Ingraham: New Russia indictments have White House cheering

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Ingraham: New Russia indictments have White House cheering

We finally have indictments in the Mueller investigation related to meddling in the 2016 election and only Russians are being charged.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," February 16, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Good evening from Washington. Thanks for watching "The Ingraham Angle." We have a huge day of news. You're not going to want to miss a minute. The special prosecutor announces a new round of indictments in that Russian meddling investigation and it might not be who you think.

And also, the governor of Florida is calling for the FBI director to resign after a bombshell revelation that the bureau knew about the Florida shooter last month and what a danger he was.

And the media blow a gasket after my criticism of NBA star, King James. Is that what he calls -- Lebron James. I'm going to respond.

But first, Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller files more indictments in the Russia investigation and the White House is cheering tonight. That's the focus of The Angle.

We finally have indictments in the Mueller investigation related to meddling in the 2016 election and the only ones being charged are Russians. A federal grand jury has now indicted 13 Russian individuals and companies for interfering in the 2016 election.

They are charged with a bunch of things like creating fake ads, staging pro and anti-Trump campaign events and also setting up bogus-run organizations, but they're not accused of rigging the election for Trump, but instead of waging information warfare to sow discord in the political system.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments and added this important caveat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Did you hear that? No American knowingly took part in the meddling and the plot had no effect on the outcome of the election. The facts, as we know them right now, support the president's argument, an argument we have been making on this show for months, that there was no Russian collusion.

Trump took a bit of a victory lap, tweeting today, "Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong. No collusion."

Well, it certainly looks that way, but we don't know for sure what else Mueller may have up his sleeve. Though, I'll tell you who this totally vindicates. Conservatives and Republicans who have been warning people for years about how devious the Russians can be in this situation.

Remember, when President Obama sarcastically mocked Mitt Romney's Russia warning back in 2012 during the presidential debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When you're asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al Qaeda, you said Russia. In the 1980s or now, calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the cold war has been over for 20 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, Obama was so convinced of that, his DOJ and FBI did next to nothing about the Russian skullduggery -- I love that word. His State Department actually approved the visas for the Russian operatives that were indicted by Mueller today.

His FBI began spying on Trump Campaign Advisor Carter Page with a FISA warrant in the fall of 2016. Now details in today's indictment do point to vindication for the Trump team. This is Jonathan Turley from tonight's "Special Report."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN TURLEY, LAW PROFESSOR: This makes more sense than the narratives that everyone has been throwing around in conspiracies. This began in 2014, began before the presidential election. The Russians were taking targets of opportunity and shooting at everybody in the election but certainly working more against Hillary Clinton. But what it does show is that they did a really quite impressive job in finding this cyber trail to these individuals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I'll say. And the indictment describes rallies that took place after the election, both in support of and against Trump, and by the way, some of them happened on the same day, all allegedly promoted by these Russian accounts.

You see this ad? Well, according to Buzzfeed, this anti-Trump rallies staged just four days after the election was promoted by something called Black Matters U.S., a social media campaign thought to be organized by Russians.

So, why would Trump collude with Russians to stage anti-Trump rallies? Does that make any sense? Here's the bottom line. The Trump campaign did not know about Russian interference in the election. But the Obama administration certainly did and may have in fact enabled it.

Given that we already know Hillary Clinton's campaign and the DNC paid for that fake Russian dossier, it's time for the special counsel to interview Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, and maybe even Barack Obama. I say it's high time that we determine who really colluded with the Russians. And that's THE ANGLE.

Joining us now with reaction, Republican Congressman Ron Desantis, Sol Wisenberg, deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation of Bill Clinton, and Attorney Scott Bolden.

Gentlemen, it's great to see all of you. Sol, let's start with you. You're an expert in indictments. Tell us about this one and your reaction to the 13 Russians named.

SOLOMON L. WISENBERG, WHITEWATER DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: Well, it's a very narrow indictment. The main count is what we call a client conspiracy under the general conspiracy statute and basically says the Russians conspired to defraud federal governmental functions.

There are three chief examples, one, they lied on their visa applications, two, they lied to the Federal Election Commission by withholding the fact that they were getting foreign money, and third has to do with the Foreign Agent Registration Act. They should have registered as foreign agents and they didn't.

And one thing that I don't think anybody has picked up on, I don't know how significant it is. Legally it's not that significant. The indictment doesn't even allege that these Russians were part of the Russian government. It just says that they were Russian organizations, but, Laura, it's very narrow. It's a very narrow charge.

