Gutfeld on the 17th anniversary of 9/11
17 years after 9/11 we shouldn't just remember the victims, but the warnings too. We can't let those warnings die.
This is a rush transcript from "The Five," September 11, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Hi, I'm Greg Gutfeld with Jedediah Bila, Juan Williams, Jesse Watters, and she's jet-ski on a polliwog, Dana Perino -- "The Five."
President Trump urging Americans to get out of the path of Hurricane Florence, already a category 4. The latest update on Florence's fury ahead.
But first, it's always interesting to see what the media covers when we're out of news, will Michael Jordan come out of retirement? How do low calorie diets affect mice? How bad is Mariah Carey's movie "Glitter"? Those were some of the stories appearing before September 11, 2001. They were the stories being covered when the planes were on route because we have the luxury of covering them. Then, boom. 9/11 is for millions, a loss of innocence, when we all grew up together in one morning no longer naive about an evil world. Suddenly, what we were reading evaporated with 3,000 lives. We felt shame: How did we not see this coming? Some people did. They were ignored, which is why 17 years to the day, we shouldn't just remember the victims, but the warnings too. We can't let those warnings die.
For unlike threats of old, mutually assured destruction is no deterrent, for the murderous martyr the more the merrier. The planet is merely a drunk tank for heaven, a pointless stop on a final journey. Technology helps the enemy speed up the trip. A bio agent on a drone sent to an open-air stadium will make 9/11 feel like 9-10. And if it happens, I know what we won't be thinking about: tweets, scandals, politics
And so as we watch the media obsess over gossip and palace intrigue, remember that they're missing whatever comes next. And when it happens, they won't remember it themselves because it really won't matter.
Donald Trump is in Shanksville where one of the planes went down, flight 93. Let's go and play some tape of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We've grieved together for every mother and father, sister and brother, son and daughter who was stolen for us at the twin towers, the Pentagon, and here in this Pennsylvania field. We honor their sacrifice by pledging to never flinch in the face of evil and to do whatever it takes to keep America safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Dana, you've been there. You went there and check -- at the memorial. And it's always -- we always say that it was basically the first 9/11 counteroffensive.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Yeah. It's such -- I'm so glad that President Trump went because the more people can know about Shanksville and the memorial, the more people should go visit it because -- and it's not easy to get to, OK? There's a reason that thankfully it went down in the field. There wasn't a highly populated area right there. Shanksville, the community is so loving, and what they did for the families there is impressive. Also at that memorial, gathered every year are the family members of the 40 victims. I think it was 40 passengers and five crew, or 35 passengers and five crew.
What's always so interesting about Shanksville is that at that memorial, you walk and you can see the field where they actually made a decision. So here are these Americans. They find out what's happening because they're able to place a couple of calls back home and they find out, OK, this is what they're going to do. And they're in the back, they're figuring out what they can do. Something that I didn't know until I went there, one of the terrorists were not able to get one extra person on that flight. They were supposed to have a certain number, five or six, whatever it was, they've only got four, which meant there weren't enough of the terrorists in order to.
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: . keep track of all of them. So they were able to have this confab in the back of the plane where they made some phone calls. And if you go to Shanksville, you can listen to some of the voice mails that were left. It is very -- it's touching, of course. It's heartbreaking. But I think it's important. The thing I love about this flight is that what you find out is after they have this conversation, they decide to take a vote about what they're going to do, and that is so American. And they vote that they're going to try to rush the cockpit.
And I remember when I did the package down there and I interviewed one of the brothers and he said that he truly believed that those who rushed the cockpit on that plane believe that they might be able to be talked through how to land it and that they wanted to come home that night to be with their families. Of course, we all know that didn't happen. But many people who worked in Washington, D.C., at the time, credit the bravery and the patriotism of those flight passengers and the crew with saving so many lives.
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: . and perhaps helping protect the cradling of our country.
GUTFELD: Yeah, because if it had gone to the White House, which I think this is what they were.
PERINO: Or the capital.
GUTFELD: Yeah. Jesse, when I was looking at the stuff that happened before and I was -- Michael Jordan and Mariah Carey, it doesn't seem that long ago, 17 years, you say it -- it sounds a long time ago but it doesn't. It's seems -- it's not.
