House panels launch probe of Obama-era uranium deal

close

Video

House panels launch probe of Obama-era uranium deal

House Intelligence and Oversight Committees investigate uranium deal with Russia while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," October 24, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JESSE WATTERS, CO-HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters along with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Juan Williams, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld. It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."

A new Russia collusion probe in Washington, this one involving Hillary Clinton, the house intelligence and oversight committee is launching an investigation today into a uranium deal struck with Russia while Clinton was secretary of state. Here's a Republican intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunez.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF.: We're here today to announce as an inquiry into Russia's involvement into the uranium deal that was done several years ago. This is just the beginning of this probe. We are not going to jump to any conclusions at this time. But one of the things, as you know, that we're concerned about is whether or not there was an FBI investigation, was there a DOJ investigation, and if so, why was congress not informed of this matter?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: And another probe launched today into the Obama justice department's handling of the Clinton email investigation. More on that in a moment. But first, Hillary Clinton is fighting back against allegations she colluded with the Russians while secretary of state. She is of course blaming Republicans and Fox News for the focus on the questionable uranium deal with Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's the same baloney they've been peddling for years, and there's been no credible evidence by anyone. In fact, it's been debunked repeatedly and will continue to be debunked. But here's what they're doing, and really, I have to give them credit. You know, Trump and his allies, including Fox News, are really experts at distraction and diversion, so the closer the investigation about real Russian ties between Trump associates and real Russians, as we heard Jeff Sessions finally admit to in his testimony the other day, the more they want to just throw mud on the wall, and I'm their favorite target, me and, you know, President Obama, where the ones that they always like to put into the crosshairs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: OK. So famous sleight-of-hand by Hillary is that the scandal is already been debunked and that it's just a conspiracy theory, that's what happen with Lewinsky, Benghazi, the foundation paper play. Do you think that defense, Gutfeld, will work this time?

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: I don't know. I would say distraction would be like, bombing a country to divert from a sex scandal. That would be.

WATTERS: Who did that, I forget?

GUTFELD: I don't know. I go back to the most obvious point is, how do you buy uranium, we're obsessed with buying drugs on the dark net or guns from private dealers, and this story is about buying uranium. I mean, are we going to have a new commercial like, now has never been a better time to buy uranium? What's in your nuke? It makes no sense to me that that's not the big question. The next question is will the networks cover this investigation with the sweaty exuberance that they covered with the collusion because this really is a biased exposure flashlight, it will expose to your team sport, like if you like Hillary you won't do this, and if you hate Trump, you'll do that. So it will be interesting. I say investigate everything because it gives us more segments.

WATTERS: That's right. And we've had plenty of Hillary segments, as you guys have known.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

WATTERS: This time, I'm going to use a sports analogy for you, Ms. Perino.

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: OK. Thanks for the warning.

WATTERS: The Clintons don't have a lot of blockers out in front of them. They're not in the White House, Obama is not in the White House, there's no Democrats controlling any of these investigative committees.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: No Valerie Jarrett.

WATTERS: No Jarrett. They only have the media. Do you think the media is going to be enough to stop these investigations?

PERINO: Well, no. The investigations are going to go forward because once they start something, they start an inquiry it will happen. I do wonder at some point, is her book tour going to end? That is the thing that I think most Democrats would think, because were in the seventh week of a bookstore the interview she did with C-Span book TV. Great books, she's making a lot of money off of it. But every single day the reason we have segments about this is because she keeps talking.

WATTERS: That's true.

PERINO: If she haven't talk and then we probably wouldn't maybe put this down in the E-Block. But, I also think that, just as a refresher on this the way that you sell uranium, that's actually a very good point. But it has to go through this thing called CFIUS, which is the committee for foreign investment in the United States, and its all sorts of cabinet agencies have to approve this. So it's not just like the State Department line boss, it's commerce, treasury, energy department, others.

GUTFELD: (INAUDIBLE) It's like getting one of those big vacuum cleaners at the supermarket.

PERINO: I guess it is possible that the CFIUS committee did not know about the FBI investigation. That might be one of their excuses.

WATTERS: On the committee was Eric Holder, and his justice department had to be aware of the FBI investigation.

PERINO: Right. You can imagine though that they might say, oh, well, we didn't know, it didn't work its way up to the top. I don't know. That would be a pretty lame excuse, but it might be the one they come up with.

WATTERS: That's right. We were joking before the show, Kimberly, this might not be the sexiest scandal. Uranium, CFIUS.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: . it just doesn't have the typical Clinton scandal ingredients.

GUILFOYLE: You've made it sound like a communicable disease. So, actually, now it does have a whole other air to it.

WATTERS: Right. Do you think this will stick to Hillary, or do you think she's just going to get away with it like usual?