INGRAHAM: And this is what Congressman Heck, Danny Heck, said earlier today about whether Donald Trump is truly vindicated by this narrow indictment. Let's watch:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DANNY HECK, D-WASH.: Defendants knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other and with persons known and unknown to the grand jury to defraud the United States, et cetera, et cetera. This indictment of these 13 individuals is not the end of it, just like the indictments of Mr. Manafort, Mr. Gates, Mr. Flynn and Mr. Papadopoulos weren't the end of it at all. To be continued.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Congressman Desantis, the president seemed to feel like he was vindicated in a tweet today, but is that a little premature?

REP. RON DESANTIS, R-FLA.: Well, Laura, remember, this whole thing started with allegations played up by the media and my Democratic colleagues that there was a criminal conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russian government to subvert the election. This indictment doesn't even come close to doing that.

And in fact, for Rod Rosenstein to say no Americans were involved and it had no effect on the election, it just shows you that they have been promising and promoting this narrative for over a year now, really a year and a half. And at this stage, I don't see why you knee a special counsel for any of these indictments. They are all run of the mill cases that could be handled by the Justice Department --

INGRAHAM: But they also said known and unknown. They also said people known and unknown did conspire with the Russians. Couldn't that then -- I haven't been a lawyer for a while so Sol and Scott can contradict me, but doesn't that leave the door open for naming of future individuals?

WISENBERG: Virtually all indictments have that language, but Rod Rosenstein did not say that there was no collusion with the Trump campaign. He said this indictment doesn't allege that there was collusion and this indictment doesn't allege that the election was affected. So, you can't say anything broader than that.

SCOTT BOLDEN, ATTORNEY: Yes, I certainly have to agree with my colleague. I don't really know what the Republicans are celebrating. This is one bucket. This is one indictment of cyberspace. There's still -- this investigation continues. Every chance you get, you want to say that there's no collusion and it vindicates the president. It certainly doesn't. It's one part of a puzzle.

INGRAHAM: I agree. It's a narrow indictment, but I think it is very key that the Russian involvement in this election was both pro-Trump, anti- Trump, helping Jill Stein at one point. They seem to have their hands all over everything.

BOLDEN: I would, too. If I were the Russians and sowing discord in support of Trump -- I would certainly do both. They were promoting voter suppression as well in the black communities.

INGRAHAM: To have pro and anti-Trump rallies on the same days. I mean, Ron, you can chime on this. To me that seems like a stretch. Sol is right. This is one indictment. The idea that Mueller is going to closeup shop tomorrow. He just got $10 million in that ridiculous Republican budget that was signed, another 10 million bucks into the Special Counsel's Office. I don't know why he needs $10 million if he's going to wrap it up. But Ron, Congressman Desantis, go ahead.

DESANTIS: So, we have all this time that's happened. Congressional committees, special counsel, and what evidence is there of collusion other than the Steele dossier, which has been discredited.

And so, I think it's one thing to say that there were Russian nationals or even Russian government involved. Although I would note, none of the hacking, which I thought was the most serious, none of that was alleged in the indictment and not something that was dealt with.

So, what's what you have and I just think that so much of this has been based off wishful thinking by the press and the Democrats and the Steele dossier rather than hard facts.

BOLDEN: What about the Republicans who are leading all of these investigations and certainly believe that there was Russian meddling? Let me tell you something. I'm a former prosecutor. Prosecutions don't start at the top and go down. They start at the bottom. It's called a pyramid prosecution.

You start at the bottom until you get to the top and cut the top off. You cut the head off. This is one bucket. There's just one bucket of cyberbullying. There was other collusion and other facts are still being investigated.

DESANTIS: Russian meddling is different than a criminal conspiracy between Trump and the Russian government. That's a huge leap and there's not been evidence to make that leap.

BOLDEN: Not right now.

INGRAHAM: They haven't offered I think anything on that front and Rosenstein essentially said that today. That's not what they're talking about in this indictment. But, Sol, I want to go into this more with you because when you see the amount of time they have had.

They've interviewed a lot of people. They've reviewed a lot of documents, it is quite something, I think, at this juncture in the investigation to come up with, OK, they were trying to manipulate the election. Who didn't think that the Russians were trying to manipulate and get involved in the election?

