Jordan, Meadows ask Trump to declassify Carter Page docs
GOP lawmakers call on President Trump to declassify Carter Page surveillance documents; Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan speak out on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," September 6, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And they lost, and they lost big. That's why we are here. In 2016 the American people voted to reject this corrupt globalist. They voted to reclaim their independence and their pride and they voted most importantly to make America great again. It's very simple.
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Soon we would be changing it to keep America great. Keep America great, soon. When should we do that, by the way? OK, wait a minute, soon we will have to change because we are doing well. So when do we change make America great again to keep America great? I don't know, soon.
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We are draining the swamp and the swamp is fighting back. But don't worry, we will win. We will win. We always win. We always win. This November you need to vote Republican. Vote for Matt Rosendale and vote to put America first. Have to do it.
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Republicans stand for stopping illegal immigration, fixing horrible trade deals, cutting your taxes in a major, major way, biggest tax cut in the history of our country. And in addition to that, we got ANWR. You know what that is, right, in Alaska? They've been trying to get that approved for 50 years. We got it approved. It's part of that plan.
We will be defending your social security which the Democrats will destroy, and we are going to be defending your Medicare and protecting the safety net for truly needy Americans, people that need help that are Americans, not for people that come into our country illegally.
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Democrats want to raise your taxes. They want to raise them. I don't get it. I don't think I can win if I say I'm going to raise you -- ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to raise you're taxes. Oh, good. I don't think we're voting for that guy. They want to raise your taxes. I don't know. Maybe they know something I don't. Blue wave? We are going to raise your taxes. We're going to let crime go all throughout our country. We're going to get rid of ICE so that as the crime comes in, we're going to have none of our people that are so tough -- these are great people, but these are tough, strong, these are -- these are warriors. These are warriors.
I don't want to do it. You don't want to do it. I look at these people in the front row, two of whom I know, they don't want to do it. ICE doesn't like, hey, it's like let's go out to dinner. They have done an incredible job. So they want to raise your taxes, they want to open your borders, they want crime to pour in because that's what's going to happen when you open your borders.
How about the governorship of California? He just announced that he wants to open borders and he wants to let anybody come in that wants to. And then he wants to pay for all medical, for all school. What happens, I said it, if the entire world decides to go to California because they get free health care, free medical care, and free education?
California has just increased in size to 500 million people. California has just become one really large person. California -- think of it. He says, I want to open the border. I want everyone to come in at the same time for illegal aliens and illegal immigrants, lots of different names. He wants to get rid of ICE. He wants to cut down on law enforcement and he wants to pay for their medical, their health care and their education.
But I really ask one -- look, it's all about common sense, right. I think I won because of common sense and because like you, like you, you, me, we are smart. We're really smart. But I said to myself, just common sense. Everyone is going to come in. I may even move to California to get free health care. I may move there.
The last time Democrats were in power, they cut Medicare by more than $700 billion to pay for the scandalous Obamacare. Now Democrats want to steal trillions of dollars from Medicare. They will ruin your Medicare, watch. They want to turn America into Venezuela. I don't think so. Democrats would destroy Medicare with Medicare for all, you heard that. Medicare for all, until they run out of money which would be like on the third day.
And then, it would be Medicare for none or be one-tenth Medicare what you used to get. They want to rob our seniors of their Medicare benefits and they want to raid your social security. They will destroy your social security and I'm going to save your social security. We are not touching your social security. Do you remember when I ran?
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Do you remember when I ran? I said, I'm not touching social security. Everybody said well -- and everybody else wanted to do things with social security. I said, we are not touching your social security, right. I didn't touch your social security. Remember what I said? Growth. Growth will take care of it, growth. And that's what's happening, we are growing beyond what anybody expected, beyond what those people thought was possible. We are growing. It's called growth. A lot of money is coming in.
Democrats also want open borders and all of that equals massive costs, massive. And massive crime and massive tears, tears. You look at the families that have been so badly hurt. Republicans want strong borders. We want to finish the wall. We are up to $3.2 billion. We have done a lot of work on the wall. A lot of people don't understand that but that's OK. We're going to finish the wall and we'll get that approved. We're going to get it approved. Just move it along.
I'd like to do it. I could do that whole thing in one year but these guys are holding back. The only thing Democrats are good for is obstruction and resisting. Their whole campaign is resist, resist. I don't get it. We would have no crime. We want to protect America's great people and its great citizens. We want to protect American benefits and we are doing that, and I've done it.
