Rep. Bob Goodlatte on chain migration, FBI revelations

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Rep. Bob Goodlatte on chain migration, FBI revelations

The Virginia congressman goes on 'The Ingraham Angle' to discuss immigration and the ‘missing’ text messages.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 23, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Welcome to "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington. We have an action-packed show tonight, oh, my gosh. Hollywood is a lavishing film that glorifies under age sex with Academy Award nominations for giving everything that happens, are they kidding me?

And John Bolton on Donald Trump's big trip to elite land, Davos World Economic Forum, and why Trump once again outfoxed his critics.

Plus, Ann Coulter on a new California law. I kid you not, that could let illegal immigrants vote.

But first, the deep-state strikes back, and Schumer's revenge. That's the focus of tonight's Angle.

You all remember when liberals went nuts when they found out that George W. Bush when he was a candidate for the presidency was a member of Skull and Bones. It's that Yale University super mysterious club that was founded in 1832. So creepy.

Well, it turns out that, according to an informant, anti-Trump FBI investigator Peter Strzok and his gal pal, FBI lawyer Lisa Page spoke in text messages about a secret society. Within the FBI itself, that was convened apparently off-site, presumably.

To discuss things like insurance policies and other benevolent matters involving Donald Trump. Senator Ron Johnson today was flabbergasted at what he learned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON JOHNSON, R-WIS.: What this is all about is further evidence of corruption at the highest levels of the FBI. A secret society? We have an informant that is talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here. There are similar individuals highly biased, political operatives burrowed into the Department of Justice as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: You combine this with the sudden missing five months of texts between the two lovebirds, and you do have a full-blown corruption scandal on your hands, involving the very people that are leading the investigation into both Mrs. Clinton's private email server and of the Russia collusion nonsense evolving Trump.

How our heads not already rolling just knowing what we know now? On my radio show this morning, former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, he made the case that this all indicates that we need a big change of leadership at the FBI and at the Justice Department.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY (via telephone): It's quite apparent that Christopher Wray is not up to the job of being FBI director, that he is undermining his credibility, not strengthening it, and that he is completely, completely controlled by the upper bureaucracy of the FBI.

The other real problem is Rod Rosenstein. I don't think there is any, any doubt whatsoever that Rosenstein is too close to Comey, too close to Mueller, too close to Wray, and too close to a whole bunch of people.

Jeff sessions seems to have decided that if he could have a little bit of fun within the boundaries of the playing field, and not get anybody mad at him, that's going to be enough to get the job done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: It was ugly. It was brutal. And I have to say, the American public has a right to know what, if any, crimes or other improprieties were committed by the members of the Obama administration and members of the current FBI.

But I have to tell you, the bleeding has got to stop now. The DOJ and the FBI, they have to be purged of anyone actively working to undermine the Trump administration with a political agenda and be purged of anyone who refused to remove those or report those committing this type of wrongdoing, who is serving from the government.

They shouldn't be serving the government at all. I'm not talking, just don't transfer them to another office, they should be fired.

And now onto Schumer's revenge. They were brief moments in the lead up to the government shutdown last week when chuck Schumer seemed to be coming to his senses on the issue of the law. Here he was on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., MINORITY LEADER: In exchange for strong DACA protections, I reluctantly put the border wall on the table for discussion. Even that was not enough to entice the president into finishing the deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now it's been announced that Chuck is taking border wall funding off the table in an immigration policy negotiation. This man has probably lost his mind. He just had his political clock cleaned for this ridiculous government shutdown the got him nothing.

Now he's going to take away the one immigration must have for Republicans in the White House. I don't think so. As for the moronic Flake-Graham-Durbin bill that Trump and nix last week, that all led to Schumer shutting down the government in that big hissy fit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Two weeks ago, we outlined a path forward on four issues, serious border security, an end to chain migration, cancellation of the outdated and unsafe visa lottery, and a permanent solution to DACA.