But before Trump was even announced as a candidate, they were meddling. And what did the Obama administration do exactly to stop it? Last time I checked, they were approving sales of almost 20 percent of our uranium supply to a Russian company, bought through a Canadian campaign.

You start talking about the ways we helped Russia. We helped Russia a lot during the Obama administration.

WISENBERG: That's true. It's more of a political and historical point. As you point out, the indictment says it started in 2014, well before Trump announced. But, listen, there's no question. What Scott says is right. It's a piece of the puzzle.

But what the Congressman said is correct, too. It is a good day for President Trump. It is significant that the investigation has gone on this long and you don't have the collusion case.

And keep in mind, as Andrew McCarthy has pointed out, if you look at the Flynn plea papers and you look at the Papadopoulos plea papers but particularly Flynn's, it looks like there is going to be no collusion case, certainly no collusion that Flynn would have known about.

So, all signs do point to the fact that there will not be a major -- and when I say collusion --

INGRAHAM: There's going to be what? What are they looking for? They are looking for obstruction of justice, interfering with the investigation.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDEN: Absolutely. You wouldn't have Trump --

WISENBERG: There's no obstruction case.

BOLDEN: The investigation's not over yet.

INGRAHAM: Hold on. Go ahead.

BOLDEN: It's pure conjecture what you're saying.

WISENBERG: There is no obstruction case, period.

BOLDEN: Well, we've got the president's own words. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole with you. I think there's a lot of evidence there, but you wouldn't have Donald Trump --

WISENBERG: It's not a rabbit hole. It's the law.

BOLDEN: There's laws in the rabbit hole.

INGRAHAM: Ron, right now, I mean, the Democrats have turned up the heat on the Republican committees looking into this because they're arguing that, you guys are just interfering with what the special council is trying to get at. So, these indictments come out today and what's next for the House investigation?

DESANTIS: The House investigation is going to continue. The State Department is next kind of under the microscope and then you are going to be -- we are in the House going to scrutinize people like Jim Clapper and John Brennan, and see their role in this.

But I can tell you, Laura, six months ago, people didn't know that the Democrats paid for the dossier. What's happened since then, you have a lot of senior people in both the DOJ and FBI either get demoted or leave the government. They wouldn't have done that if they had done everything by the book.

INGRAHAM: I've got to say John Brennan, speaking of Brenna, sent out a tweet today. He said "DOJ statement and indictments reveal the extent and motivations of Russia interference in 2016 election. Claims of a hoax in tatters. My take implausible that Russian actions did not influence the views and votes of at least some Americans."

OK, I guess. But how does that justify a special counsel being called on this president? But when Rosenstein picked the special counsel, said we've got to do the special counsel, that was based on what, Sol? I go back to Rod's decision to call the special counsel, which I think was absurd on its face. You can close it out.

WISENBERG: I disagree. I think it absolutely is called for by the regulation, just like President Obama should have appointed a special counsel. The point is you can't have the administration that has been accused of throwing an election investigating itself. If you look at --

INGRAHAM: What was the probable cause or any indication that a crime had been committed?

WISENBERG: You don't have to have probable cause under the regulation. And, look, I think that Loretta Lynch should have appointed a special counsel because of the Hillary Clinton email thing. You don't have to, but the point is the language of the special counsel regulation allows you to do it.

INGRAHAM: You can do a lot. It doesn't mean you should. Ron, your take and then Scott and then we've got to go.

DESANTIS: So, Rod Rosenstein in the appointing order did not identify the crime to be investigated. He said, investigate Comey's counterintelligence investigation. The regulations only allow for a special counsel for a criminal investigation. He did not do that, and that's why a lot of us have been concerned this investigation didn't have any real limits.

WISENBERG: That's not accurate.

INGRAHAM: OK. Scott.

BOLDEN: Investigating Russian meddling in the election and whatever else that path --

INGRAHAM: Yes, that happened before Trump ever announced that he was going to run for president. All right, guys, thank you so much. Have a great weekend.

By the way, Russian is planning another brazen campaign to interfere with our elections in the 2018 midterms. So, what the heck can the United States do to stop it? Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey joins us for the answers right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It may not have affected the outcome of the 2016 election, but the Russians were able to pull off a wide ranging, aggressive, and brazen attempt to interfere in the campaign. So, can our intelligence agencies stop them from doing it again?