In Maryland, the Democrat candidate for governor wants to give illegal aliens free college tuition, courtesy of the American tax payer. Come on in, free college. In Florida, the Democrat nominee for governor wants to abolish ICE and release hundreds of criminals onto our streets. He wants to also take care of their Medicare and every other thing you can take care of. You name it, he wants to take care of it. And Florida will be a disaster.
Florida is one of the most successful states in our union -- it will be a disaster. You have a great candidate in Florida, it's called the Republican candidate, Ron DeSantis.
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Ron for governor. This election is a choice between Democrats who want to abolish ICE and Republicans who want to abolish MS-13. It's very simple.
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People have no idea how bad they are. Nancy Pelosi got extremely angry at me when she started yelling, they are human beings, don't talk to them like that. Don't call them animals. Remember, she said don't call them animals. Then you see what they do and how they do it and the viciousness of it. No, I'm sorry Nancy. I'm very sorry. I hate to tell you, Nancy. You are going up the wrong tree, Nancy.
Republicans stand proudly with the brave men and women of ICE, with Border Patrol and with our law enforcement.
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Every single day ICE is tracking down drug dealers, child predators, gang members and vicious killers and we are either throwing them the hell in jail or getting them the hell out of our country, and we are doing it fast.
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This election, this is about safety. This election is about jobs. It's safety and it's jobs. Thanks to Republican leadership, our economy is booming like never before in our history. Think of it, in our history. Nobody knew this was going to happen. If I would have set this on the campaign trail, if I would have used 4.2, you saw it was adjusted upward from 4.1. 4.2 GDP.
The press would have gone after me and they would have said, impossible. Jobless claims just fell to a 50-year low, 50 years. We have created over 4 million new jobs since the election and lifted almost 4 million Americans off of food stamps. Think of that.
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Not only is it good for them, our country saves a tremendous amount of money. But it's good for them, they have jobs. We've added over 400,000 new manufacturing jobs that the Democrats say are gone and that number is going to vary shortly with what's happening in certain areas, be well over 600,000 manufacturing jobs.
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Something that makes me very happy. It makes a lot of my friends very happy. African-American unemployment recently achieved the lowest -- think of it, the lowest ever recorded in the history of our country. Remember, I said it, what do you have to lose? Go with me. What do you have to lose? So good. We are going to have a tremendous African-American support because they say and they see. You know, before I said, what do you have to lose? Now I say, see, looks what's going on.
The lowest unemployment in the history of our country. Hispanic-American and Asian-American unemployment have also reached their lowest rates in the history of our country. Youth unemployment has just reached its lowest rate in nearly half a century. Unemployment for Americans, this is so important. Without a high school diploma, has reached the lowest level ever recorded. Think of that.
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Women's unemployment recently reached its lowest rate in nearly 65 years. We have added 100,000 jobs building pipelines and supporting the production of oil and natural gas.
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We have added something great to our portfolio by increasing exports of clean, beautiful coal by over 60 percent -- 60 percent.
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And Montana knows something about coal. Think of that. Over 60 percent, we've freed it up. It's a great natural resource for us. Clean -- I call it clean, beautiful coal. What they can do with coal today. In the first eight months of 2018, Montana coal production increased by 2.5 million tons.
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That's a lot. That's a lot, right? To continue this incredible momentum we need to elect more Republicans like Matt Rosendale. You got to do it because it can be turned off -- it can be turned off so quickly. Last week we made another truly historic announcement. We are replacing NAFTA with a beautiful new brand because it is a much different deal. It will be called, the U.S.-Mexico trade deal.
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One on one. And hopefully, Canada will come into that deal and if they don't that will be fine and if they do, that will be fine. Either way, we can live. We'd be very happy. I think they will because we love Canada. We do love Canada. They have treated us pretty badly in trade for the last 40 years, but that's OK. It wasn't my fault. We're going to make a fair deal with Canada just like we did with Mexico.
We are cracking down on unfair trade practices emanating from China. America is tired of getting ripped off. We are going to get a great deal for our farmers and ranchers and factory workers. We are giving our workers and businesses a level playing field. Republicans passed the biggest package of tax cuts and a very importantly, tax reforms. The average Montana family of four will take home $2,281 extra dollars this year and many will take home much more than that.