JESSE WATTERS, CO-HOST: It's not. And for this generation, we have a different concept of war. Other generations didn't have to deal with the idea that there was an enemy on our soil living amongst us trying to kill us. And we've been on a war footing since 9/11 and we're still on that war footing. And every day, you hear these lines and they become slogans, but they're not. We're the first line of defense. Or if you see something, say something. And those are actually literally words to live by, because Americans of all stripes sent in tips to the FBI. I think the FBI gets tens of thousands of tips a year which breaks down to about 40 a day. And when you think about, you know, they take it on the chin a lot, the FBI, sometimes on this network for some of the political abuses that they've been accused of. And that's one thing.
But it's a massive organization that's just stocked with so many great patriots that spend their whole 24 hours that they're awake trying to protect us and trying to protect our freedoms. When we wake up in the morning, we're thinking about the football game, or the kids, or, you know, what happened on TV last night, but they're thinking about how to disrupt plots from terrorists. And it's a whole another scenario, and I love when 9/11 comes because you remembering and, you know, it's a tragic day, but it's a day where everybody can come together and come together as Americans. And I always think George Bush was the best president at that time on 9/11 to guide the country forward with the bullhorn in the rubble, and the first pitch strike at Yankee Stadium, and his clear black and white language that he used to rally the nation was just what the doctor ordered at the time. And he woke up every day thinking about how to protect this country, and that was his most solemn duty, and he really pursued that with a lot of vigilance. And just today, I just want to say, you know, I'm sorry for the people that lost their lives in Shanksville, and in the Pentagon, and at the towers, and my heart goes out to their families. And we're never going to forget.
GUTFELD: Juan, I just want to roll some tape. This is the FBI director, Chris Wray, talking about current threats, cyber and others.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTORPHER WRAY, DIRECTOR OF THE FBI: Today's terrorism threats still includes sleeper cells, al Qaeda, all the kind of major terrorist organizations that you would think of. But we're also very focused now on homegrown violent extremists which are people who are largely here already in the United States, big cities, small towns, coast to coast, and these are people who are largely radicalized online. Terrorism today moves at the speed of social media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Yeah. I mean, I think this is a real challenge for us because all it takes is one person who's radicalized and has -- and go on the internet and find a way to make a bomb. I mean, it's chilling.
JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Well, I mean, is to me, it's an idea.
GUTFELD: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And so, you have to cope with it as ideological cancer, something that's spreading in the body of the world, the global world, as opposed to just the United States. I mean, I was just listening to Dana and to Jesse and thinking how much at this moment we all have a sense of grief and loss over what happened that day and the tragedy of it. I just hope that as people look back, they don't stop looking forward. Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean, who are on the 9/11 commission had a piece in -- I think it was USA Today, today, talking about taking preventative steps that we have to be vigilant as Americans in understanding that the idea has never gone away.
GUTFELD: Right.
WILLIAMS: And ISIS has never gone away despite claims to the contrary. And that what we know now is that they're about as powerful as they were back in '04, '05.
GUTFELD: Al Qaeda.
WILLIAMS: Al Qaeda. They're more as powerful as al Qaeda was then, and that they are still in Syria and Iraq in huge numbers. And fighting this, it really takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of people. But I think from the public, it takes a sense of not forgetting.
GUTFELD: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: And I just -- you know, today, when I saw the president going off on the Justice Department, I'm thinking, man, stop. Just stop for a day, will you? We don't need that. What we need is for all of us to say, you know what, we love our country. We need to hang together, and we need to be vigilant.
GUTFELD: You know, Jed, I think the challenge too -- it's hard to get the public to get worried about cyber threats because it's not as visceral, horrible event, but, you know, if they paralyze the power grid that's -- I mean, you're going to turn America into chaos. I think that that's one thing we have to worry about and not be complacent.
JEDEDIAH BILA, GUEST CO-HOST: Cyber threats is actually terrifying, the concept. And also the idea of complacency, which is that you hear people deprioritize national securely right now because there's not an attack happening today. There's nothing that they can see. Right after 9/11, I remember everyone prioritizing national security, and beefing up the military, and being ready for these things, and that slowly drifts away, the more time that you have away from that. The problem with that is, of course, that you have the FBI, as we've talked about, working on things behind the scenes. So just because you don't see something happening, that means that they're working to make sure that something doesn't happen. They need the funding. They need the backing.
