING: ... "can you get those 50,000 e-mails that they buried?"
WILLIAMS: Look, forget about it. I don't -- look, you know what?
BOLLING: "And maybe Assange can get it. Ha, ha, ha."
WILLIAMS: No, no, no. It's too real in terms of Russia's ability and what we know now about Russia hacking purposely the Clinton campaign: Podesta and the DNC. It's to help Donald Trump win the election.
OK. But I was just going to say, I've been back and forth on this, because I've written that, at times, it seemed to me like Snowden had performed a valuable public service for America in letting us know that our intelligence agencies, at times, were conducting illegal surveillance of us and that our own director of national intelligence had lied at one point about whether or not there was surveillance, domestic surveillance.
But I have way now moved away from this idea, because what I see going on is so clear that Assange, in fact, has been -- I think he set up Snowden. I think he has used other people. And now the Russians have used him, and it's all to create this idea that you can't trust anything you hear on the news; you can't trust anybody in power in the United States. We're all liars. Everybody is a liar. Trust no one. To me, this breaks down the fabric of our society.
BOLLING: But do you trust the -- as you said, the DNI basically say, "We're not spying on..."
WILLIAMS: That's why I say, that's why I was going back and forth. But ultimately, we were held accountable, right?
BOLLING: Well, thanks to Snowden letting us know.
PERINO: I think -- you guys.
GUTFELD: OK, No. 1, as -- as a thinking American, I understand that my government have to keep certain things from me in order to allow us to be safe. So if they do engage in certain kind of espionage or spying, I kind of understand that. I get it. It's for our...
GUILFOYLE: You like it.
GUTFELD: I actually like it. And I don't believe it's a violation of rights.
WILLIAMS: Well, if they spy on you, it is.
GUTFELD: No, it's called -- no, it's not.
WILLIAMS: How?
BOLLING: You may agree with the practice, but it's certainly a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
GUTFELD: How is it a violation?
BOLLING: I mean...
WILLIAMS: It's a constitutional right.
BOLLING: There's no question.
GUTFELD: Where? What did they do to me?
WILLIAMS: You don't want -- you don't want a dictator...
GUILFOYLE: They're not interested in him and his weird cat videos.
GUTFELD: I -- I don't understand. I don't understand what...
WILLIAMS: It's a worst-case scenario. You don't want a dictator to come in who says, "You know what? I can't stand that Greg Gutfeld. I'm going after his ass." No.
PERINO: But that's not what...
GUTFELD: Yes, I know.
WILLIAMS: I agree. That's not what happened.
BOLLING: Look, and there is the argument, yes, it is -- it is a breach of the Constitution -- your constitutional rights of -- against unreasonable search and seizure, Fourth Amendment.
GUTFELD: Where?
BOLLING: But they say it -- the security risk overrides that constitutional right.
WILLIAMS: I never got -- get to that point.
BOLLING: That's where we are. That is, in a nutshell, the debate. Want to leave it right there? You asked for it, producers. They wanted this to start.
Is the mainstream media biased against Democrats? That's a question you don't hear often. One of Hillary Clinton's former aides is convinced the press comes down much harder on the left -- that's right, the left -- then the right. We'll see about that one next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUILFOYLE: Welcome back. A former top aide of Hillary Clinton has quite a twist on the subject of media bias. Jennifer Palmieri actually admitted yesterday that most of the press leads to the left, but according to her, it's Democrats that they're going after.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER PALMIERI, FORMER AIDE TO HILLARY CLINTON: I think most journalists are probably leaning more to the left than the right. But what I found is it means they come after us harder on what I describe as the crap (ph). They come after harder on us on the palace intrigue, on the process, on things that really shouldn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUILFOYLE: OK, wait, what? Is this opposite day or something like --? What do you make of this?
GUTFELD: You know what's funny? She actually is almost right. Because the media do, they do lean very, very left, and the Democrats may not be progressive enough for them.
However, they still hate the right. They hate the right more than they love the left. They hate -- I mean, there's -- you will never win over them if you're a conservative, or if you're not a liberal.