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And our tax cut saves family, farms and ranches and small businesses from unfair estate tax, also known as the death tax. So now, you leave your -- I have a beautiful farm, husband and wife and you love your kids -- by the way if you don't love your kids, don't leave it to him. Don't worry about it. Then this won't help too much. But you want to leave it to your kids. You like your kids to take over the farm, but you couldn't do it because they had to borrow a fortune in order to work it out.
We got rid of that tax, that's a big deal. It's a big, big deal. So you can leave your small business or your farm or your ranch and they won't have to go into a big bank and say, gee whiz, wouldn't it be great if we could borrow some money? By the way, Dodd Frank, that little thing, I fixed it -- Dodd Frank has been changed.
We are canceling Obama's illegal anti-coal so-called clean power plant. That sounds so beautiful. You know what that means. You know when I did it I said, man, this is a tough one. It sounds so nice, clean power plant. There's only one problem, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It will put our country out of business. It took away our greatest natural resources and we couldn't do anything with them.
It was such a pretty term -- clean power plant is out of business now. We're going to have clean power but it's not going to be under the clean power plant. And we are strongly protecting our public lands for hunters and fishermen and everyone who loves the outdoors, like my son, Don, who comes here a lot.
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My son comes here a lot, you know that. A lot of you know my son, Don, he comes here, he loves hunting. We passed veterans choice giving our veterans the right to see a private doctor if he has to wait in line for the rest of his life. And we also passed the landmark VA Accountability Act. They've been trying to pass both of them for more than 45 years and I got them both passed.
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And with accountability now, when a bad government worker abuses one of our great veterans, and we love our veterans, we turn to them and we say, you are fired. We secured a record $700 billion for our military this year and $716 billion next year for our military. And at my direction, the Pentagon is working hard to create a sixth branch of the United Estates Armed Forces, the Space Force. So important.
People don't know, I mean we are not just talking about going up to the moon, going up to Mars. We are talking about, you need it. Now you need it. You look at Russia, you look at China, you look at what's going on and what they are doing. We need -- we will be the best of the world very shortly in space.
I withdrew the United States from the horrible Iran deal and I also recognize the capital of Israel and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. Big deal. It was a big deal.
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And the embassy is already built. It's built about 20 years ahead of budget and schedule. I would say we're probably about 20 years, you know that story. I'm not going to tell it, but we built it real fast. We had the best location. They are all looking for a location and a friend of mine, the ambassador to Israel said, oh, but we already have the best piece of land in all of Israel. Best piece of land in Jerusalem and we have a building on it, let's renovate it. So instead of spending $1.2 billion, we spent $400,000. That was set…
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And instead of opening it in 10 to 20 or 30 years or maybe never, we opened it about four months later. It's been open for a long time already. A lot of people work in there. So we have the embassy already open. Do I get credit for saving a billion bucks? Not really. Someday. Someday.
You know when Abraham Lincoln made that Gettysburg address speech, the great speech, you know he was ridiculed. He was ridiculed. He took the horse and carriage up from the White House. He rode it partially in that carriage and partially at a desk in the Lincoln bedroom which is incredible by the way in the White House, and he went up to Gettysburg and he delivered that speech, the Gettysburg address.
And he was excoriated by the fake news. They had fake news then. He was excoriated. They said it was a terrible, terrible speech. They said it was far too short. It's not long, many of us know it by memory. It was far too short and it was far too flowery. It's too flowery. Four score and seven years ago, right? Too flowery. And he died.
Fifty years after his death they said it may have been the greatest speech ever made in America.
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Pretty good. Pretty good. I have a feeling that's going to happen with us. In different ways, that's going to happen with us. For years, you watched as your leaders apologized to other countries for America. They apologized. We are so sorry, we're so sorry, so sorry. Now you have a president who's standing up for our country and standing up --
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Look at the size of that guy, man. Look at this guy. Do I like him? Wow.
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We are not going to mess with him tonight, I tell you. Thank you, man, that's cool. That's really great. Thank you very much. We are standing up for your values, we are standing up for Montana and we are standing up for our national anthem and our flag.
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But if Democrats get back into power, they will try to reverse all of our incredible gains, gains like nobody thought possible. So this November you need to get your friends and get your family, get your coworkers, and get out and vote Republican. Get out and vote for Matt Rosendale. He's going to be a great senator and he will always vote for what we want. He will always vote for America first, so make America great again.