Let's ask an old friend, former CIA director, Jim Woolsey. Jim, it's great to have you on. Thanks for being here tonight. This indictment today was wild. They were organizing all sorts of things. They were working for that Jill Stein, trying to help her. They were anti-Trump and pro-Trump on one day after the election. What's that all about?

AMBASSADOR JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: They want to be a force and they want to disrupt things. They call their big overall program disinformation and they've been doing this since the 1920s, 1930s. What's new is they do it with cyber.

But they didn't have much luck disrupting American elections back in the 1930s or 1940s, but they've been doing that other countries all along. (Inaudible), the head of Romania intelligence who defected in '79 says that there are more Russians involved in disinformation than there are in their armed forces.

INGRAHAM: How about the Chinese, Jim, what do they do to try to disrupt things? They are disrupting a lot of things around the world for us, I know that.

WOOLSEY: So far not the same way the Russians do, but the Russians -- I don't know. They PhotoShop photographs of the pope to make him look like he's saluting to a German Nazi officer.

INGRAHAM: You don't think the Chinese are involved in this type of activity? They have an economy that dwarfs Russia. I think it's important that we stop this Russian stuff. But every time someone says Russia, Russia, Russia, I say China, China, China.

WOOLSEY: That's right. They are strategically a lot smarter. The Russians basically are like the old fellow who lived next to the Lincolns and their farm when he was a little boy. Lincoln used to say, I don't need much land, just what adjoins mine. That's Russia. I mean, I got some Georgia, let's take some Ukraine. That's pretty much --

INGRAHAM: But they have an economy smaller than the size of France. Come on. Compared to China, I mean, China is like eating our lunch on so many fronts.

WOOLSEY: And it gives us some leverage. If we can work to get the price of oil down in 30s or 40s even, we will create a very, very unhappy Putin.

INGRAHAM: But we don't want to push Russia to China, though. That's the last thing we want.

WOOLSEY: We just want to weaken them because we can deal with them a lot better if they're weak. I was negotiating the treaty in '89 when the Berlin wall went down and you've never seen such nice Russians. Let me tell you all you got to do is destroy their strategy.

INGRAHAM: But isn't Trump doing that with pushing all these domestic energy productions. We are soon going to become the largest exporter of energy in the world. Isn't that a weapon against Russian expansionism?

WOOLSEY: It's good but it's really about a balance of payments. What matters more is the price. You get the price down in the 30s and 40s and you can do it just by --

INGRAHAM: The glut, we have a glut of energy being produced with fracking and everything else.

WOOLSEY: Yes, that helps. But you can also to get the price down, you can give people an incentive to have who fuels to choose from at the filling station and once you do that, you've got arbitrage that takes the price of oil down. The Russians care about that a lot.

INGRAHAM: Obama didn't do much in response to this meddling in our election. They knew back in 2014, long before Trump got into the mix, that this was a problem. As far as I could tell, they allowed that uranium one sale to go through with that committee.

WOOLSEY: Bad call.

INGRAHAM: Yes. So, that helped Russia.

WOOLSEY: Sure.

INGRAHAM: What do we do? How do we stop this in the future? Weaken them economically and then what?

WOOLSEY: I think what we really want is to get them to start pulling in their horns and coming back out of Georgia, back out of Ukraine. We need to turn them around because they are taking over, even with their military and other inadequacies. They are taking over a lot more of Eurasia than they should, and it gives them heart is they take more and more under their wing.

INGRAHAM: Have we ever tried to meddle in other country's elections?

WOOLSEY: Probably, but it was for the good of the system in order to avoid the communists from taking over. For example, in Europe in '47, '48, '49, the Greeks and the Italians --

INGRAHAM: We don't do that now though?

WOOLSEY: Only for a very good cause in the interest of democracy.

INGRAHAM: All right, thanks for being here. Always great to see you.

Fallout for the Florida shooting gets worse and worse for the FBI. The latest revelation may make your blood boil, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Florida Governor Rick Scott is among a growing chorus of those calling for FBI director Christopher Wray to resign following a bombshell revelation. We learned today that a caller tipped the bureau off just last month about the Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz. They were told he wanted to kill people and was a potential school shooter.

So how could the FBI botch this so badly? Joining us now to explain how these tips fell through the cracks is Steve Rogers, a former member of the FBI joint terror task force. Steve, this is just a heartbreaker in so many ways. I try to put myself in the position of a parent or a spouse of one of the teachers or coaches who died in this horrific attack.