GUILFOYLE: Well, she's already visiting and trying to provide explanations and she's out there. And also, she's a little bit of a sitting duck as she continues to try to promote her book and make appearances. So then she's open and right for these types of questions. And as the evidence continues to develop and proliferate, there will be more questions for her to answer in terms of what she knew when and what kind of collusion that was. So this actually already seems to have a lot more like meat to it than anything you had to do with Trump and with Russian collusion. So fair play, we want to look into this and about dealings with Russia. This is an appropriate investigation. Especially like Dana said that it passed through CFIUS.

WATTERS: Sorry for butchering that.

GUILFOYLE: To make sure what they knew, did someone try to push it from there in the treasury department, et cetera, to say let's put this deal through? You know, kind of like a rodeo. Like, oh, stretch back, stretch back. I would like to say no, that they're above either approach and that type of things and really operate independently, but you don't know. That's why you have these committee oversight hearings so that we can actually get to the bottom of it and drill down to say, wait a second, who knew what? Was Hillary directly involved? Was a surrogate from her in a meaningful capacity in a relationship aware of this and tried to put it forward? Was this something that the Obama administration let go through? Since, you know, people feel Hillary got the election taken away from her when she could have been the nominee with him with the Franklin commemorative plate? Who knows?

WATTERS: Juan, if I was asking Hillary a question, this is what I would say. Hillary, Russian oligarchs sent about $145 million to your foundation. Do you think that's because they wanted to help cure diseases in Africa, or do you think that's because they wanted you to sign off on their uranium deal?

JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Well, it can't be the latter because she wasn't secretary of state when the overwhelming amount of money was given to the foundation.

WATTERS: When was that, Juan?

WILLIAMS: So it was more than 18 months before she became secretary of state. So the timing just doesn't work.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: And then she becomes secretary of state and signs off on it. That's usually how it works.

WILLIAMS: No. She doesn't have the power to sign off on it. She was one member of a nine-member commission whose name you keep screwing up. So.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: I will continue to do that.

WILLIAMS: I know. So to me, the news here was that the hill reported this week that in fact you had a number of people who were Russian mobsters, billionaire type, who suddenly wanted to influence the U.S. energy industry, were making contributions and all. And so that was new, that we know, oh, gee, the Russians are involved here, because we knew about the money flowing in, it's more than $140 million that went to the Clinton Foundation. Peter reported this a long time ago. The New York Times has reported on it. It has been examined, nothing has been found. And as I say, the timing is way off, Jesse. The problem is the timing of these donations.

WATTERS: Why do you think these Russians donated 145 million to the foundation, Juan?

WILLIAMS: No. I think they're trying to buy influence and they're trying to raise their stature here in the United States, so that they can have political favors.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, so they did it with her.

WILLIAMS: But they didn't do it in such a way that you could say, oh, we've got evidence now of a quid pro quo involving Hillary Clinton. What we really got here is what Hillary Clinton said. Republicans who decide, you know what, it's time to distract, it's time to disrupt, it's time to divert from the investigations into, guess who, Donald Trump, and so suddenly this is the counter offense.

GUILFOYLE: But does this make this less credible or less problematic? I don't think so at all. Whether you had an investigation into Trump and Russian collusion and what was going on at Trump Tower, doesn't matter. This on its own warrants an investigation. So I don't think -- to me, it doesn't matter if you say, well, this is the counter to that, oh, because you did this to me, I'm going to do this to you. You know, playground payback.

WILLIAMS: That's what it looks like to me.

GUILFOYLE: Well, do you say that this is a credible investigation, something that should be investigated if there's.

WILLIAMS: But it has been.

GUTFELD: What you're getting at is that the media has been flipping out over Russia, perhaps purchasing Facebook accounts.

PERINO: A $100,000 worth.

GUTFELD: Yeah, $100,000 with the Facebook accounts. And suddenly, Russia is inherently malicious. It's like in 2016, Russia is so evil that they purchased $100,000 in Facebook accounts, but maybe a couple years ago, around 2010, they were so wonderful and likable, we thought they were so great, we sold them 20 percent of the uranium. That's the story, the story that they were OK back then, so we gave them something that will destroy the earth, but they're buying Facebook accounts. By the way.

GUILFOYLE: Wasn't that like six cases of vodka equivalent?

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: The idea for Hillary, because I think that this is her next career, she should do a TV show called, What Happened. And she just sits there and explains everything like -- so the uranium, what happened?

PERINO: And the conclusion of every show could show like a flowchart.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: . leads right back to the Republicans and Fox News.

GUTFELD: Exactly. It could be Monica, travel-gate, white water, the debate scandal, it could be an entire series. "What Happened," 9 p.m., MSNBC.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: They need a host there.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: The president and GOP lawmakers unite to talk tax reform on Capitol Hill, but the big talk in Washington, the reignited feud between Mr. Trump and Senator Corker, and a very big dramatic announcement from Senator Jeff Flake up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: We're following two big stories on Capitol Hill today. President Trump made his way there to meet with Republicans on tax reform, but the visit was overshadowed by a reignited feud between he and one of the participants at the lunch, Senator Bob Corker. They traded personal insults hours before the get together. How charming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the campaign -- the beginning of the administration you supported the president. Do you regret that now?