Matt will always be voting for us. It won't just be talk. Loyal citizens like you helped build this country and together we are taking back our country, sometimes not so easily, but it's happening, and it's happening fast. We are returning power back to where it belongs, back to the American people. Our American ancestors braved the oceans, tame the wilderness, won a revolution and fought to victory in two world wars.
We defeated fascism, triumphed over communism and we delivered millions into freedom. Our ancestors built the railroads, linked the highways and they proudly planted an American flag on the face of the moon which is not shown in that movie. They did not show that in the movie. See what they are missing is that that movie would have been a much bigger success if they planted the flag like they were supposed to.
We stand on the shoulders of generations of American patriots who knew how to work. You have to fight and knew how to win. Just like them, we are going to keep on fighting and we're going to keep on winning. We will not bend, we will not break. We will never give in, we will never give up. We will never, ever back down and we will always fight on to victory. We are going to have victory to keep it going.
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Because we are America and our hearts bleed red, white, and blue.
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We are one people, one family and one glorious nation, under God.
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And together we will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again -- already happened. We will make America safe again. And above all, we will make America great again. Thank you very much, Montana. Thank you.
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LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: President Trump just finishing up a rollicking rally in Billings, Montana. A lot of news here to unpack for you tonight. We have an incredible show on tap. Congressman Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows will be here exclusively to explain why they are urging the president to release some documents from the Russia investigation and, they have some is to break in just moments. You do not want to miss it.
But first, let's unpack tonight, the president's comment about anonymous. Some interesting news today about North Korea, the Kavanaugh hearings, all of it, with "Washington Examiner's" Byron York who is also a Fox News contributor. Dave Bossie, a former deputy chair of President Trump's campaign as (inaudible) of those speech, and Richard Goodstein, a former adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Dave Bossie, tonight the president was on tear. It was the, you know, the best of kind of the campaign and he reminded everyone, I beat all of these candidates and the Bush dynasty. Why does that stick in my craw before we get to the other news?
DAVE BOSSIE, FORMER DEPUTY CHAIR OF THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN: He loves to reminisce about the good days. He loved campaigning. He loves being out with the people.
INGRAHAM: He looked best.
BOSSIE: This is what he's built for. He is built to be on the road and to talk directly to the American people. It's what he does so well. It's why he beat crooked Hillary.
INGRAHAM: The gutless person who authored the anonymous op-ed, Byron, he hit them pretty hard. We will have more news on "Fox & Friends" tomorrow. The interview with Pete Hegseth about how it affected national security or could. Come forward, name yourself, where are on that?
BYRON YORK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he hit them pretty hard and he did say what that they were cowards and he repeated what he said the last couple of days, but that was not a big part of the speech. He spent more time talking about social security and protecting social security than he did about this Washington brouhaha over this, which was probably a very smart thing for him to do.
He does hit the Democrats a lot for planning to impeach him saying, how in the world can you think about impeachment when things are going this well. And he talks about 4.2 percent economic growth. It was really a very sharp speech going through all the things that he thinks should matter to the voters.
INGRAHAM: And he brought up the Maxine Waters desire to impeach, Richards. For those of you who missed it, let's watch.
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TRUMP: They like to use the impeach word. Impeach Trump. Maxine Waters, we will impeach him. But he didn't do anything wrong. It doesn't matter. We will impeach him. We will impeach. But I say, how do you impeach somebody that's doing a great job, that hasn't done anything wrong? Our economy is good. How do you do it?
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INGRAHAM: Is either impeach Richard or tonight Elizabeth Warren back on the 25th amendment. We will get a move on that. Your reaction to that?
RICHARD GOODSTEIN, FORMER ADVISOR TO THE CLINTONS: I think the people who were talking about impeachment mainly are Republicans trying to stir up the base. The fact is, the leadership in the House of Representatives has said to its candidates, don't talk about impeachment. Don't talk about --
INGRAHAM: Why? That's what they want.
GOODSTEIN: No.
INGRAHAM: Why? They want to impeach him.
GOODSTEIN: I'll tell you why, I mean, just politically why they don't want it, first of all I think they look at the Senate and what's the value if they have the votes, which presumably they do to impeach, sending something over to the senate where he could indeed shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not get 67 senators to vote for his impeachment. So, what's the value --
INGRAHAM: Impeach on what basis?
GOODSTEIN: What's the basis? The fact that every single Republican stands shoulder to shoulder when he, you know, he said what he said in Charlottesville.
INGRAHAM: So wait, wait, wait --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's an impeachable offense?