The other thing I would say, two things, leadership, extremely important. I also remember that moment. I was working in New York City. I remember seeing George Bush standing on top of that rubble, and what it told me as a New York City girl at the time, terrified, very young, was that I had a president who was going to do everything he could to put a stop to this. Whoever the president is at the time of these attacks needs to make it a priority to instill confidence and safe in people. And he did a beautiful job of that.
And the one last point is that, you know, I was one of those people fleeing for my life with everyone else. And one thing I remember about that days is that I didn't know anyone else's politics. The people who took me in, I didn't know where we disagreed, where their opinions were. All I know is that we were all Americans, we were under attack, and we've figured out a way to come together. That has to be something that happens when there's not a tragedy or an impending tragedy. There has to be a way to do that. And we can do it. We're absolutely capable of doing it.
GUTFELD: All right. Well, moving on, the Carolinas bracing for a massive and potentially catastrophic category-4 hurricane. The latest on Florence, that's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: Fox News alert, the east coast is bracing for a massive category-4 hurricane ready to pound the Carolinas and Virginia with a life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds, and other potentially catastrophic flooding. Florence is shaping up to be one of the strongest storms in U.S. history as she turns closer to the Atlantic coast. We have a live team Fox coverage with senior correspondent Rick Leventhal on the ground in North Carolina, and chief meteorologist Rick Reichmuth tracking the monster storm in the weather center. Let's first go to Rick Reichmuth, we have two Ricks in the segment, with the latest on Florence's path. Rick.
RICK REICHMUTH, FOX NEWS CHIEF METEOROLOGIST: Hey, so the 5 o'clock advisory just came out and they have upgraded our watches to warnings. So now hurricane warnings exist here all across coastal areas of North Carolina, down across the northern half here in South Carolina. So within about 36 hours, we're going to be feeling the hurricane force winds go on. It's still at 140-miles-an-hour, any changes that we see or before it makes landfall to its strength, at least to the strongest one, it's going to be because of eyewall replacement cycles. You see the eye there. Those begin to cave in on themselves. A new eye wall forms on the outside of it, went through that last night. When that happens this -- wind fills expands out. So we have time to see this go through one or two of those again. And we'll likely see this strengthen here a little bit overnight, maybe we can a little bit again tomorrow, and probably -- maybe a little bit, hopefully, before it makes landfall. We might see some conditions interact with it a little bit. Doesn't really matter if it's a category 4 or 3, impacts are going to be the same.
This -- take a look at this, this is Thursday afternoon, Thursday evening, our big problem happens here is as we go toward Sunday, look at that, it has barely moved. So we have storm surge with this. We have the strong winds, and we are going to have a prolonged rain event with this because of its slow movement. All of our models bring it somewhere here along the coast. So can't say exactly where, across South Carolina, North Carolina. And then you see that little loop, that's where we start to lose our steering current. There's high pressure to the north of it. It's going to block the storm for a couple of days. Because of that, these rainfall totals are going to really pile up.
Keep in mind, rainfall that falls and storm surge that has pushed the water so that rain can get back out to the ocean, that means we're going to see the flooding be quite extreme. Now you see these numbers, we don't know exactly where these numbers will be. The highest, it depends exactly where landfall goes in and exactly what happens to it a couple of days after. We could be seeing these numbers well into the double digits across the appellations. Certainly we'll see some spots probably in the 20 to 30-inch range and that's going to cause a lot of in-land flooding. We also have the storm surge, probably, the worst of it. It's going to be up around 12 feet here across areas of North Carolina. All of that water, there's so many rivers and inlets here. That water is going to go in there because it stalls it doesn't really go anywhere for a couple of days as well. Here you go, we're at a category 4 storm. It might get to a category 5 at some point before it's done. But, certainly, it looks at this point we're going to have some sort of landfall. A major hurricane, at least category 3 or 4. Dana.
PERINO: All right, Rick. Thank you. The entire weather team has been amazing. We appreciate it. Now to North Carolina where Rick Leventhal is standing by with the latest on the preparation. Rick.
RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: And as you can probably see from the map, Dana, the size of this storm is staggering. The hurricane force winds extend 40 miles out from the eye. And a tropical storm force went another 150 miles out from the eye. So, while Wrightsville Beach seems to be right in the path of the storm, even if it does jog to the left or the right, they're likely to feel it here, and that's why the governors of both South and North Carolina have issued mandatory evacuation orders along the coastline.
Down in South Carolina, about a million people have been affected by this. They took I-26 all the way from Charleston and Columbia, made all the lanes west bound so everybody could get out of town as quickly as possible. Here in North Carolina, the outer banks, Wrightsville Beach, other coastal areas have also instituted mandatory evacuation orders, so people are being told to get out now while you still can. We heard from North Carolina's governor who said that people need to take this seriously.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ROY COOPER (D), NORTH CAROLINA: The forecast places North Carolina in the bull's-eye of Hurricane Florence. This storm is strong. And it's getting stronger.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: Widespread power outages are expected. They could last for weeks in some areas because of the conditions on the ground, which we still don't know, Dana, of course, just how bad they'll be.
PERINO: Rick, we have a couple of questions for you here. We're going to start with Juan.
WILLIAMS: So, I wanted to ask Rick Reichmuth a selfless question. Rick, how much will this storm affect the megalopolis, from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, D.C., Richmond? I see what you're doing there. It looks like it's going across the south, but what about the big cities?
REICHMUTH: So, I think New York City will probably get a little bit of rain out of this, may be an in-shore, so nothing much. Boston, probably, completely clear. D.C. is going to be an interesting one. If the storm goes a little further towards the west, it will be on the lower side, may be 2 to 3 inches. It could be maybe a little less than that. If it goes a little towards the north, could be up around 8 to 10 inches. So very different scenarios, we still can't say exactly where I want to point out. One thing, a lot of water can be pushed up into the Chesapeake Bay there also, Juan. And if that wind continues in that direction, that water will pile up and not be able to get out and that could certainly cause some problems in and around the D.C. area.
WILLIAMS: So flying is going to be impossible, you think?
PERINO: Do you have plans, Juan?
REICHMUTH: From where to where?
WILLIAMS: Well, no, anywhere on the east coast. Are they going to shut the airports? Are they going to say, you know, the Amtrak can't run. Buses not allowed.
REICHMUTH: Yeah, I haven't heard anything just yet between D.C., and say, up to New York or Boston. For the most part, I think, it's going to be fine. D.C., potentially, will have problems. But New York airports, I think, would probably go through this just fine.
PERINO: And one last question for either Ricks, Jedediah?
BILA: For Rick Leventhal, actually. I'm wondering if you see people actually evacuating because the concern is that evacuation -- I lived through Sandy with my parents and people feel very sad about that. They don't want to leave their homes, leave their roots, and they're tempted to stay. Do you see people leaving the area? Being told that they should, but are they going?
LEVENTHAL: We have seen people leaving. We've seen people boarding up. We've seen runs on stores for basic supplies. Some people, of course, do plan to ride it out. But here in Wrightsville Beach, they're going to close the bridge to Wilmington and beyond tomorrow. So, if you haven't left by then, you could be stuck here. And if you want to get in here, you won't be able to until they reopen that bridge. So, the folks here know that. We just talked to one gentleman who was just here on vacation and his hotel is closing tomorrow, so he had to cut his vacation short. He's going to get out of town, as are most people, because the water is going to get shut off here in Wrightsville Beach tomorrow night, and the power could likely shut it down during the storm or certainly after the storm, and who knows for how long. So, this place can be beautiful, but as the mayor said without services, it can be pretty dicey.
PERINO: All right. Rick Leventhal and Rick Reichmuth, thank you for that. Next up, Senator Kamala Harris is being slammed by fact-checkers for posting a misleading video of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The controversy, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: Democrats thinking about the 2020 election, apparently going to new lengths to attack Republicans. Senator Kamala Harris is being called out by fact-checkers for what critics are saying is a deliberate smear against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Harris releasing an out of context video of the Supreme Court nominee using the term, here I'm quoting, abortion inducing drugs, to describe contraceptives at his confirmation hearing. The issue being, Kavanaugh wasn't giving his opinion but rather stating a plaintiff's argument in a particular case. So, Jedediah, what Kavanaugh was saying was that priests for life, a group that opposes abortion, was saying they didn't want to fill out a form about contraception at this point, and that they felt that it would make them complicit, potentially, in stopping life. Kavanaugh says this, but then she -- Senator Harris takes off the part in which he says they say.