But I want to point out, the White House Correspondents Dinner, big news is, Woodward and Bernstein are going to be speaking there. So what did Donald Trump do? He just took a journalist -- one of the most famous journalism events, and he turned it into a journalism event. By not going, he actually made it about journalism again. He actually made the White House Correspondents Dinner great again. They should be thanking him.
GUILFOYLE: Unbelievable. But will there still be parties?
Dana, so what do you make of this?
PERINO: I think that bias is in the eye of the beholder. And I've tried to put myself in her shoes, and I -- I guess I can see, because you know, the Clinton campaign, when she was on, was very upset with The New York Times and a lot of its coverage, and really felt that, especially because there was so much support to the far left, for Bernie Sanders, that Hillary Clinton was getting a raw deal from the media on that.
But I have to say that, especially when it comes to the ridicule from a lot of reporters when it comes -- about Republicans, and if you look at, you know, the caricatures that they tried to make about them, if you're George W. Bush. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump.
So I can see where she's coming from, but I definitely think that the far right is much more maligned than the left when it comes to media bias.
GUILFOYLE: Yes. Eric, what do you think about her comment?
BOLLING: So I think there's a huge, huge -- Look, there -- among the news journalists on the networks, I would say that maybe she has a point that they want to be fair, and they want to lean, so they'll put -- they'll put pro-Trump people on end, and they'll put anti-Trump people on.
The problem is, they'll have four or five anti-Trump -- that's fine -- against for Trump, but the pro-Trump people that they're putting on aren't really equipped to defend themselves against three or four of the others.
Now, Juan is a liberal. We're -- I'm conservative. We can be middle or conservative, whatever we want to call ourselves. But he's equipped to handle us. I mean, we don't -- and I think what happens is, with CNN and with MSNBC, yes, there is representation of the right, but the representation of the right is far outnumbered and certainly far outsmarted, I would say.
GUILFOYLE: All right. Well Juan, there was a compliment in there for you.
WILLIAMS: I think there was. I think so. Thank you. Thank you very much.
GUILFOYLE: Since we're on a...
BOLLING: It was very confident (ph).
WILLIAMS: But I just -- I just...
GUILFOYLE: Huge.
WILLIAMS: I'm listening to Jennifer Palmieri with some interest here, because I think that she's right. Most reporters lean left. I don't think there's any question. The issue is something like, remember when, going back to WikiLeaks, there was this business about Jennifer Palmieri is attacking Catholics in some conversation she was having?
PERINO: Yes. That was not fair.
WILLIAMS: And you know what? Ended up on front pages everywhere...
GUILFOYLE: Yes, WikiLeaks.
WILLIAMS: ... before someone said, "Hey, wait a minute. Jonathan -- Jennifer Palmieri and John Podesta are both..."
PERINO: Catholics.
WILLIAMS: ... practicing Catholics. And this never gets covered, and you think, "Wait a second. Why was this big news?" Why is the gossip treated as big news when it comes to the Clinton campaign?
And then, you know, I think it was Ari Fleischer today said, yes, the press never liked the Clintons anyway, but they treated Obama pretty well. I guess they're thinking, "Oh, he's he first black guy. We've got to go soft." I don't know.
But I've got to say, there are lots of Democrats who think that the press, in fact, in order to prove that they are not anti-right, goes hard on the left.
GUTFELD: Do you think -- could it just be that everybody couldn't stand Hillary? Left or right?
WILLIAMS: Well, that's right; she was treated -- as you pointed\ out about Bernie Sanders, the status quo candidates.
GUILFOYLE: Unbelievable. OK. Well, but nevertheless, they seem to protest a lot about this, and feel that they are kind of maligned and that it's unfair to them.
WILLIAMS: Who?
GUILFOYLE: I think the left.
WILLIAMS: Oh, the right. I think it's interesting, because the right dominates talk radio. Trump got so much free coverage, not only here, but remember there was a piece about Jeff Zucker, The New York Times this weekend...
GUILFOYLE: He answered the call.