GOODSTEIN: No, no, no. It's not a question of impeachable, it's to say there's no evidence that the people in the Senate, the Republicans are going --
INGRAHAM: I got it. I got it. But my point is, I think what he raised tonight and Byron touched on is this underlying mania to oust the president. Some call it a slow rolling coup, whether it's from inside, deep state. We have news tonight on Bruce Ohr, the anonymous column, unnamed sources in Michael Wolff's book, things that turned out to be false about what CNN publishes about an unnamed source, Lanny, and he says I never said it. All of it is a slow rolling attempt to undermine a duly elected president.
And meanwhile, anonymous says the president is anti-democratic. An anonymous is supposed to be the president now? I don't get that. I think he pointed that out. Impeach what? The 4.2 percent GDP? We're going to impeach that? Byron?
BRYON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Anonymous also said that President Trump is making the country safer and more prosperous.
Now, on the impeachment thing, we do see Democratic leaders trying to walk on eggshells on this. They focused group this. They have decided to talk about holding President Trump accountable, lots of hearings and things like that. But the base does appear to want impeachment. We've had a number of polls where 70 to 80 percent of the self-identified Democrats say they want to see President Trump impeached. Democratic leaders will not be able to ignore that.
INGRAHAM: I actually respect Maxine Waters for at least saying what she really thinks. If that's what you want, why aren't you campaigning on it, Bossie?
DAVID BOSSIE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: That's exactly what the Democrats don't want. They don't want to talk about it because the American people could rise up and not vote for them this November. They do not want to take that risk. They think it's a safer bet politically to try to tamp it down even though it's their only agenda item is to impeach this president. They have nothing else to run on. They want a poorer country and a less safe country, and that's a fact.
So we just need to get down the road here, this next 60 days, put this president out on the campaign trail. This anonymous letter, this coward, this gutless coward, as the president said, I totally agree with. This person should resign. It's outrageous. This person didn't get one vote. This president got 62 million votes.
INGRAHAM: Richard?
RICHARD GOODSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Look, the fact of the matter is, the public is now -- the polls showed 41 for Trump, 54 in the Real Clear Politics average. He's underwater. He feels the walls closing in. Mueller. Woodward. Anonymous.
INGRAHAM: What is he talking about?
GOODSTEIN: That's not crazy talk. The fact of the matter is 60 percent of the public are against him, and most of them are strongly against him, which is why Republicans are getting their clocks cleaned in these special elections.
INGRAHAM: The Democrats are going hard left. They have left America they are going so hard left.
BOSSIE: This president is going to run on his accomplishments over the next 60 days.
GOODSTEIN: It's not working yet.
INGRAHAM: Judge him on accomplishments, not on anonymous. Guys, fantastic panel. Thanks for sticking around.
Talk about a potential bombshell, President Trump suggesting the declassification of the Russia investigation documents might be coming soon. Exclusive news, up next.
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REP. MARK MEADOWS, R—N.C., CHAIRMAN, HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS: In my conversations with the president and the administration, he has been very consistent on wanting transparency, and I have not seen a major pushback on this request as long as it protects sources and methods.
REP. JIM JORDAN, R—OHIO, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Bruce Ohr had told the key people at the FBI that Chris Steele, the author of the document, was desperate to stop Trump from getting elected. They knew that Ohr's involvement, both Bruce and Nellie's involvement in producing that document. They didn't tell the court that. Andy McCabe knew, Lisa Page knew, Peter Strzok knew, and Andrew Weissmann at DOJ knew as well.
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INGRAHAM: That was Congressman Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan today calling for the declassification of Russia investigation documents that could reveal big-time corruption at the DOJ. Joining me now, the aforementioned congressmen themselves. Welcome to both of you.
Congressman Jordan, the more we learn about Bruce Ohr's contact with Christopher Steele that predates what we believe, we talked about months ago, now the timeline has been pushed earlier. And yet his wife worked for the Fusion GPS firm. Did they not know this at the Justice Department? Why is this conflict not blaring across every media outlet tonight given what we've learned?
MEADOWS: It should be.
JORDAN: Yes, it should be, but you've got a top Justice Department official whose wise is working for the firm hired by the Clintons to produce the dossier. The dossier was the key, and everyone at the FBI knew about it, Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and now we know Andrew Weissmann, a key player on Mueller's team knew about it as well.
INGRAHAM: How early did he know about it?