BILA: They said.
WILLIAMS: And so it looks like he's saying it in terms of his personal opinion, when that's not the case.
BILA: Must just be coincidence that she left those first two words out, right, Juan?
WILLIAMS: Well, she then -- to be fair to her, she comes back and then changes the video.
BILA: She came back and she change the video? But she doubled down on the points. She didn't apologize. She didn't say, oh, I'm so sorry that change the context of what he said. First of all, we all know that when you put something out on social media and it runs out there, it's done, no matter what you do. This is something that was retweeted -- where is my numbers? As of 12 PM today, I wrote down, 15,000 retweets. Over 30,000 likes on that initial tweet. Once you do that, no matter what you do after that there's going to be a whole bunch of people that never see your correction.
But she didn't come back and say I'm sorry. She showed the whole video, and then she said, oh, but I just want to be clear he does use the term abortion inducing drugs. Never coming out and saying, in fact, what was the case that he wasn't summarizing his own opinion. He was summarizing their position, these priests for life and these other groups. I think it was completely intentional. I think she knows there's people on the left, like Elizabeth Warren, that are going to pick this up and going to run with it, and there's lots of people that are not going to see the correction. They're going to be able to paint Kavanaugh as someone who can stand contraception, who is opposed to women's rights, when in fact the guy was just doing exactly what he should do, which is summarize the opinions of the people who had brought this lawsuit against the ACA.
WILLIAMS: So, Jesse, this was a dissent. And what you see here from the Kamala Harris position is that he's using language that is strongly antiabortion. That's the best I can -- argument I could make for here.
WATTERS: Well, it wasn't very good, Juan.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: You've got to be fair.
WATTERS: The Kavanaugh hearings were a complete catastrophe for the Democrats if you think about it. Booker and Harris, the two top Democrat presidential candidates were exposed as rude, phony liars. The rest of the Democrats were caught colluding with streaking protesters. And the media was exposed as pushing fake news about, you know, the hand shake in some woman's fingers in the background. And all this sustained damage and they weren't be able to derail the nomination to begin with, so it was dumb. The thing with Kamala is, it was such a brazen and, kind of, shocking disinformation play. It's like she doesn't even care if she got caught. It's so obvious. She either thought she could get away with it or it doesn't really matter, because you know what? As a democrat, it doesn't really matter. What happens? She gets like a few Pinocchio's in a print newspaper, so what?
If Ted Cruz had perpetrated some kind of deceitful propaganda on Sotomayor, this would have been all over the front-page news. They would have had think pieces all over the place. Cable news would've been going haywire. There would've been a crisis of integrity within the Republican Party. So a career ender for a Republican is a Pinocchio for a Democrat.
WILLIAMS: is that right?
WATTERS: That's right.
WILLIAMS: So when Trump says the economy is doing better than 100 years, and people say, "Uh" --
PERINO: Typo.
WATTERS: Just better than the Obama years.
WILLIAMS: Dana, so Jesse characterizes this as a disaster, but I think Kavanaugh is going to get through. But I think the Democrats, for their part, had to prove that they're willing to fight.
PERINO: But fight -- but fight on false pretenses. And Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor. If somebody would have tried this on one of her clients, she would have been furious.
And I think what happens is, in a couple of these things, that the staff is trying to find something for their boss that their boss can go out and try to get some headlines with. And they don't double-check it. They don't triple-check it. And so then when they get caught, they're like, "Well, OK, well, here's the full video. But we know what he really meant."
Which -- I agree with Jesse that the coverage of Supreme Court nominees if you're a Republican or a Democrat is starkly different.
It's also the case with Senator Booker. Remember, he comes out and says, "I'm Spartacus, and I want to be thrown out of the Senate, because I'm going to break the rules and release these documents."
They're like, "Oh, well, they're already available for release."
"But still I'm going to release them."
And then they tripled down on it. And I do think, then Jesse says it's a disaster, a disaster for those two. But to your point, that perhaps with the progressives, maybe they just like that.