The FBI gets this YouTube tip in September and they for some reason couldn't figure out who posted that comment about I'm going to be a professional school shooter. And then in January a tipster calls in and it's very specific. A person close to Cruz, he has a gun, et cetera, et cetera, he could shoot the school. And then nothing. What happened?

STEVE ROGERS, FORMER MILITARY INTEL OFFICER: Laura, this was an epic failure at leadership at FBI headquarters, an epic failure of information sharing. And I'm sure you remember as I do when President Trump in the early days of his campaign wonders about problems in our intelligence agencies. The president was right. But little did we know that it went way up to FBI headquarters.

There's a process that we go through in police work. When you get tips like that, and I've got to tell you, the magnitude, the most profound tip they got was what was on that YouTube about being a professional shooter. You connect the dots. You don't stop the investigation. When I heard the FBI agent talk about, well, we looked at the YouTube and we couldn't find the IP address. I was stunned. I've been in law enforcement for 38 years and my instinct would tell me there is something wrong here.

And you know what you do? It would be simple. Why not just put the guy's name in the Instagram platform or Facebook platform? It was his name. And looked what came up. And then they would have had the name, the could have gotten the local police. And the question I have and I believe still has to be looked into, did the local police give the FBI any information at all regarding the domestic violence calls? They normally wouldn't because they're not federal issues, but when that name came up, I'm just wondering all the information the police had about this guy, and on the domestic violence calls, I'm sure you know this, when police respond to a house on any type of violence or mentally ill person, when en rouge, we ask the question, are there any weapons in the house? Usually every police department has a database as to every home that has a weapon to protect officers. Where on earth was the breakdown there. So there was little or no information sharing, and that's what has to be investigated.

INGRAHAM: Steve, they visited his house 39 times for a variety of things. His mother was clearly afraid of him. He was cutting himself on Instagram after his girlfriend broke up with him. I guess he was a decent employee at the Dollar General Store, but other than that he was a total nut job. And it seemed to me that along the way it was red flag after red flag after red flag. But it's almost like people are worried about offending someone and bridging someone's privacy. And I don't know if they're just overloaded or there's inertia or it's bureaucracy, but man this was a colossal mistake. I think it was a colossal mistake on the local level, on the state level, and on the federal level. But the federal level I think really takes the cake for me.

ROGERS: You're right. There's no excuse for what happened there. Look, cops get instinct. You get instinct. And I've asked all week, any FBI agent who knows anything about how this happened and where the failures were, Laura, they need to come forward. Cops put up this blue wall of silence. And it happens on a local and it happens on a federal level. Break down, tear down that blue wall of silence for the good of this country because a lot of cops know a lot of things and they won't come forward for one reason or another. But in this case they've got to come forward.

INGRAHAM: And it's also amazing in that YouTube visit that the FBI field office in Mississippi made to the man who raised an alarm about it, they visited him twice. They had the name Nikolas Cruz from the posting. Why wasn't that part of the FBI file system so when this January 5th call came in about Nikolas Cruz they're like, whoa, OK. It seems like there should be a cross-referencing program. Maybe that's silly what I'm saying.

ROGERS: It is not silly. That was my point earlier. Did local police, did the school system share information? And when this particular name came up -- I'm sure the local police saw that YouTube. Everybody seemed to have known about it. When that name came up, did anybody think, maybe we should check with federal authorities or maybe federal authorities should check with the locals if they found out where this address was? Epic failure in leadership, epic failure in information sharing.

INGRAHAM: Should the FBI director resign?

ROGERS: I said earlier and I'll say it again that the entire leadership should resign or be fired. We were warned by the president of the United States Donald Trump early on in this, and I'm glad that he now has the attorney general Sessions looking into it and investigating it. And I believe we're going to see people leaving that headquarters building.

INGRAHAM: We've got 17 people dead. I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much.

And you may recall that I called out LeBron James last night for his vile commentary on President Trump. Today the media reacted as though I cursed somebody out and played the race card. Guess what, I'm going to address the controversy and we're going to discuss it, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: All the left and the media attack dogs can dish it out, can't then, but they sure can't take it. Last night we played clips of NBA superstars LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and an ESPN co-host named Cari Champion trashing Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, NBA PLAYER: The number-one job in America, the point of person, is someone who doesn't understand the people and really don't give a -- about the people.