JORDAN: They knew about it before they went to the FISA court, and that's the key fact. They knew about the Ohr's involvement, they knew about who paid for it, and they knew what Bruce Ohr told us that he told the FBI what Christopher Steele said, that Christopher Steele, the guy who wrote it, was desperate to stop President Trump from becoming president.
INGRAHAM: And none of this was in the FISA application, Congressman Meadows?
MEADOWS: That's correct.
JORDAN: We don't believe so.
MEADOWS: We have not seen the actual FISA application, but from the footnotes that we have, from the memos we have --
INGRAHAM: Can it all be declassified? All of these?
MEADOWS: That's what we're calling for. Listen, the American people need to judge for themselves, and we believe that it is time, not a month from now, not two months from now, but days from now to declassify this information, show it. And you know what we believe we are going to see based on non-classified documents is that information was collected in an abnormal way. It was verified in an abnormal way, and it was prosecuted in an abnormal way, and all because there was a bias towards this president.
JORDAN: And that information was never presented to the court, which is what they're supposed to do.
INGRAHAM: Russia viewed Carter Page as an idiot. Of course, they want to recruit everybody. He's an idiot, they didn't put that in the FISA application either, correct? There was no red flag about that. How do you get an application to spy on Carter Page when the Russians themselves tossed him to the side as that's not someone we can --
MEADOWS: And Mueller is not even going after Carter Page. Here we are two years into it and we're not doing anything.
But here's the other thing, Laura. I shared with you, one of the things that we have recently found out.
INGRAHAM: This is exclusive reveal tonight?
MEADOWS: Yes. In a new batch of text messages is that there was a coordinated effort by those of the FBI to actually leak to the media. We now have documents that prove it, where they leaked to the media, and then use the same information to verify the veracity of their claims and actually use that for the FISA warrant. Well, you can't do both.
INGRAHAM: Wait a second, wait a second.
MEADOWS: So the FBI had a leak-to-the-media strategy, and it's troubling.
INGRAHAM: So they would leak. It's like circular, it's like the game telephone. It keeps going around and around. So they leaked to the media, then they cite the media report?
MEADOWS: Cite the media report.
INGRAHAM: This is insane. But why do these text messages, they just keep showing up under rocks, where do you get all these text messages?
MEADOWS: You know I've been very critical of the DOJ.
INGRAHAM: But they're turning them over now? These are new?
MEADOWS: These are new text messages that we viewed in camera.
INGRAHAM: So the Solomon report tonight, again, where we referenced Bruce Ohr's efforts to secretly reshape the Trump probe started earlier in the summer of 16. That's important for our viewers to understand why.
MEADOWS: I think the biggest part of that is when it started earlier it was also poorly supposedly about Papadopoulos. Now we see it had nothing to do with George Papadopoulos. It had everything to do, all roads lead to the dossier that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee.
INGRAHAM: But there was a footnote in the FISA application that referenced some opponent of the president's, might have been.
JORDAN: But it's worse than that. It not only started earlier. It went after they fired Christopher Steele. He continued to meet with Bruce Ohr, and the FBI continued to get briefings about those conversations that Bruce Ohr was having with Christopher, after they had got rid of him.
INGRAHAM: We are out of time, but he was forthcoming behind closed doors?
MEADOWS: He was. They actually met with Steele more times after he was fired than before he was fired.
INGRAHAM: Oh, my God. I want the text messages to never stop coming, OK, because every time we have you two on, the text messages, it's the text messages. Congressmen, thank you so much for coming in tonight.
Democrat Cory Booker violated Senate rules today in an attempt to undermine Trump Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh, or did he? The real story with Sol Wisenberg, Scott Bolden next. Governance by stunts continues.
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INGRAHAM: Do you remember when Cory Booker found himself in trouble for apparently making up a story about being threatened by a drug dealer in New York named it T-bone? Well, Senator Booker is at it again, invoking a fictional character, this time that Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.
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SEN. CORY BOOKER, D—N.J.: I did willingly violate the chair's rule on the committee confidential process. I take full responsibility for violating that, sir. And I violated it because I sincerely believe that the public deserves to know this nominee's record, in this particular case, his record on issues on race and the law. This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an "I am Spartacus" moment.
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INGRAHAM: OK, it wasn't Spartacus, but it was Spoof-acus.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Spartacus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Spartacus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I saw Kamala Harris down there. An email to Cory Booker initially disseminated were already cleared for release, but tonight he released more emails that were not cleared to try to right the wrong of the stunt earlier today. And they should have remained confidential.