WILLIAMS: Greg.
GUTFELD: Well, I mean, this -- it shows the depths they'll go to destroy somebody if you believe that they're not just wrong but evil.
So it doesn't matter if you are being deceptive if you are deceiving the devil. Right? And we know that we are the devil. Progressives believe that if you don't believe in the -- that's why, remember, when they had the women dress up with "The Handmaid's Tale," which reflects a dystopian future where women are forced to have babies. It's a huge -- this is how they were painting this from the beginning, was that they were evil.
Although I have to give her credit. She was -- I mean, she knew what she was doing.
PERINO: Oh, yes.
GUTFELD: This is dirty, dirty tricks.
WATTERS: This is dirty.
GUTFELD: She may be the nominee. If she doesn't care, she might get the nominee.
WILLIAMS: Dana -- Dana suggested that it was maybe the staff.
GUTFELD: Yes.
WILLIAMS: That maybe she didn't know.
GUTFELD: Yes. Throw them under the bus.
WILLIAMS: All right. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough backtracking after getting blasted for saying President Trump is hurting America more than the 9/11 terror attackers. That's next on "The Five."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATTERS: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough is using the anniversary of 9/11 not to remember the nearly 3,000 victims but to instead take a cheap shot at President Trump.
The increasingly unhinged host penning an op-ed titled, quote, "Trump is Harming the Dream of America More Than Any Foreign Adversary Ever Could." Scarborough criticizes former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama but then unleashes this absurd attack on Trump, quote, "For those of us still believing that Islamic extremists hate America because of the freedoms we guarantee to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to our national security is the damage done daily to America's image."
Scarborough is now backtracking after facing heavy criticism.
Greg, he -- he's a seasoned political pro, this guy. And to do this on the anniversary of 9/11, it's just dumb.
GUTFELD: You know, it's funny. If it was, like, in June or May and he was sitting somewhere and he goes, "Oh, God, Trump. He's worse than 9/11." I could see him going "I don't know what I was thinking."
But that's not what he did. This is -- like you can forgive him for -- you can forgive anybody for a dumb comment. But you can't walk back this one central thing, that on 9/11, the anniversary of 9/11, you make it -- it's always about 9/11. It's always about the victims. He made it about Trump as a way of making it about himself.
WATTERS: Exactly.
GUTFELD: He wanted the -- he wanted the spectacle to be directed at him, because he's going to be virtue signaling to all the resistors. And so he -- he actually stole something very valuable from the victims. He stole their moment and made it about him.
And Mika and Joe, they're the Spinal Tap of cable news. They're like -- they should be in Christopher Guest movies. The sum of their stupidity is greater than the two parts.
This is the guy who helped Trump get elected, kissing his butt. He enabled the terrorists, I guess. It is amazing how -- I mean, again, I forgive anybody, but this was published on the day --
WATTERS: Right.
GUTFELD: -- of an anniversary of the victims. It was screaming, "It's about me, Joe."
WATTERS: And that's the point: it wasn't an offhanded comment, like you said. He calculated this, Dana, and published this on the anniversary.
PERINO: Yes. I was going to say, often we forgive people who say some -- like you tweet something spontaneously or you say something live on television.
GUTFELD: You always get to clarify.
PERINO: "Oh, sorry. I should never have said that." Like when I called that guy a you know what on air. I didn't mean to do that. So you can forgive, like, those moments.
This was definitely precalculated. He knew what he was going to do. But also, here's this. You don't just get to, like, throw a column into The Washington Post. It goes through several editors.
WATTERS: That's a good point.
PERINO: OK? So it's not like -- and nobody thought to say, "Hey, Joe, maybe let's scratch this. Let's do something else. Let's maybe take this part out." Nobody did that.
BILA: Yes.
WATTERS: Well, the Republicans aren't going to suffer, because he resigned his Republican credentials. I guess he's an independent now, so I don't even know who he represents, let alone himself.
BILA: I found myself just saying, like, did he not write it? Did he not know what the content was? I mean, to be able to say, "Oh" -- like you're all saying. We've all said stuff on TV where, if we could go back and say it again, we'd say it differently.
But this -- when you write something, you think about it. You put it on paper. It gets filtered. There's a process here. You obviously -- it's either intended to do that or somebody else wrote it under your name.