SEN. BOB CORKER, R-TENN.: Well, what do you think? I was one of those that hoped that, you know, he would rise to the occasion as president and aspire to lead our nation instead of dividing it.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think the president is debasing the nation?

CORKER: I don't think there's any question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: The president's response in just a moment. The other big news, another fierce Trump critic, Senator Jeff Flake, announced he will not seek reelection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF FLAKE, R-ARIZ.: The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak and silence can equal complicity. I have children and grandchildren to answer to. And so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent. It is also clear to me for the moment that we have given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more visually satisfied anger and resentment. But anger and resentment are not the governing philosophy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Let's bring in our chief White House correspondent following it all, John Roberts. Hi, John.

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: Kimberly, good afternoon to you. That really was an extraordinary moment that you play just there, and never in all the time that I've covered the White House or American politics have I ever seen a Republican rise in the senate to denounce their own presidents in the way that Senator Jeff Flake did. I mean, we had these feuds that were kind of, you know, existing on the periphery such as the Bob Corker feud, which we'll get into in just a couple of minutes. But for Flake to stand up there in such an emotional way denounce President Trump really was something that I have never seen before. I mean, saying that his behavior was reckless, outrageous, and undignified, really making a point there that he believes that the president is taking the country down the wrong direction.

But, Washington being a tough political place though it is, the White House is saying, well, no big deal, it just means that we don't have to run anybody against Jeff Flake in the primary next year because the president had been supporting Kelly Ward who's running against him, and this really is a major win for the Bannon wing of the Republican Party. Steve Bannon, you remember after he left the White House, was vowing that he was going to launch primary challenges against every establishment Republican out there who he believed was not supporting President Trump's agenda. Let's listen to what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier today in the Brady briefing room about Flake announcing his resignation. Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY SARAH SANDERS: I think that based on previous statement, and certainly based on the lack of support that he has from the people of Arizona, is probably a good move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: And then there's the other thing, which was the long running feud between the president and Tennessee senator Bob Corker, that was reignited today, and it was the senator who reignited it. The last time it was reignited it was President Trump, this morning it was Senator Corker when he was on NBC television on the morning program talking about how he didn't appreciate the fact that President Trump was weighing in on the senate process to write the tax reform legislation when he tweeted out yesterday that 401(k) contributions were off limits in terms of trying to pay for tax reform. Well, that just ignited a back-and-forth that went on for the better part of the day. I asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the briefing why the president would engage in something like that when he's got a legislative issue as big as tax reform on the table, in the senate, and he's trying to develop momentum for that and this only seems to be a distraction. Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Why is the president engaging?

SANDERS: He's a fighter. We've said it many times before. The people of this country didn't elect somebody to be weak. They elected somebody to be strong. And when he gets hit he's going to hit back. And I think Senator Corker knows that and he's, you know, maybe trying to get a headline or two on his way out the door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: May be trying to get a headline or two on his way out the door. Ouch. What's really interesting too, Kimberly, is that both Senator Corker and Senator Flake were at that Republican luncheon that the president was at today, though Senator Corker tended to dismiss the whole thing saying, well, President Trump didn't talk much about tax reform anyways. Ouch.

GUILFOYLE: OK. Thank you. Ouch. Ouch indeed. Thank you, John. OK, Greg, you've been so active over on the end of the table with your reaction.

GUTFELD: Flake seems like a good guy, but he really pissed me off when he said that we have children and grandchildren to answer for, that straight out of the climate change B.S. that we hear from the left. Like, if you don't act now you're going to be answering to future generations. So basically what he's saying is that if you don't do what he's doing, you're complicit. You're guilty. You're guilty if you support Trump -- unlike him, which by the way, I believe what he did was a predetermined decision that was disconnected to the statement that he made. He was going whether Trump was there or not, and the reason is it's not about Trump, it's about the voters.

If his principles are strong, and they're very strong, according to him, you should run unless you feel that you're out of step with the electorate. I think he feels that he's out of step with the electorate because if he believes, and this is the bottom line here, if he believes that there is a serious threat to the democracy, which he said, that it is his obligation to stay and fight and not cut and run. So that's why this doesn't make sense to me, and for him to then say we have children, I hate the what about the children thing because that is -- basically he's saying, we're bad people because we're not agreeing with him. Screw you. Sorry. And I like him. Imagine if I didn't.

GUILFOYLE: That would be uncomfortable because that certainly was a little weird.