Joining me now for reaction, Sol Wisenberg. He's on vacation. I'm glad you came back, Sol, former deputy independent counsel to the Bill Clinton Whitewater investigations, and Scott Bolden, a Democratic strategist, attorney, and always Spartacus to me.
(LAUGHTER)
SCOTT BOLDEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I don't know if that's a compliment.
INGRAHAM: Yes, why not? How are you?
BOLDEN: I'm glad you didn't put my picture up there in all the things.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLDEN: Right. I'm more handsome than him, anyway.
INGRAHAM: You know it. You know that's true.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: All right, what do you make of today?
BOLDEN: Well, I think there is a lot of theatrics, but let's be real clear. He violated the clearance issue on Wednesday because he used the document to cross-examine Kavanaugh. So whether he knew it was cleared or not cleared, the bottom line is, why were these documents marked confidential? If you look at the documents that they used, there were no personnel. There was no national security interest. That's why the Dems were complaining about one day they had a document dump, and many of these are being withheld by the Bush lawyers, and yet if you look at them, there's nothing confidential about them at all. And that's fundamentally wrong. What do the Republicans want to hide? What don't they want the Democrats to see? What don't they want American to see about Kavanaugh?
INGRAHAM: Sol, this is what Anderson Cooper tonight asked Cory Booker about this whole thing on Spartacus when the emails were released and cleared earlier in the day. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Was that just a stunt?
BOOKER: The amusing thing about that is, what Cornyn first said is he threatened me, threatened me with expulsion. So according to Cornyn's rules, there's a lot of talk, a lot of bluster right now, I am breaking the rule. But I was raised and taught that an unjust law, you almost have an obligation to stand against it.
Last night I broke the rules and then they scrambled to release the document. But I continue to release documents. I have released 20 so far that they have not cleared. I am breaking the rules. I am breaking the sham rules.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Sol, what is the point here? What is the point of this? You've been around, you've seen how these things go down. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's documents from when she was at the ACLU were not even requested, I don't believe, by anyone. Not sought, not released. What's going on here with the Cory, Spartacus moment?
SOLOMON WISENBERG, PARTNER, NELSON-MULLINS: He is just incredibly brave, Laura. I can't really fathom why you are so cynical. He's just Gandhi and Martin Luther King rolled into one.
I think a couple of things are going on here. Number one, he is running for president, as several people have pointed out, and he wants to be a hero to the loony left Democratic base, which is just as wacky as some of the people on the Republican rightwing base.
BOLDEN: Hey, Sol, all of us aren't lonely. All of the left isn't looney.
WISENBERG: I'm sorry, I didn't mean the quasi-looney Democratic left-wing base.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: He's back from vacation. Sol's back from vacation and he's ready to rumble.
WISENBERG: And the other thing is -- the whole thing is a farce. It's theater and it's trying to find that gotcha moment. They know they don't have the votes to defeat Brett Kavanaugh. They know not only is he a stellar candidate but he has probably the most extensive written record of anybody who has ever been nominated, including they have a video of every speech he has given in the last 12 years at every law school. So they are looking for the gotcha moment, and that's what's going on. And it's sad, it is a spectacle, and it's pathetic, and I hope it hurts him.
INGRAHAM: There was one moment, very brief, from Kamala Harris where she referenced the constitution an interesting way. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D—CALIF.: It means rights that are protected by the constitution even if they are not specifically mentioned in the constitution. So they are not in that book that you carry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: The book that you carry. I mean, it's just kind of a cavalier reference.
BOLDEN: I don't think it's cavalier. I think there was part of that video before that that should have led up to that because I can't tell exactly what she was talking about.
INGRAHAM: My point is, it's all auditioning for 2020. All of them have pretty much either have said they are not going to vote. They've already said they're not going to vote, most of them, for him. They've already said he is going to be confirmed. What is the point?
BOLDEN: Then why not give over the documents then? Because if it's the most documented paper trail we've had of any nominee, then turn it over then. Let the American people know. I don't think the Democrats think they can stop him, but I do think they want to flush out where he is. And because of his paper trail, Republicans are hiding these documents. Put the document out there and let America judge and let the Democrats cross- examine him on it. What are the Republicans so afraid of? What's the rush?
INGRAHAM: I think the Democrats are afraid of the fact that they have this guy up there. He's one of the smartest -- I've known him for 30 years, full disclosure -- one of the smartest lawyers in America.