It just goes to show, though, I mean, this was a moment where he humiliated himself. And he was called out by a bunch of people. You saw on Twitter, people were going crazy. He has the Trump Derangement Syndrome now so bad that he's willing to embarrass himself so severely by writing something so insane.
You don't like Trump? Fine. You don't like his character? You have questions about his character? Fine. You're equating him now with being potentially worse than terrorists? You've completely lost your mind.
GUTFELD: It's not about what he said. It's the day that he chose.
BILA: Yes, well, of course.
GUTFELD: This is supposed to be for victims. Like, he could say -- I don't care what he says. But he stole something valuable. That's the problem. He stole something from people.
BILA: Well, he's an egomaniac, and he thought that whatever he said would have more power because it was said on this day.
GUTFELD: Yes.
WILLIAMS: So I'm listening to you guys, and I'm thinking, well, Joe Scarborough can properly be chastised because, as you point out, he gave Trump an unbelievable platform for forever and ever.
What I saw in terms of Twitter was people saying he's being provocative just for the sake of being provocative, and they thought that he went over the line in doing this.
GUTFELD: Yes.
WILLIAMS: But when you say, "Oh, but gee, this is the day for remembering 9/11," I think, "Wait a minute. What is President Trump doing?" He's out there double pump fisting when he gets off the plane.
GUTFELD: What's wrong with -- he went to Shanksville.
WILLIAMS: I think he --
GUTFELD: Joe didn't.
WILLIAMS: I think he should show some respect.
PERINO: But then --
WILLIAMS: Secondly, here's this guy, President Trump, he's attacking the FBI. He's attacking the -- so Joe's comments, because you said you thought it was not so much that as the content of what he said. But the content of what he said is, "Gee, you know what? We're seeing the president of the United States go after the intelligence agencies, go after law enforcement, essentially people like who were investigating on 9/11. We're seeing people like Eric Holder say, 'Today is the day of remembrance. Stop it, President Trump.'"
But you guys are saying, "Oh, Joe Scarborough is guilty of the same thing."
GUTFELD: Trump went to Shanksville and spoke there.
BILA: That's not what he said. What you said sounds like a reasonable argument somebody could make but, quote --
WATTERS: He did?
BILA: -- "a politician who has done more damage to the dreams of America than any foreign adversary" --
WILLIAMS: Well, that's what he -- that's what he lays out.
BILA: -- that's insane, though. I mean, you're talking about dictators. So now we're equating Trump with people, murderers.
WILLIAMS: No.
BILA: I mean, that's insanity.
WILLIAMS: I don't think --
BILA: You can make the argument you made, and you'd have a lot of people on the left that would support it.
WILLIAMS: Right.
BILA: This is insanity.
WILLIAMS: So I think when you -- Joe says, "Well, you know what? Suddenly, there's a sympathetic ear for neo-Nazis, or we're hostile to people who have been our allies in many wars."
GUTFELD: But this is about 9/11. That's the point. Never forget, Joe is an A-hole.
WATTERS: All right. With that, find out why the four of us are giving Dana advice.
PERINO: Uh-oh.
WATTERS: A lot of advice to give, on many issues. Next.
PERINO: So many issues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BILA: A big show is coming up tomorrow on "The Daily Briefing," for our very own Dana Perino. She is sitting down with both former secretary of state John Kerry and author Bob Woodward. And wince we're all critically acclaimed journalists at this table, we figured we would help her out and help her prep for it.
PERINO: I appreciate it. I'll take any advice that you have. What do you think?
BILA: So I'm going to start. We'll go around the table. I'll give you, for Kerry, what was interesting to me is one thing I recently heard him talk about was how politically, when a president gets into office, we're so politically motivated that we decide right away that we're going to take down the president. We're not going to try to work together. He said something, he said, new president comes in, we're going to destroy him. We're not going to see how we can work together.
Why is it OK when it's the other guy? When it's somebody you disagree with to do that? Isn't that exactly what's happening to President Trump right now, that he's been out there and doing himself and condoning others to do? It's like --
PERINO: And he's probably thinking back to Obama's first year --
BILA: Right.
PERINO: -- when people felt the same. That's a good question. That's a good possibility.