PERINO: Well, I agree. I think using people's children is not good for any of this and not just in politics. The thing that's interesting is he voted with President Trump 92 percent of the time. One of the things about him from his political standpoint is he's actually probably to the right of where President Trump is, and that has been a bit of a problem. But for him, he's coming out like its tone and tenor, OK? And his character and I'm bothered by it. And so, look, I think it's good if he decides he's going to leave, he might have lost anyway, OK? He's been unpopular since about 2013 with the voters and if he thought that he just can't do it anymore. Was interesting to me is that he's deciding to stay through the end of his term, and so is Senator Corker, so both of these guys are going to be around.

And so, President Trump, actually, is going to rely on them, hopefully, for their votes because he's going to need them. I think the problem too is something that -- for all of us -- a quote from the Bush feed last week where he's talked about, we judge others by their worst offenses, but ourselves by our best intentions. It's just sort of a reminder that everybody needs to have a little humility here that perhaps the party is evolving in a way that some people are not going to be brought along.

GUTFELD: Right.

PERINO: And so that means that that's fine. But what all of this has done on the Republican side as mask, but it's happening on the Democratic side, too. You have most Democrats in California refusing to endorse Senator Diane Feinstein, who just announce her re-election. They're talking about Medicare for all. They're pulling the party so far left but we're not actually able to talk about that because we have all these internal fights on the right.

GUILFOYLE: My goodness.

PERINO: And I would also say that Jim Jeffords of Vermont, when he decided to switch parties and become a Democrat, he actually did rise on the floor and go after George W. Bush.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah. Very good point because there is some political precedent for that, so this wouldn't be a one offer first time. Jesse?

WATTERS: Yes. I mean, Flake has now announced he's part of the resistance, and good riddance. We don't need him, it's fine.

PERINO: You kind of need him for the votes.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: I don't think as a patriot he's going to vote to kill tax reform, because if he did that he'll be a complete hypocrite. I'm also a little annoyed at little Bob. I mean, I always thought this guy was a serious person and he was a decent policy chops, but now he's embarrassing himself. He looks weak to complain that the president is bullying you. I mean, there's guys on Wall Street that wake up every morning and tear the throats out of their competition. Have you ever heard of marine drill sergeant talk? Or how about these coal miners in there? Do you think after a hard day's work they go complain and moan about their boss? It's silly. And for a guy with a Ferragamo tie, and soft hands, and cufflinks, and craft hair, who works three days a week to come out and say, you know what, the president is being mean to me.

GUILFOYLE: Look at your hair and tie. And your hands.

WATTERS: I'm not complaining about being bullied.

GUILFOYLE: Your hands are soft like a baby.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

WATTERS: And that's from the gym, Gutfeld. And also to say that he's debasing the presidency, I think Bill Clinton already handled that. And then also, Obama was much more polarizing than President Trump. He left office the country was historically polarized on racial class and religious grounds. The media calls Trump a lying, narcissistic, mentally unstable white supremacist.

GUILFOYLE: And also unhinged.

WATTERS: . and Trump is the one that's dividing the country? I think what happened was Corker shot his mouth off, Trump buried him on twitter, he caught a lot of heat back home, he didn't know what to do, so he ran to his only place for comfort which is bashing Trump in front of the mainstream media.

WILLIAMS: Oh, my goodness. Wow.

GUILFOYLE: Jesse, what do you have to say? Anything else, or are you done? The Ferragamo was the best.

(LAUGHTER)

GUILFOYLE: He's good. All right, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, this is so amazing to me. You guys will defend Trump. Trump is on twitter this morning. Let me just tell you, here's what Trump had to say about his fellow Republican senators, that as Dana pointed out, he needs in order to achieve some kind of tax cut, not tax reform. He called him a man who couldn't get elected dog catcher.

WATTERS: Funny.

WILLIAMS: He said that he refused to endorse him. And now it's only negative on anything Trump. He said he's a lightweight senator. He said Bob parker has set the United States back. He said that Bob Corker is an incompetent head of the foreign relations committee, and look how poorly the U.S. has done as a result. And then, of course, you have not just Bob Corker saying that, you know, this is adult day care over there, you have, of course, his own secretary of state calling him a moron. You have President Bush talking about how he has opened the door to white supremacy. You have President Obama talking about division. You have, you know, Senator McConnell saying this guy is politically inexperienced, John McCain talking about him being the most divisive. And yet here, everybody says, no, no, no, it's just the mainstream media picking on Trump. Oh, no, it's Bob Corker. Bob Corker is really responsible.

GUTFELD: What we're saying here is what we've been saying for a year and a half. We understand the tone and the tenor is different. We get that. And people get upset, including us, we've all gotten upset about what Trump says as opposed to what Trump does. If you get wrapped up in the words you will never figure out what's actually going on in the rest of the world, how America views Trump, what's actually happening. You've got to separate the words from the deeds. We've all been upset about what Trump said, but then you look at what's being done, whether it's the stock market, it's unemployment, it's ISIS, it's North Korea, it's deregulation, you go, I'll take the rudeness. I will.