WILLIAMS: ... talking about how much coverage CNN gave and how their ratings blew up because of Trump. I think Trump played us all.
GUTFELD: Or did we play Trump? Oh.
BOLLING: Played the Trump card.
PERINO: Next.
GUILFOYLE: Next on "The Five," another segment, Trump is the law. OK some big developments this week at the White House. Our thoughts on some developments within the West Wing, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: President Trump has been in office less than 100 days. Some believe he's starting to embrace more mainstream policies than the ones he campaigned on. So Dana...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICS EDITOR: This is a president and administration in the White House that looks like they're doing a pretty hard reboot right now, and we have a lot of campaign promises being traded in. We have a much more conventional version of Trumpism that has come out, versus what we heard, for example, in his address at his inauguration. A very different attitude.
And that's probably helpful for Republicans, because where the next race is next week is in suburban Atlanta which are the very kind of voters who recoiled from Trumpism 1.0, the Steve Bannon version.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Well, so what I was going to ask Dana was about the literary of things. You know, NATO is important now. China is not a currency manipulator. Janet Yellen, she's terrific at the Fed.
PERINO: He likes her.
WILLIAMS: Export-Import Bank, let's go with it. Border adjustment tax, "Oh, I wasn't serious about that." It goes and on.
PERINO: Well, a lot of -- a lot of -- a lot of policies can change once you get into the White House and the view is different, and I think that President Trump is especially willing to be flexible after he meets people one-on-one. So the best example of that is President Xi, and partly that might be because, strategically, he knows he needs the help on North Korea. But I also think that when he says that he -- they had great chemistry and he's like, "I really like him," that that makes a big difference for President Trump. So those one-on-one relationships make a difference.
And then the people within the White House who are explaining things to him -- remember, like, the CEOs that come in, and they're explaining to him why the Export-Import Bank makes sense. He's willing to say, "Oh, OK. I'm wrong on that."
I don't think that means that his base leaves him. I don't think they voted for him because of Export-Import Bank, and his tough talk on immigration is probably the most important thing that he can continue to do, which is why he's very consistent about talking about the wall.
WILLIAMS: Eric, take us inside the drama here, because a lot of people think this is an indication that Steve Bannon is no longer the influence, that Jared Kushner is now calling the shots and telling Trump about his new policies.
BOLLING: I think Donald Trump takes Jared Kushner's comments, I think he takes Ivanka's comments, I know he takes Bannon and Priebus's comments. I think he listens to a lot of people and, at the end of the day -- he's said this from day one -- he makes the decision on his own. He doesn't -- other people aren't making that decision for Donald Trump.
Dana is 100 percent right on, look, things change. This currency manipulation thing ended up being a great bargaining chip for Donald Trump in this North Korean situation that's heating up. Times change.
Barack Obama walked into the White House with one idea on his terror strategy, and five minutes into the White House after he was briefed by the intel department, that completely changed. So he pivoted, as well. That's what happens in a new commander in chief.
And also, before you get buried in this "he's now a globalist," he may become -- you know, he looks for the right deal for the country and makes that deal. So I wouldn't slap him with "nationalist" or "globalist" too quickly.
WILLIAMS: So Kimberly...
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: ... do you think that, in fact, Trump's core base is saying, "Why is he shifting on so many things he promised us during the campaign?"
GUILFOYLE: Well, I mean, I don't think -- listen, if he was to shift all of a sudden on immigration and say, "Forget about it. Just kidding about it," well, yes, they'd probably get very upset with that.
But I think in terms of he said he was going to strong on military and national defense, and you know, national security and foreign policy. He's doing that. He's strong on immigration. He's giving the Border Patrol agents the support they need. So I think he's been very consistent.
As for the Fed, I think he got to know her and work with her directly and have the confidence in her as an individual. And like Dana said, you know, he meets people and then that makes a difference.
I would rather have a president that is flexible and able to change his opinion and mind on things after he accesses additional information. That, to me, is a good thing.
PERINO: But it is a little hard to take. Like when -- if you are arguing that those policies were a departure from traditional Republican conservative philosophy and you were called all sorts of names. And all of a sudden now he's back to all of those. That's fine, that's great, but there is something to be said about consistency in that regard.