KEVIN DURANT, NBA PLAYER: I feel like our team as a country is not ran by a great coach.

JAMES: It's not even a surprise when he says something. It's laughable, and it's scary.

CARI CHAMPION, ESPN HOST: But it's also scary, because I shouldn't be numb to your racism.

JAMES: Right, right.

CHAMPION: I shouldn't be numb to your behavior.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I called those remarks barely intelligible, not to mention ungrammatical. And last night, which is difficult to dispute, and the left erupted. Slate's piece was titled "In insulting LeBron James Laura Ingraham proves James's point about racism." It accused me of, quote, "something vile and racist." Almost all the stories accused me of dog whistle commentary and many claim my line that LeBron should shut up and dribble was racist. What?

I wrote a book 15 years ago, fairly well known, New York's bestseller called "Shut Up and Sing." And I've been using variants of that title to call out political celebrities for 15 years without regard for skin color, where you came from, what you do, by the way, including on this show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Without a single fact on your side, well, Jamie, all I can say is you're far from perfect. Oh, remember that movie with John Travolta. I might not look to her for political analysis, but if I'm looking for a great pair of leg warmers I'm calling her first.

Hamill has been hammering President Trump on Twitter for months and now feels qualified to weigh in on net neutrality because of his long, distinguished career on screen in films such as "Star Wars" and Star Wars sequels.

Kimmel is a millionaire who doesn't need CHIP or any other program to provide health care for his beautiful child. Shut up and sing or shut up and act or shut up and make us laugh every now and then.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So I'm an equal-opportunity critic when it comes to leftwing celebrities sounding off on topics of which they know precious little. As you can see, race has nothing to do with it.

Joining me now to discuss are Niger Innis, only known me for 20 something years, national spokesperson for the Congress of Racial Equality, and Burgess Owens, a retired NFL star. Good to have you both on. All right, Burgess, you can take it away. These guys are big guys. They're incredibly talented on the court. But, boy, they can dish it out to Trump, use the f-bomb, call him all sorts of names, say he doesn't care about people, all this stuff. But when I call them out for their insipid commentary, they immediately throw down the race card.

BURGESS OWENS, RETIRED NFL STAR: Laura, this is the new norm for the left. When white conservatives call the black liberals clueless, they're called a racist. If white liberal call a black conservative uncle tom they're called enlightened. That's what these people do. They're bullies. They don't want to talk about topics.

And I'll say this. The probably we're having now is we have too many, quote, leaders that are going from poor to wealthy, going to become elite and skipping through what is called middle class. Middle class is where you find empathy, service, and understanding and relationship. And we're missing that. So all of a sudden these elitists are coming out leaders as if they know everything, and they don't. So we have to put that in perspective and realize that these are athletes, these are entertainers, and look them as entertainers and nothing more. They're not experts in anything else but dribbling and singing and running a football. That's it.

INGRAHAM: Niger, this was LeBron James. It was epic 2016 championship parade. Cleveland finally wins the championship. It was a big deal. He was having fun. There was a lot of families there. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEBRON JAMES, NBA PLAYER: I believe I'm going to wake up and it's going to be like game four all over again. I'll be like -- we down two-one still. And LeBron James makes six straight final appearances. James Jones made six straight as well.

You had to be all anchoring at the interior and you looked at me like, man, you don't know me. Shut the -- up.

I love all of you all, and get ready for next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He was having fun.

NIGER INNIS, CONGRESS ON RACIAL EQUALITY: Addicted to the f-bomb, huh

INGRAHAM: It was a couple of f-bombs. He was having fun, but come on, he's like a clown. He's done a lot of good stuff, like a lot of good charity work. But if you're going to talk like that and you're going to act like that and you talk like that about the president of the United States, I tell you something, if you're a white NBA player and you said that stuff about Obama, you would never play again.

INNIS: No question about it. I think he called the president of the United States a bum and used the f-bomb in describing him in that ESPN podcast as well.

INGRAHAM: Kevin Durant said the comment, "shut up and dribble," is racist.

INNIS: Oh, my goodness. Here's the tale of the tape. You've got Kevin Durant, about seven-foot, one. We've got Laura Ingraham here at five-foot, six, five-foot, seven, something like that, five-foot, seven with heels, maybe. And he's running away from you. For a guy that's winning NBA championships and had that kind of stature, it's a little weak.