GUILFOYLE: All right. So Greg is saying beware of semantic quicksand. Ahead, new developments in the search for answers on the deadly ambush in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers. We're live in the Pentagon, next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: Tomorrow the Senate Armed Services Committee will receive a classified briefing from military leaders on the attack in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers and injured two earlier this month. The joint chiefs of staff chair laid out the timeline of the ambush yesterday, revealing it took more than an hour for troops to call for help, but he didn't want to speculate on why.

For more on the investigation let's go to national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin at the Pentagon. Jennifer, do we know anything more after that briefing from yesterday?

JENNIFER GRIFFIN, FOX NEWS: Well, Dana, General Dunford was asked yesterday whether he blamed the U.S. Special Forces on the ground for not calling for air support for a full hour after the attack began. We now know it took a full two hours after the first shots were fired for French fighter jets to appear overhead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS: When they requested support, it took the French aircraft -- the French were ready to go in 30 minutes and then it took them 30 minutes, approximately 30 minutes to get on the scene.

It's important to note that when they didn't ask for support for that first hour, my judgment would be that that unit thought they could handle the situation without additional support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: That's different from the timeline first provided by the Pentagon, saying the French jets were overhead within 30 minutes.

We now know an unarmed drone was nearby and retasked over the attack site within minutes. General Dunford said he has not yet viewed the video from that drone, which may help explain more about how Sergeant La David Johnson got separated from the rest of the group. General Dunford said once he learned Sergeant Johnson was missing, he brought the full weight of the U.S. military to search for him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: General Dunford, when did you alert the White House?

DUNFORD: We notified the White House as soon as we had a soldier that was missing. It was probably around 9 or 9:30 Washington, D.C., time the night of the fourth; and at that point, knowing that we had a missing soldier, we made the decision to make sure that all of the resources, to include national assets, were available.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIFFIN: Sergeant Johnson's body was discovered two days later by Nigerian forces, we now know, and returned to U.S. troops.

General Dunford said that U.S. troops in Niger are not allowed to accompany local forces if they expect enemy contact. The Special Forces unit that was ambushed had only been in Niger for a few weeks, Dana.

PERINO: Jennifer Griffin, thank you for that update. We appreciate it.

Kimberly, your thoughts?

GUILFOYLE: OK. So -- so this is -- first of all, in terms of the way we do intelligence gathering and special operations, this type of mission and what they were doing is very consistent with what our SEALs do, what Rangers do, what Green Berets do. We've done this in Afghanistan. And you will have elite forces like this set up a meeting with some of the local elders or tribal leaders to try to discuss this.

So this was a group that had been known to be somewhat sympathetic to ISIS, but they're trying to make inroads and push in, right? So that's not just using military force but also, in a way, trying to do diplomacy and sit down. They're specially trained to do this.

What happened is they go in to do this and right now, the mounting intelligence supports they were set up for an ambush. They tried to delay them when they were having this meeting so that when they left on a little bit of a delay of a tick-tock from when they were supposed to depart, they got hit.

PERINO: Attacked.

GUILFOYLE: And it makes a particularly vulnerable in this area, conducting missions in North Africa, because of the limits that we have militarily. We're not allowed to have armed drones. So yes, you had an unarmed drone there that can bring in, with real-time intelligence, what's going down on the ground. Sadly, that's not enough to be able to provide immediate support if somebody is being ambushed and to jump in.

So now, versus in Benghazi, so the people out there, this is the left's Benghazi, trying to say, "Oh, what's going on? Why don't you talk about this?" We're getting far more information about the timeline, the specifics, the type of mission conducted, the number of forces there, and exactly what went wrong, versus Sunday shows, somebody pushing a video to come up with a false narrative to avoid any kind of criticism or responsibility for lives lost.

PERINO: You saw Michael Tomasky in The Daily Beast this morning told liberals, "Do not call this the -- Trump's Benghazi" because of what we were saying yesterday.

GUTFELD: Well, it -- because then that means that that media has to finally admit that Benghazi mattered.

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: So if you're going to keep accusing. The fact is, this obviously isn't Benghazi, because this was a terror -- these were -- this was a mission of 30 missions which were not -- I think 29 missions similar to this, which were not top-secret. People knew about it; you could read about it. Congressmen and senators know about it. We need that we were fighting ISIS over there and not here.

These events are always confusing, as Kimberly says, but I think, you know what? The thing is, we didn't -- we're trying to do the right thing this time. We are not blaming this on a movie. And if you think blaming it on a movie was a small matter...

GUILFOYLE: Or jailing the filmmaker.