Unfortunately, the Flake-Graham-Durbin agreement does not meet these benchmarks. In fact, it would not secure our border, encourage more illegal immigration, increase chain migration, and retain the visa lottery system. In short, is totally unacceptable to the president and should be declared dead on arrival.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I love hearing dead on arrival when it comes to a bad immigration bill. Building the border wall was not just the president's signature campaign issue, it's what the American people want.

Remember that new Harvard-Harris poll we told you about last night? A lot of people haven't focused on it. It showed that 61 percent of those surveyed feel border security today is inadequate, 54 percent of respondents want a wall or other barrier built across the U.S.-Mexican border. It couldn't be clearer.

And while Americans do want to help the DACA people, I guess, and give some kind of protection to them, they don't want to be left defenseless to do it. That makes sense. Look, Chuck Schumer is under enormous pressure these days.

A host of left-wing interest groups are insisting that he resist the president and fight him on everything, including immigration. Now why are they doing this? Because they want to see the dawn of a new governing majority, and it's coming across the border.

In the spring of next year, we will talk about this later on with Coulter. California will begin automatically registering any adults who obtains or renews a driver's license to vote in the state. California has been granting driver's license to illegal since 2015.

Fox News estimates that a million illegal immigrants already have secured a license to drive in the golden state, by the end of last year. So, now turning them into instant voters is sure to change the outcome of any election, now that there is a super majority in the state for Democrats, but still that is shocking.

And speaking of these issues that the president and so many of us, and I know so many of you really care about, you hear a lot about chain migration. I thought it was really important for you to understand what it is, how it transforms the country, and why it must end, also part of the Trump must haves on immigration.

This is a White House graphic that we share with you exclusively tonight. For every hour the U.S. settles enough migrants to fill a small auditorium. That's really small print. Every day, enough to feel a large high school. Every month, we settle enough to fill an entire football stadium to capacity.

Every year, an immigrant population larger than the size of Washington, D.C. Every year, we resettle 174,000 parents of foreign born, naturalized citizens. Most of those are older, elderly. They're not going to be paying a lot of taxes. They will be taking a lot of services out.

They are paying basically nothing in the system once they are naturalized and immediately qualify for all the wherefore programs that you pay for their retirement. In all of this, probably -- and at Harvard-Harris poll, 65 percent to 35 percent of Americans support a doctor a DACA deal that ends chain migration, eliminates the visa lottery, and secures the border wall.

Seventy nine percent of the people in the same poll want immigration based on merit, not family ties so 79 percent agree with the president. It's time for the Democrats to start putting the hopes and dreams of the American people first.

It is now crystal clear that Schumer and the Democrats are going to run over the American worker and risk their safety, if that's what it takes, to tilt local and national elections in their favor. That's The Angle.

Joining us for a reaction from Roanoke, Virginia is Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte. He's the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. We have a lot to get to, Congressman, on these text messages, disappearing, the secret society, all of it.

I want to get you first on this issue of chain migration because I hear a lot from Democrats about how Republicans are now anti-family, Congressman. But as you saw with that very difficult to read graphic, we are resettling huge populations into the United States, not based on merit but based on distant family relatives.

REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R-VA.: Absolutely. They are not even going to be reunified in any short period of time because the amount and length of the wedding was so long that there is no real family reunification. Our bill allows the immediate family, spouse, and minor children to come into the United States.

That is very important for families. But these extended families do not benefit the United States, in the sense that a merit-based system would where people come here based upon education, job skills, job offers, and training. That's what we need in our economy, not people who are coming here based upon random needs for our country.

INGRAHAM: It's 400,000, Congressman.

GOODLATTE: The visa lottery is even more ridiculous.

INGRAHAM: It's preposterous. It's 400,000 plus people every year coming in on an extended family of chain migration, 400,000. It is a complete scandal. I want to move to what's happening with these revelations about the FBI, disappearing text messages. Of course, now, the understanding from an informant that there was a secret society discussed in text messages.