BOLDEN: Super smart, I would say.
INGRAHAM: Now one of the smartest judges in America.
BOLDEN: But he should be evaluated like everyone else.
INGRAHAM: His hundreds of opinions, they're all available.
BOLDEN: Not enough.
INGRAHAM: He's not running for Congress.
BOLDEN: White House documents, let us see them.
INGRAHAM: You think a staff secretary --
BOLDEN: Yes.
INGRAHAM: He is working for a boss. We are out of time. Gentlemen, thank you so much.
Herman Cain up next exclusively revealing a new venture aimed at taking down the Trump resistance. The big reveal, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain has an exciting new project to fight back against the anti-Trump resistance. He joins us now exclusively in studio. You're finally in the studio, Herman.
HERMAN CAIN, AMERICA FIGHTING BACK PAC CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Laura. Happy to be here.
INGRAHAM: Tell us all about it. What's going on? Are you going to crush the anti-Trump resistance?
CAIN: It's called, America Fighting Back, which is a new organization that I am chairman of. Floyd Brown is co-chairman. And you can go to AFB, as in "fighting back," .com, or AmericaFightingBack.com, to learn all about it.
Here's the thing, the liberals, the Democrats, the progressives, the socialists, or whatever they call themselves today, have been trying to delegitimize this president who was legitimately elected by the people. We want to be able to get that message out and push forward the truth rather than allowing things to be inundated with all of the negative noise generated around this president.
INGRAHAM: So you're going to speak to Trump supporters, speak to diverse audiences helped by the Trump agenda, African-Americans, Latinos, women, focusing on specialized social media abilities. What does that mean? What does the last part mean?
CAIN: That means that we've got over 32 million email people in our accessibility right now.
INGRAHAM: A list.
CAIN: That's right. We are using that. And the way that we are going to speak to those different audiences is we are going to do something, and that is we are going to have a paid media advertising campaign so we can put a face and a voice on the fight against the resistance. You are looking at the face and you're listening to the voice.
INGRAHAM: Great. You've got to see the faces of the big silhouette of anonymous, the deep state. You have the Omarosa types, you have the Michael Wolff. It's a flurry of all a piece of the same thing.
CAIN: Exactly. And the difference here, what makes it unique is we have a consistent face and voice with consistent messages. We have call to action messages. We have message messages in order to this resistance crap that's out there by all of these people who can't determine their identity. We know who they are. We are the patriots.
INGRAHAM: By the way, General Kelly said tonight that they have it down to a little over a dozen people who this anonymous could be, and suggestions by Rand Paul and others that they polygraph these people. Do you agree with that?
CAIN: I would agree with that. But the one thing no one has brought up, what if somebody inside "The New York Times" wrote it?
INGRAHAM: Oh, that's real, that's real.
CAIN: No one has ever brought that up.
INGRAHAM: That would be perpetrating a complete fraud on the American public. Do you think they did that, the grey lady?
CAIN: Well, I didn't say I thought they did it. I'm saying that's not being talked about. But that's another possibility.
INGRAHAM: I actually don't think that. I think there are plenty of morals and in this administration. I don't think they need to look far to find a mole and a fraud burrowed into either the civil service or deputy assistant secretary of x, y, and z.
CAIN: I would absolutely agree, but with "The New York Times" to go from printing stories that come for anonymous sources to printing stories that's anonymous, that tells you.
INGRAHAM: All right, America Fighting Back, AFB.com. All right, Herman Cain, we'll be following it, watch the promo on the site, AFB.com.
CAIN: Thank you.
INGRAHAM: Herman, thanks so much. Great to see you in the studio.
CAIN: Same here.
INGRAHAM: All right, we'll be right back. Special announcement about tomorrow night's show.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Before we go, a quick programming note about tomorrow night's show. Last week we all traveled to Chicago where I held a fascinating town hall on the warzone levels of violence seen in the city's west and south sides. We talked to community leaders, law enforcement, victims of crime, heartbreaking and heartening. What's really driving the violence and what we can do about it. It's an incredibly important hour of television. I am really proud of my team and what we accomplished there. Watch it tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. DVR us if you're out and about.
But that's all the time we have tonight. Let's go to Shannon Bream, who has been on the Hill, covering every aspect of this Kavanaugh hearing. She's put in a hundred hours this week covering the proceedings.
I cannot wait to watch. Shannon, take it away.
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