WILLIAMS: So Greg, so if you are in the White House and Jared Kushner came over with some Passover cookies for Steve Bannon, would you say, "I'm not having any"?
GUTFELD: I go by the Coulter -- Ann Coulter thermometer. The redder she gets, the more I know that Trump is changing. Because she's like -- she's the canary in the coal mine.
I'm OK with this shift. Because I believe that ideology shortcuts thinking. You should be thinking about everything individually. You can be for -- you can be against certain kinds of immigration and for other kinds of immigration. It doesn't have to be pure.
But I'm with you on this. If you are a person who calls people names, Squishy and RINO, and yet you're OK with this, no. Not good.
WILLIAMS: Wow. OK. "One More Thing" coming right at you. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: I didn't do that.
GUILFOYLE: You did.
GUTFELD: Wait a second, it's me. Dana.
PERINO: I'm dedicating this "One More Thing" to Kimberly Guilfoyle. Check this out. In West Palm Beach, this guy, Kevin Brach, was SCUBA diving, and this 35-foot whale shark came by, the size of a school bus, and this is why I did not go in the ocean but appreciate the ocean.
GUILFOYLE: You and I both. There are no sharks -- well, not really...
GUTFELD: By the way...
GUILFOYLE: ... in my controlled water.
GUTFELD: That was a fish bowl you were walking by, Dana.
Let's move this quickly. Eric.
BOLLING: OK. Live tonight, 8 p.m., I'm going to fill in for Bill O'Reilly tonight. Big show. Sebastian Gorka is going to take us through the foreign policy issues: Syria and North Korea, Afghanistan. We might have a little full-screen on that. Maybe, maybe not. And Carter Page. Carter Page is the former Trump advisor who was being surveilled. He was accused by the FBI for having some sort of ties to Russia. We'll ask him why he was being surveilled and, you know, what went on surrounding that. So 8 p.m., live tonight.
GUILFOYLE: All right.
GUTFELD: All right, time for this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAPHIC: Greg's Robot News
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Here it is. It's happening again. Another job stolen by a robot. This time, Birmingham, Alabama, where ASIMO will serve as this year's grand marshal at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. April 21, Birmingham, a robot will be waving -- is it the green flag at the front? I don't know.
PERINO: Yes.
GUTFELD: I don't get out.
PERINO: I got to do that, remember?
GUTFELD: I don't really care.
PERINO: At Bristol.
GUTFELD: It's over.
Hey, who's next? Kimberly.
GUILFOYLE: Yes. All right. Well, then after watching Bolling and Tucker, you can check me out. I'm in for Sean Hannity tonight, and we've got an all-star lineup. We've got Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Anthony Scaramucci, Ari Fleischer, and General Tata. So we're very excited about that.
GUTFELD: Tata?
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
GUTFELD: Awesome. Oh, my gosh, Juan, it's your turn.
WILLIAMS: Oh, boy. OK, so...
GUTFELD: Guess what?
WILLIAMS: ... for the second time in three years, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry went to someone from the City University of New York system. This year, Tyehimba Jess won a Pulitzer for his poetry.
GUTFELD: Name one.
WILLIAMS: Jess, a Detroit native, had been working on the book, called "Olio," for seven years. His fellow CUNY poet, George Pedolo [SIC], won the award back in 2015 for his book, "Digest."
They say that this win shows the value of diversity and ambition in the City University of New York system. I would agree. There are only 21 categories in which you can win a Pulitzer. So this was quite a stunning victory.
PERINO: Yes, that's great.
WILLIAMS: Amazing.
GUTFELD: You know, you have to apply to win.
WILLIAMS: That's why you haven't won?
GUTFELD: Yes.
GUILFOYLE: By the way...
BOLLING: Can't somebody apply for you?
GUILFOYLE: Greg, by the way, you're going to be very jealous.
GUTFELD: Why?
GUILFOYLE: I've stolen Lou Dobbs.
GUTFELD: Oh! "Special Report" next!
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