I'm not sure what secret they were talking about, but it doesn't sound too good to me, specifically the text messages, Congressman. Joe DiGenova said on my radio show that the NSA has every text message, that we can get those text messages if need be. What do you know about that?

GOODLATTE: We should search every place to find them because I think they still exist in some form somewhere. I'm pleased that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made a commitment to investigate this and find them, but we should also undertake whether there is some way to gather them from some other source.

It is very important, but even a text messages we have are alarming, and the secret society just harks back to the text we saw before in December, talking about the insurance policy. What has been going on in that five- month period of time?

We know one thing for sure, and that is these people, hostile to the president, have not been conducting themselves in a manner that befits the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

INGRAHAM: How does anyone have faith in the integrity of this investigation? When we hear that after -- in December, we could all text messages have been turned over, correct. On December 13th, Congress was told they had them all between Strzok and Page and a number of others as well.

Then you guys just weren't, we actually didn't give you five months, critical time period of text messages. Now we find out secret society, all these people donating to Democrats, connected to the old administration, how does the average person think the FBI isn't cooking the books here? I love so many of the agents of the upper levels of the FBI.

GOODLATTE: Well, there is no question that there are several people in headquarters that we have a tremendous amount of questions for, and some of them we've already interviewed and some we will be calling back for further questioning. Undoubtedly, that will include former Director Comey.

It is also very true, as you say, the majority of the FBI works hard every day to keep us safe and combat terrorism, to find and convict criminals. This is an organization that is the premier law enforcement in the world, and is getting besmirched by a few people. They need to clean house there. Director Wray has been told that by a number of people.

INGRAHAM: You have full faith in Director Wray right now?

GOODLATTE: I think Director Wray needs to show some leadership in terms of responding to the fact that there is a crisis in the headquarters of the FBI and changes need to be made. He could show that leadership right now.

INGRAHAM: Why do you think Andrew McCabe is still there after everything we've learned about him, the deputy FBI director, and apparently Jeff Sessions, according to reports, leaned on Wray to get rid of them, and Wray said I'll quit. That's one report, I'll quit if he goes. What's that all about? Is there no chain of command at the FBI that matters?

GOODLATTE: I don't know. I do understand that Mr. McCabe may be leaving very soon. If that's the case, that's one step, but I think the director has more work to do.

INGRAHAM: And Congressman, before we let you go, the Mueller investigation seems to be very leaky over the last 24 hours. We learned that Jeff Sessions have been called to testify, Comey on that. They are looking to bring in the president to testify on his firing of Comey and perhaps other matters.

Concerns about the leaks coming out of this very high profile and important investigation, when the president seems to be getting news on other fronts such as the government shutdown?

GOODLATTE: It's very concerning. This is not a huge organization. So, you would think that you are operating an unbiased, impartial, and effective investigation that you would have a control over something as basic as leaks by the relatively small number of people who are doing that work for the special counsel.

INGRAHAM: It just indicates again that there is an animus towards the president and are only leaking stuff that is negative towards the president. Otherwise, it's the leaks of all time. Congressman, thanks for staying on this issue for us. We will check back with you soon. We really appreciate it.

By the way, given all we just discussed, it is time to take a really close look at the integrity of the entire Mueller organization, the entire team. We are going to do that next with the man who conducted a grand jury questioning of Bill Clinton.

And later, why is the NFL rejecting a Super Bowl ad by veterans? I kid you not. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: The serious issues raised by the FISA memo and missing texts aren't confined to the FBI and the Justice Department. There's now a real question about the overall integrity of the special counsel's probe in the Russia investigation as a whole.

Let's discuss this now with Attorney Harmeet Dhillon in San Francisco. She's a national committee woman of the Republican National Committee for California. Here in studio is former deputy independent counsel, Sol Wisenberg, the man who conducted the grand jury questioning of former President Bill Clinton.

We will get into the possible questioning of Donald Trump in the coming weeks as well. Let's start with you, Hermit, on this. You now know the facts. We have missing texts covering a period of critical five months when Michael Flynn was questioned up to the day that Comey was actually -- Mueller was appointed to special counsel. What does this say to you? Innocent mistakes, updating problems with the software? What's going on?