GUTFELD: Yes, or jailing -- jailing a filmmaker, if you think that's a small matter, continue [SIC] that that only helped reduce the focus on actually fighting terror. That if you had acknowledged that that was a terror attack, that that would have renewed your vigor in fighting terror. But instead you focused your energies on a filmmaker and a film, because you were so worried about tarnishing the White House.

PERINO: And it was also right before the election.

GUTFELD: Also, one more point about drone surveillance? I mentioned before that this is why drones are important. There was a surveillance drone there but not at the right spot, apparently.

WILLIAMS: Well, let me say, I do think that there are some real issues there. And I think the No. 1 issue would have to be, as General Dunford said today, we didn't know how long our guys were there without any support. He doubled the amount of time that they were left unprotected.

GUTFELD: I'm happy to be finding stuff out.

WILLIAMS: No, but I'm saying, this is not the information we had.

And of course part of this is also, why are they traveling there in unarmored vehicles without support, given that this is the spot, that border with Mali, Niger and Mali, were more U.N. peacekeeping troops have been killed than anywhere else in the world.

GUILFOYLE: Ambushed.

WILLIAMS: So it is a dangerous place. For some reason, they're there. For some reason, they come back to have a second meeting on that very day, and that's what happens.

Now, as a result, Senator Graham today, Senator Schumer across the aisle said, "We had no idea that these troops were there." Nobody authorized these troops to be fighting in Africa.

GUILFOYLE: No, no, no, no.

PERINO: That's not true.

WILLIAMS: Oh, no, it goes back to the 9/11 authorization of military force.

GUTFELD: It's in the documents.

WILLIAMS: Yes. So they're saying, "No, we didn't even know."

GUILFOYLE: That's not...

WILLIAMS: And remember, these are the people who are in the Senate running our foreign relations, running our military; and they didn't know.

GUILFOYLE: Because guess what? They're letting the commanders and the people there in the field that are in the arena make the decisions. About micromanaging, about whether or not you have a tribal leader, a background to get a good, fortuitous outcome. That's not what happened.

We don't have time to go back and try and, like, page whoever senator, this and that.

WILLIAMS: This is a civilian government. A civilian government...

GUILFOYLE: These are Green Berets going in very different from a U.N. peacekeeping mission. If anybody can handle...

WILLIAMS: I'm just saying, the American...

PERINO: Can we give the last word to Jesse?

WILLIAMS: ... people didn't know. The American leadership didn't know.

GUTFELD: It was documented. They saw it.

PERINO: All right. Jesse.

WATTERS: Yes. They didn't know, because they weren't paying attention.

GUTFELD: Right. Yes.

WATTERS: We've seen the documents. They clearly say this is how many troops are in Niger.

GUTFELD: Exactly.

WATTERS: This is what they're doing there, and this is why they're there. So to pretend like they're out of the loop, well, it's pretty obvious they're just trying to cover their back.

PERINO: All right. The long-classified JFK files could be released in days. Will they finally put the assassination conspiracy theories to rest? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: The clock is ticking. Forty-eight hours until Americans finally have access to all the long-secret files in the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. Trump says he doesn't plan to block Thursday's scheduled release of more than 3,000 documents never seen before by the public.

Now, some Americans still distrust the government's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole killer. Jesse, have you found anything out?

WATTERS: No, not yet. We're waiting for Thursday. I'm just going to be happy to talk about something else besides President Trump for a few days.

GUILFOYLE: No, you wouldn't.

WATTERS: It will be very refreshing. I don't know even if the president can, you know, be as big as this story.

But, you know, I'm not really sure there's going to be a big bombshell. I think when you have things like happen like the assassination or 9/11 or the Vegas massacre, people look for answers, because they can't really understand how something could be so pure evil.

But I'm thinking, don't stop there, Donald. I say, you know, release the UFO files. Go all in; do everything, clean house. Get it all out there. Everybody would love it.

WILLIAMS: What about Obama's birth certificate?

WATTERS: Well, listen...

GUILFOYLE: This will be better than The Enquirer.

WATTERS: Listen -- hasn't that already been proven, Juan?

WILLIAMS: No. I think Donald was forced to do that.

But Kimberly, do you think, as I understand it now, Roger Stone, who's been an advisor to President Trump, says the one person trying to stop the release Thursday is Mike Pompeo, the CIA director. Apparently, the CIA may not have done a good job of surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City a month before the shooting. What do you think?

GUILFOYLE: OK. Well, that's entirely possible. If he's saying it, I'm sure he has some information to support that.

Here's the thing. I don't think that President Trump wants to be like, remember that time our buddy, like Geraldo, went to the Capone vault, and there was, like, nothing inside?

WATTERS: Why do you have to bring that up?

GUILFOYLE: I have a feeling that President -- I love you, Geraldo. OK, so I think that President Trump has a good idea what's in those files, and that's why he's doing it. Just so we're clear on that.