INGRAHAM: Why throw down the race card. This is my point, Burgess. If you want to be a political pundit, you're coming on my court. Let's do it. Let's have a real conversation about black unemployment. Let's talk about violence in the inner city. Let's talk about all the issues like school choice. Let's do it. Don't think you're not going to get criticized if all you do is a drive-by hit on Trump and say he's no leader.

INNIS: Call him a bum.

INGRAHAM: If you're going to do it, then do it. Let's have a real conversation.

INNIS: And that's the thing. They're not going to have a real conversation because it takes thinking, it takes really trying to figure out answers. For instance, I might not agree with everything with Charles Barkley, I'm not sure. I have a lot of respect for that guy, though, because he's shown me he cares more about his race than being popular. These other guys, these elitists, these athletes, they have to deal with the real world.

And I'll be honest with you. I came out of the NFL after 10 years a flaming liberal. The antidote to that was take my cocky liberal attitude, starting a business, failing. Getting on my knees a bunch of types and realizing I don't want to be liberal and I definitely don't want to cocky anymore. That's what these guys end up having to do.

Meanwhile, we need to find three enterprises. Let's make our heroes entrepreneurs, those that can get out and take a risk, serve, and find an answer to our solutions, not these athletes who know how to run and throw a football and dribble a basketball. That has no real value to the real world and to our black community. So let's find the real deal, true entrepreneurs.

INGRAHAM: By the way, LeBron, I guess you call him King James, like the Bible, he put out a full-screen response, which is kind of cute. It says, "Smiling it through it all. Can't believe this my life." I guess who needs verbs?

OWENS: There's a serious point here, though. These men are black men at a time that black men are going through what seems like an economic revival during the Trump years with jobs and economic opportunity. The absolute worst thing for Kevin Durant to do is play a multimillion dollar victim to big, bad Laura Ingraham. You are scary, Laura.

INGRAHAM: I know.

This is some of the responses on Twitter today. This is always fun. Ellen Pompeo, I guess she was on "Grey's Anatomy." "Someone tell this b to meet me outside. I'm so not in the mood for playing nice or polite this week." Apparently, she was nice and polite other weeks. And there was so many of them you can't read. But they're unbelievable. I mean, unbelievable.

INNIS: Can I say this real quick? One of the things that I can guarantee, these people have no idea about what's happening in our communities today. They have no idea that the unemployment rate is going down, that people are getting jobs and education is being changed. They have no idea because they're listening to these other Marxists and socialists that don't want our race to understand the truth. So we have to realize the truth is coming through by people living their lives and succeeding. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that.

INGRAHAM: Great point. Remember, we had that Kehinde Wiley who did the portrait of Obama, holding up the African-American depictions holding up white women decapitated. It's sort of a play on the kill whitey thing. No criticism there, though. Guys, great to have you on. Thanks so much and we'll continue this I'm sure next week. I don't think it's going to die down.

One point we do have to clarify, though. That video that we shows was not EPSN affiliated, although the EPSN host was in it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Some really good news to share with you. And, come on, it's a Friday so you need it. Ice announced this week that agents arrested 212 illegal immigrants in a five day sweep in the L.A. area, 195 of those arrested, that's 92 percent, have criminal records. They were either ordered deported and didn't leave the country or they illegally reentered after deportation. While 212 were arrested, the operation had initially targeted 400 people, but a lack of local cooperation apparently hampered efforts by ICE agents. Thanks, California.

ICE deputy director Tom Homan said because sanctuary jurisdictions like L.A. prevent ICE from arresting criminal aliens in the secure confines of jail, our officers are forced to conduct at large arrests in the community, putting officers, the general public, and aliens at greater risk and increasing the incidents of collateral arrests. ICE deputy director Tom Homan said that.

And during the operation, ICE agents also served 122 notices on southern California businesses that their employee records will be audited. This all shows that President Trump is keeping his promise to deport criminals and make the streets safer, even if California fights it. That is really good news. Shame on you, California. People could die or be injured because you refuse to cooperate. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: December, 2015, Serge Ibaka blocked a great shot by Gordon Hayward, Oklahoma. This is what Kevin Durant said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN DURANT, NBA PLAYER: It was surprising because I thought Hayward had the beat. And he's pretty athletic for a white guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, isn't that racist, pretty athletic for a white guy? No, it's not racist. Kevin, you were being funny. Taking things out of context, not cool.

Ed Henry up next filling in for Shannon Bream. Goodnight from Washington.

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