HARMEET DHILLON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I would say that in a vacuum you might believe that the software updating of the FBI was flawed and didn't capture some of these things, but in the grand context of what's been going on in this situation, and we have revelation after revelation after revelation.

When the FBI actually found out about Strzok's behavior in this affair between him and Lisa Page back in July, to me as a lawyer it's shocking that the United States Marshalls didn't go in right away to seize the devices of both of these FBI employees to find out what was on them.

You can't take their word for it given their breach of the rules. So, even a civil case where there is some evidence missing or something like this happens, you go in and get a warrant or you get a subpoena in this case and you take a hard drive or phone and forensically examine them.

So, it's shocking to me that today, the attorney general comes out and says we will look into this. Who's been watching the shock over the last six months? Why wasn't that done back in July? So, that's one thing that concerns me. Then, of course, you have the memo and the troubling revelations about FISA. I mean, to me, no way. I have a very hard time believing that it's a coincidence. I don't believe it.

SOLOMON WISENBERG, FORMER DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNCIL: I think it's very unlikely that this is a coincidence.

INGRAHAM: You guys are both really smart people. This is obviously not a coincidence. These are five months, two people, negative on Trump, wanted to kill him off. They wanted an insurance policy. The idea that in any shape or form -- this is ridiculous. There's no way this is an updating glitch. This is ridiculous. You guys are being way to judicious on this.

WISENBERG: We don't know for sure.

INGRAHAM: I bet a lot of money on it.

WISENBERG: I'm actually going to agree with this if you let me, but here's a key. The FBI was asked is this just for this case this glitch or is it other people's phones in other cases and they refused to comment? That's a really simple question.

Did this happen with other phones and other cases? By the way, if it happened in other cases, there is a real problem. In criminal cases, you got to turn the stuff over. That's an easy question. The FBI should be able to answer it. They need to decide if they are the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the fan belt inspectors. They need to do it quickly.

INGRAHAM: Sol, they said in December, mid-December, that they've told the committee they had turned over all texts. You know a document production, I've done them, you've done them. It's really thorough. The are computer programs that actually mark the documents that you have to separate out, ones that are privileged and ones that aren't.

How do you tell them we sent it all over and two days ago, by the way, five months are missing? It just happened to be the two most controversial people other than maybe Andrew Wiseman.

WISENBERG: Have you ever been involved in FOIA litigation with the DOJ? They do the all the time. All the time they go into judges and say after having set under oath, we provided you everything. Gee, we screwed up.

INGRAHAM: Let's talk about Trump may be being questioned by Mueller. What do you make this? It's good idea for him to be questioned? We had Roger Stone saying it was cataclysmic, it's a trap. He shouldn't go, but what's --

WISENBERG: When you originally asked me about this, I said that if it was a normal client, you would never let him be interviewed. If they subpoenaed him, you would take the Fifth. I told you, I would assume that Trump doesn't want to take the liability, political liability.

I actually think if anybody could pull it off, it would be President Trump. It will be a white-collar defense lawyer's dream for President Trump to say, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fifth Amendment protects the innocent as well as the guilty against artful questions from the sophisticated prosecutor. I'm innocent, but I'm going to exercise my constitutional right, which every criminal defendant has --

INGRAHAM: They will also say, Harmeet, that this whole thing has been a circus. Totally tainted. This whole thing is the fruit of the poisonous tree and I'm not going to give you the rope to hang me with. I guess he could say that. Politically, you can play both ways with the base. What are your thoughts?

DHILLON: Well, it would be a high-risk strategy. But as Sol said, if anybody could pull it off, the president could do them. He has the ultimate authority. He's the head of this government. The political calculations, though, he has a lot of things that need to get done here. We know how the Democrats will react to that. I certainly hope he is getting able counsel on that. Back to the investigation itself, it appears to be corrupt at many levels. It is undermining it as well.