WILLIAMS: Dana, do you want them released or not?

PERINO: Yes, I do. I want a lot of other things too, like the Roswell thing I think would be very good to know.

GUILFOYLE: Definitely.

PERINO: I agree with that.

But also, I didn't really know too much about -- I guess I didn't really remember the whole trip to Mexico City that Lee Harvey Oswald took and how that could actually play into it. So I think getting some clarity on that would be great.

WILLIAMS: Gregory, do you believe this is true?

GUTFELD: You know who's trying to stop this?

WILLIAMS: Who?

GUTFELD: Ted Cruz. We all know why.

WATTERS: Yes, the dad.

GUTFELD: You can look into it.

Again, Trump may be one of the most transparent politicians ever if he does this, but I'm with you about Area 51. It's time that I come clean about it, about why we're here and how long we've been here. What do we want from you earthlings.

No. 1, to stop the spreading of the man bun to our planet.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

GUTFELD: And to finally destroy the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That's why we are here in Area 51, a highly-classified, remote Air Force facility.

WATTERS: Just don't probe us.

GUILFOYLE: And -- and remove "Love, Actually" from the video film library.

GUTFELD: I'm working on the "Love, Actually" piece right now. You don't see it on TV any more. I got rid of it.

GUILFOYLE: By the way, they stopped running those weekend marathons.

WILLIAMS: All right, all right. Enough of the aliens.

Coming up, Halloween is around the corner. Yes, it is. And the PC police, oh, my gosh, out again, this time complaining about costumes.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh.

WILLIAMS: My friend Gregory takes them on, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: It's that time of the year when losers lecture us on unacceptable Halloween costumes for kids that aren't even their own.

This time Redbook editors demand you don't let your little girl dress as Disney's Moana. They write, "Maybe think about using this Halloween to teach your kids about the importance of cultural sensitivity. If your kid wears a racist costume, you're kind of wearing it, too."

So some miserable editor who can't even put her name on the piece accuses you of racism when, in fact, she's the racist for promoting cultural segregation.

A child dresses up as a fictional character because she loves that character.

GUILFOYLE: Or he.

GUTFELD: Rather than encouraging empathy, Redbook encourages separatism. So, all races should just stay in their lane? I guess a Polynesian child can't be Snow White?

And what if this were not about ethnicity but gender? What if I wanted to dress up as Moana or Wonder Woman or Susan B. Anthony? Would Redbook deny my non-binary gender identity? How cis-gender can you be, you bigots?

That's identity politics. It turns on itself and gobbles all the weak thinkers up. And yet, the media still embraces this junk. Why is that? Well, I worked in magazines. I know. These editors despise their feeble contributions to society. So they use attention-seeking pronouncements of moral superiority to impress their peers.

The fact is, a child dressing up as Moana doesn't make her racist. It means she sees past ethnicity to choose someone to emulate.

GUILFOYLE: Yes!

GUTFELD: Unlike these nameless Redbook editors. I'd go as one of them on Halloween, but we have enough zombies out there.

WATTERS: Well done.

GUTFELD: I'm all phlegmy, Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: You should -- oh, God. You ruined it.

WATTERS: You were doing so well.

GUTFELD: I was. And then I shot myself in the foot.

GUILFOYLE: Take a Mucinex D and get back to me.

GUTFELD: Thoughts around the table.

GUILFOYLE: I think that was fantastic. One of your best monologues of all time.

GUTFELD: Oh, thank you.

GUILFOYLE: I mean, children get it. They're more evolved than the rest of us, to be honest, because they're not second-guessing it. They are pure in thought and love and emotion, to say, "This is somebody I like watching." Whether it's boys or girls love Moana.

GUTFELD: Yes.

GUILFOYLE: Everybody loves Moana.

They did this now, this like hyper-cultural sensitivity, because on "Saturday Night Live" you had like, Melissa McCarthy, fake Spicer, during the whole travel ban with the Moana doll, and be like, "Oh, Moana, we're reading all your emails and you're not right." Boom, and they tossed Moana in the box. "You're not getting to get in."

GUTFELD: Yes.

GUILFOYLE: And then they did regular Barbie, et cetera.

So that's what's happening here. It's like a knee-jerk reaction.

GUTFELD: Yes. You know, Juan, you wanted to go as Madonna, but because you're not a woman you can't.

WILLIAMS: Well, Jesse wouldn't go with me. He said -- he said he's not putting up with that.

GUTFELD: Yes.

WILLIAMS: But you know, so I was listening, because I don't like political correctness. But I was thinking, as I was listening to you, what would you say about blackface, where you had white people who for much of our history were -- you know, thought, "Oh, great, I'll just act like a stupid black person, mock black people."

GUILFOYLE: Terrible.

WILLIAMS: And, you know, if you complain about it, you're politically correct.