INGRAHAM: They don't think it's correct. We have been going round and round on this for how many months? It's great talking to you in person.

WISENBERG: If you are -- by the investigation, I see virtually no evidence that it is corrupt. I think he is a totally honorable person. He's not free of having made some mistakes, but that's just the way it goes. Everybody makes mistakes.

DHILLON: I didn't say Mueller was correct. I said the investigation was corrupted. It absolutely is, and I stand by that.

WISENBERG: Which investigation are you talking about?

DHILLON: The Mueller investigation and all the people with conflicts of interest in it and all of the disappearing evidence that we have just seen today and the lack of that.

WISENBERG: That's not part of the Mueller investigation.

INGRAHAM: They worked on the Russia investigation. Speak about the missing texts are not part of it.

DHILLON: It's the same people.

INGRAHAM: It's amazing. We are out of time. It's amazing there are only three people who do all the interviews. Why not spread around some of the love of the other poor investigators who are working on boring cases? We will have you back as this moves forward especially perhaps the Trump talking behind closed doors or not. You did yours on camera with President Clinton.

WISENBERG: We did. It was a historical act.

INGRAHAM: Absolutely. Have you heard that Hollywood after everything that's happened with Weinstein and so forth, is getting ready to have it's big "me too" moment at the Oscars? One problem, they just gave a best picture not to a movie that actually undermines the entire message.

Meanwhile, the FBI rejecting a Super Bowl ad by a veterans group, yes, I am telling you the truth. You will not believe this story. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Time now for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we expose the big cultural stories of the day. First up, at the height of Hollywood's Me Too moment, they have just given Oscar nominations to a film, one to a film glorifying statutory rate. Yes, that's true. After the year they had, what are they doing?

Let's bring in Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Tell us about this film "Call Me by Your Name."

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You remember we talked about this weeks ago. This is a film where Armie Hammer, a 24-year-old man, falls in love and has relations with a 17-year-old boy. This is being celebrated. It got four Oscar nominations, including best picture today by the Academy Awards. And there's really little to commend it. No one is seeing this movie.

INGRAHAM: Let's look at the box office. There's the scene, a short scene please. Box office for the best picture nominees including this "Call Me by Your Name." "Call Me by Your Name," $9,100,000, "Darkest Hour," that's the Churchill, $41 million. Gary Oldman should win. "Dunkirk," $188 million, that's a big tour de force. "Get Out" $175 million, is that right?

ARROYO: Yes.

INGRAHAM: "Ladybird," $39 million, "Phantom Thread" $6 million, "The Post" $45 million, "Shape of Water" $39 million. There are not a lot of big movies here.

ARROYO: There are art house movies with the exception of "Dunkirk," the Churchill movie "Darkest Hour," and "Get Out." "Get Out" was a big horror flick, Jordan Peele's film that took off, cost him $5 million to make. He made $177 million.

INGRAHAM: Then didn't Sundance Film Festival just have a film that allowed the director to express what she had gone through as a victim of child sex abuse, which is horrific, and I salute her for trying to do express that. However, on the screen it actually depicted a scene where a child over many scenes is raped. I've read a description and I couldn't --

ARROYO: It's horrific. I wouldn't even go into it. But it's a 13-year- old girl, it's called "The Tale." She's abused in the film, but she think she's having a special relationship with this older man. In that film clearly child rape is portrayed as a bad thing. In 2015, the Academy Award was given to a film called "Spotlight" calling out child abuse in the Catholic Church. But now the abuse of a 17-year-old boy by 24-year-old man --

INGRAHAM: It's consensual, though. He can give consent at 17 which you can't according to most, well, any state law that I can think of. Maybe a few states.

ARROYO: There's a reason consent exist and Hollywood better get its story straight. Is the abuse of a minors a bad thing or is it at times a romantic interlude and something to be celebrated? I think it's always the former, and Hollywood has to figure that out.

INGRAHAM: Me Too is the -- men too, Me Too.

What is going on with this NFL program that handout at the Super Bowl. There's a controversy involving an ad that was presented by a veterans group. What's going on?

ARROYO: It's a veterans group. It's called American vets. It's just an ad that says "Please Stand," #pleasestand when the flag --

INGRAHAM: There it is. That's really controversial.

ARROYO: They wanted to put this forward and the NFL issued a statement, rejected the ad, said it's too political.

INGRAHAM: What?

ARROYO: I will reach you the exact --

INGRAHAM: They continue to stab themselves in the feet every week.

ARROYO: This is an unbelievable way to undermine your audience. At a time when the audience is rebelling against you, ticket sales are down. Merchandise is down.

INGRAHAM: I'm still upset the Vikings lost.

ARROYO: The NFL says, I have it here somewhere.

INGRAHAM: They are all wicked upset about this.

ARROYO: The NFL said it's too political. We don't accept political ads. That's not true.

INGRAHAM: How many political ads have they had?

ARROYO: Think about the last few. Remember the Budweiser ad where Adolphus Budweiser as an immigrant comes in and he is mistreated? Then there was the Lumber 84 ad where the mother and the child crashed the border. They were in a truck.

INGRAHAM: The immigrant ad. That was all pushing amnesty.

ARROYO: These were all political. And at the end of the 84 Lumber ad, it reads, "The will to succeed is always welcome here." I hope that philosophy is for our vets who want to salute the flag.

INGRAHAM: Isn't that pretty political?

ARROYO: It's all political. So why are you saying these veterans can't put their ad?

INGRAHAM: Because that ad, that "Please Stand" ad puts up a mirror to the NFL, and they don't like what they see. And they don't want to be called on what they did to themselves and what they did to a game that I love. They politicized it. It was a big mistake. Those veterans should be able -- they should fly a banner over the stadium, if they allowed it.

ARROYO: In the name of fairness they should let the air right given what veterans and the audience have had to endure throughout this season of the kneeling.

INGRAHAM: How about the veterans have done to keep us free so they can go to a game and get paid a lot of money for it? Raymond, thanks so much, as always.

And by the way, as President Trump prepares to hit Davos economic forum, fancy, his critics are saying he is diminishing America's status in the world. How sad. John Bolton is responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: In a few days President Trump is going to be taking off for Davos, the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, to discuss trade, border security, America first policy, cyber-security. Look at all these fancy- schmancy people. In a new Gallup poll, if it's to be believed, worldwide approval of America's leadership is a down under Trump, dropping 18 points from Obama's last full year in office. Perhaps the president is unpopular with some leaders in the world because he's boldly defending America on the world stage. And he's stating that he's uncomfortable with some of the globalist policies along the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Muslim nations must be willing to take on the burden if we are going to defeat terrorism and sent its wicked ideology into oblivion.

NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations. We can no longer tolerate these chronic trade abuses. And we will not tolerate them. We are not going to let the United States be taken advantage of anymore. I am always going to put America first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Of course they hate that. The media and the left cannot accept the reality that Trump is for the USA first and foremost.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In an America first agenda is the opposite of what is welcomed at the World Economic Forum.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it's a fractured world, many in Davos blame President Donald Trump for doing the fracturing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is the president of the United States of America. That comes with responsibility of moral leadership. You are the beacon of hope for so many countries around the globe. He embarrasses us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, Terry. To respond, I'm joined by former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Fox News contributor John Bolton. When I hear a former Clintonista talking about morality up there, John, I love it.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Who embarrasses who here.

I love that montage of Trump on the world stage. He said this is who I am, I want to work with you, but just like you're for your country, I'm going to fight for what's best in America's interests. And all these elites back home are I can't believe he would say that stuff. That's outrageous.

BOLTON: I think that's what he's going to Davos is to take the message into the lion's den. It should be quite a confrontation.

INGRAHAM: Now, a lot of people are saying why go, why bother? These people hate you, why go? I think it's good for him to go because just like when he went to NATO and said we are going to live up to our responsibilities, but hey Mr. Macron and Angela, pony up. I think you get more respect that way. I don't think cower in Washington.