GUTFELD: So a little girl dressing up as Moana is the equivalent of blackface?

WILLIAMS: No, I'm saying it's a cultural appropriation, is the term used these days. But is it the case that, if you put on a headdress you say, "Oh, it's just a hat." You don't say -- oh, no. But to the people who created it, it has great significance.

GUTFELD: You're playing a fictional character.

WILLIAMS: OK.

GUTFELD: You're not putting on blackface.

GUILFOYLE: It's completely separate and distinctive.

GUTFELD: Jesse.

WATTERS: It was a great monologue, and I'm glad you did it, because I'm going to use it to plug my weekend show. We are doing a "Watters' World" offensive Halloween costume edition this weekend. Saturday night, we're going to have some staff dress up as Moana...

GUTFELD: Oh, my gosh.

WATTERS: ... dress up as a Border Patrol agent...

GUTFELD: Oh, no.

WATTERS: ... dress up as Donald Trump and Colin Kaepernick.

WILLIAMS: What about the wall?

WATTERS: And going to go out into the streets -- and the wall.

WILLIAMS: I want the wall.

WATTERS: And we're going to see if people are offended.

GUTFELD: Are you going to run this by anybody first?

GUILFOYLE: Is management listening?

GUTFELD: Somebody better check it out.

Dana.

PERINO: Look, I would love to see little girls dressed up as Moana. How about that?

GUTFELD: There you go.

PERINO: As a defiance of political correctness.

GUILFOYLE: I think it's so cute.

GUTFELD: "One More Thing," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WATTERS: It's time now for "One More Thing" -- Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: It's time for...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Kimberly's Royal News.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: OK, fine. Da, da-da, da, dah! Meets "The Food Court," which you have no time for the graphic.

OK, fine. Move over, Burger King, because there's now a burger queen. Indeed. Queen Elizabeth, the queen of England, owns a McDonald's franchise about 80 miles outside of London.

So the restaurant really isn't her personal property. It is owned by the crown estate, and all profits go to the treasury. But notice she picked McDonald's, right? That tells you something.

Now, although it's not affecting palates, customers do get the royal treatment. You've got Samsung tablets, table service, free wi-fi. I mean, that's enough of a reason to book a trip to London.

So in honor of this, we're feeding Jesse again. With 25 quarter pounders, fries, barbecue sauce and chicken nuggets.

WATTERS: That's right. Get some sauce. No sauce?

GUTFELD: No, I'm sauce free.

WATTERS: Juan.

WILLIAMS: So this Halloween, the Guinness world record king, Ashrita Furman, he's jumping for joy. He will soon have two new Halloween-themed records to go with his existing 600.

This time around he smashed a record 31 pumpkins in one minute. He also caught 47 pieces of caramel corn in his mouth thrown from 6 feet away in less than a minute.

GUILFOYLE: Wow. That's not easy.

WILLIAMS: Let me just say, this guy is not only ambitious, he's thrifty. He collected the pumpkins scraps, and now he's going to have pies made out of them.

GUILFOYLE: Wow.

WATTERS: Pies. I'm hungry.

GUTFELD: He's pathological. Let's go to this.

GUILFOYLE: Smashing pumpkins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Greg's Sports Corner

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: All right. Don't count your goals before they're hatched. Behold the greatest play in soccer history.

He missed it, right? Guy thinks he won. But then the ball bounces back.

PERINO: No way!

GUTFELD: Let's laugh at his misfortune. Laugh at his misfortune. We'll watch it one more time, and then we'll move on.

PERINO: Where was that?

GUTFELD: I don't know, Thailand.

WATTERS: All right. I hate to do this to Juan, but my Eagles smoked the Skins last night. Juan says he's not politically correct, but he wouldn't actually say the name "Redskins."

There is Carson Wentz escaping from the pocket. Everybody thought he was sacked. Went in there for a first down, had a great game.

Also, Wentz is doing something very special. He became friends with a young boy about ten years old. The guy had stomach cancer. His name is Lucas Custer. He's wearing a bracelet in honor of Lucas. Lucas recently passed away. And played a heck of a game last night in honor of Lucas, so hats off to Wentz and the Custers family.

WILLIAMS: Did you know that he's buried in Wentz's jersey?

WATTERS: No way.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

WATTERS: That's a beautiful thing.

GUILFOYLE: Say a prayer for them.

WATTERS: And the whole entire state has -- Wentzylvania now. We're not calling that Pennsylvania; Wentzylvania.

Dana, we're not going to be able to get to you.

PERINO: No, but I will say that tomorrow I have the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara Bush, with their new book. They're going to be on the 2 p.m. show. Jesse is very excited to meet them.

WATTERS: "Special Report"...

GUILFOYLE: Your show is great...

WATTERS: ...is up next.

Content and Programming Copyright 2017 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2017 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.