BOLTON: I think it's an opportunity for him. I think coming off this triumph of the Democratic collapse on the budget confrontation, the tax cuts in December, I think it's time to build up some momentum. There's an element of risk to it. But the duty of the president of the United States is to advance American interest. If Terry McAuliffe or others want to say it's the duty of the president of the United States to advance some other countries' interest, why don't they come on say it?

INGRAHAM: The numbers are pretty brutal in this survey. This is a U.S. News, 2018 and the best countries net approval rating, Donald Trump has a negative 33 percent. Putin has only a negative 11 percent. Xi Jinping, negative one. The Chinese are doing well in this poll because they own everybody now. And Merkel gets a positive 36 for letting all those migrants in. You wreck the country, you let a million migrants in, you get 36 percent approval rating. That's a good deal for her.

BOLTON: This doesn't tell us there's something wrong with Donald Trump. It tells us there's something wrong with the Europeans. One of the reasons we are down in Europe in particular is new revelations. Donald Trump is not Barack Obama. Of course the Europeans liked Barack Obama's policy. They thought he was a European just like them. Enough said.

INGRAHAM: We're all globalists now. What did they think -- going back to Reagan. I worked for President Reagan right out of college. Nobody liked Reagan. For the most part it was Thatcher, John Paul II, and pretty much Reagan. We had some allies, but everyone hated Reagan.

BOLTON: Opinion levels for strong American president tend to be negative. For example in France, at the height of Marshall Plan aid to rebuild the French economy after World War II, America had negative approval ratings. So any American president who cares about polls like these is the wrong choice for the job.

INGRAHAM: Now, when you look back on your time in government and you think about what you are seeing now, we talked earlier in the show and our audience really cares about the integrity of this Mueller investigation. He's had a long and very storied career in law enforcement, respected civil servant, but when you have reams and reams of text messages that just go missing between two key figures in this investigation, and now we have mentions of secret societies and insurance policies and memos that Democrats don't want released, imagine if this were happening during the Bush administration, what the left would be saying.

BOLTON: We'd be in the slammer now. I'm an alumnus of the Justice Department. I've worked for Ed Meese and Dick Thornburgh in the Reagan administration. I have enormous respect for the street agents, the guys who pound the bricks at the FBI, but there is something wrong at the top of the institution. And I don't think that Director Wray, the new director, understands that yet. I don't think Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime friend of mine, has taken aggressive enough action. The only way we are going to cure this rot within the bureau is to get all the facts out. It is going to be unpleasant for a lot of people. But the American people need to have faith in their law enforcement system. And right now, that faith is eroding.

INGRAHAM: I think it's shattered until, you're right, either we learn everything or we purge.

BOLTON: There's too much distrust at this point to say we are going to release a little bit but not this and not the other thing. This is a time to get back on track. I hope Sessions does it. Just open it up.

INGRAHAM: John, great to see you as always, Ambassador Bolton. In just a minute, by the way, we're going to tell you how California is planning to register illegal immigrants to vote. My question is, what took them so long?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Under a new California law people will be allowed to register to vote and it will happen actually automatically when they obtain or renew their driver's license regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens. Unless the politicians import voters, they still don't seem to understand that they are actually dangers when this happens. In the latest evidence, an illegal immigrant Uber driver was arraigned just yesterday. He is alleged to have and robbed four young women in San Luis Obispo.

Let's get into this now with New York Times bestselling author Ann Coulter in New York and here in studio with me in Jose Aristimuno who is a former deputy national press secretary for the Democratic Party. Jose, let's start with you on this. Registering people to vote who are here illegally, explain that one to me.

JOSE ARISTIMUNO, CEO OF NOW STRATEGIES: Let's be clear here. Supposedly it's going to be implemented in April, this is what's going to happen. Voters, if you are in the country and you're undocumented you can gain a driver's license in California. But there are federal limitations, including you cannot register to vote if you are an undocumented immigrant in California. And they were very clear. The state of California has been very clear, you will not be eligible to vote if you are an undocumented immigrant. It's that simple.

INGRAHAM: Ann, why is the big fuss if that's all there is? You will be eligible but you can't vote?

ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Yes, illegal aliens are big rules followers. Even before California was issuing driver's licenses to illegals and automatically registering them to vote, their big Hispanic organizations and leftist organizations generally in California in the 90s that managed to steal an election from Bob Dornan. They found hundreds of illegally registered to vote illegal aliens who were voted for. Already 60 percent, or about 60 percent of all ballots in California are sent in by mail. It's not even illegal aliens who need to go and vote. Don't worry, they will be voted for. You just need them registered to vote.

INGRAHAM: Ann, why did Trump close that voter commission? Because the states would not cooperate? The voter fraud commission, they made a big deal of it. The left kind of mocked him and then they closed it. Was that because states just wouldn't give the information or they couldn't find any evidence? What was it?

COULTER: I'm not sure, but I don't think it was a good idea, except that I think it might've just been moved to an official investigation with the Department of Justice. Incidentally because of California's giving driver licenses to illegal aliens, people are always saying it so burdensome for people to have to get an I.D. in order to vote. Now all legal residents of California are required to now get a secondary I.D. in addition to their driver's license because of a federal law that says all of these states that are issuing phony I.D. laws, we need a real one now. So there is now the real driver's license. You have to go into the inner circle of hell and register for all over again. When they start giving that to illegal aliens, you have to have the real, real I.D. So they don't mind burdening their citizens that way. But yes, this is all about voting. Illegal immigration, legal immigration, but certainly illegal immigration, DACA, it is 100 percent about voting, at least in California.

INGRAHAM: Jose, go ahead.

ARISTIMUNO: Everything she saying is false. The reality here is that this new policy that is being implemented in California, what is happening here, this is about democracy. This is about registering people to vote. There are four to five million people in California who are eligible to vote and we need to get them registered. That is about democracy. It's not about undocumented immigrant communities, it's about the United States of America.

INGRAHAM: Every two new immigrants to the United States on average sponsor about seven family members. So we are not talking about spouses and minor children, that's always been respected and time-honored tradition of American immigration. But what the president is very concerned about is that of the million green cards that are given out every year, annually, more than 400,000 of those are this kind of extended family chain migration. I know you originally came from Venezuela or your parents came from Venezuela. But that's a minor child with parents. We're talking about uncles, cousins. And most Americans are against that. That's going to be a big part of this ongoing immigration debate. What you stand on it?

ARISTIMUNO: That's fine. We can negotiate. The Democrats have been trying to negotiate with the president every single day.

INGRAHAM: Chuck Schumer just took the wall off the negotiating table. That's gone. He just agreed to it. Now he took it off.

ARISTIMUNO: You want to talk about somebody who is on/off all the time, that's Donald Trump. We don't know what he --

INGRAHAM: He just won. What do you mean, he just won the whole debate on this.

ARISTIMUNO: He shut down the government. We know that he said before that this will be good for America.

INGRAHAM: He actually won the whole debate.

ARISTIMUNO: He shut the government. Laura, a majority of Americans know that this was the government's fault.

INGRAHAM: That's why the leftwing groups are so mad right now.

ARISTIMUNO: The GOP controls of the White House. You guys control the Congress.

INGRAHAM: All right, guys, I wish we could have an hour on this subject, but don't go away. We will be right back. We have a final punctuation point on a very big news night. And remember follow me on Twitter and Facebook as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: OK, important factoid. Since 2005, we have resettled into the United States 9.3 million chain migrants. Guess what? That's enough and exceeds the population of Los Angeles, Dallas, Cleveland, Chicago, and San Francisco combined. Yes, 9.3 million people.

And that's all the time we have tonight. But coming up next Shannon Bream has part two of her exclusive interview with Vice President Mike Pence.

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