BILA: Juan.
WILLIAMS: Well, so I'm interested in John Kerry. He says at this point he thinks our democracy is being challenged.
Now this is a guy who, I imagine, I mean, he went to, like, a very elite prep school. Then he goes to Yale. But he makes the decision to go to war, to go fight for the country, and of course, has all sorts of issues about the war in Vietnam and comes back and changes his mind and is then subject to lots of criticism. You remember the swiftboating incident?
So I would be curious, looking back, what does he think of that episode? Because he says, you know, he thinks his life was a blessing. But --
PERINO: He does write about that quite extensively in his book, and he does say that he wishes that he had fought back harder in 2004 when he thinks he was unfairly targeted on that issue.
WILLIAMS: And especially by comparison to Trump, who I guess had trouble with a sore heel or heel spurs or something.
PERINO: Yes. There is that.
WATTERS: Who are you going to have on next week? Eric Holder and Susan Rice?
PERINO: If they'll come on. If they'll come on, that would be great.
WATTERS: No, I'm kidding. I would ask John Kerry, because Donald Trump mocks him for riding his bicycle all over Europe. And I would ask him if he's sensitive about that.
But in all seriousness, I would ask Woodward. It looks like he gets these composite interviews, where he doesn't name the source, but he focuses on an instance or a moment, and then he tries to talk to people that know about the moment.
PERINO: Right.
WATTERS: Does he rely primarily throughout the book -- it seems to me, and I'm just guessing -- on maybe one or two fired Trump senior administration officials that seem to color most of the instances? Or did he make a very good effort to try to get a wide variety of players in each scene?
PERINO: He says in the book and in interviews he's done since that he does have a wider view and that he's talked to multiple people. He says this will bear out. This will hold up.
And so yes, we'll have a chance to talk to him about that in particular, which is -- I think people are very interested in the process. And I'm interested, also, in what Greg thinks about his method.
GUTFELD: Oh, definitely.
PERINO: Deep background. And as a former editor, what you think about that?
GUTFELD: Well, first of all, I just want to say you've got the author of "All the President's Men" and Bob Kerrey -- John Kerry?
PERINO: John Kerry.
GUTFELD: So you've got Woodward and and a man made of wood.
PERINO: Wow, quite an accomplishment.
GUTFELD: I actually don't trust anything Woodward's done. And I have -- I have looked back at his history, and I find a lot of problems.
Obviously, the Bill Casey deathbed interview is still something he hasn't answered for for, when you have Casey's security in the hospital saying it was impossible for him to have visited him. And I would never put that in a book.
If somebody is interviewing somebody on his deathbed when there's nobody there, and he claims that Casey gave him this incredible information that cannot be verified, I would -- that would strike me as fraudulent. He didn't have -- I mean, there's no proof of it. I think that -- I think that's fraudulent.
WATTERS: Should Dana asked him about that?
GUTFELD: No, I want -- that's what I'm saying. I also think you should bring up about the John Belushi book. A lot of people who are liberals and love him think that that was the one of the worst books ever written, that portrayed John Belushi unfairly and was a terrible book.
And of course, there's this -- he even has --
PERINO: I only have a few minutes. I'm still not bringing up John Belushi.
GUTFELD: Could you ask him about why a lot of his friends believe that "All the President's Men" was also filled with errors.
PERINO: Errors. Well, it's interesting for me to have this opportunity, because when I worked --
GUTFELD: I'm kidding. You don't have to ask the question.
PERINO: But no, it's all interesting. Like, he's a controversial figure.
GUTFELD: Ask the Casey one. Ask the Casey one for me.
PERINO: OK. Maybe I'll see if I can get that on the side.
But I do think -- I worked in a White House where four Woodward books were written. And I don't know how many he wrote about the Obama administration.
GUTFELD: Three.
PERINO: Three? So this probably is not the first [SIC] Trump book, and also, this book has broken incredible records for preorders already. So -- but we'll have a chance to talk to him tomorrow. His first interview on FOX.
GUTFELD: Yay.
PERINO: And then John Kerry as well, which I'm excited to have.
WATTERS: Congrats.
PERINO: A packed show. I'm looking forward to that.
BILA: And "One More Thing" is coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: Time for "One More Thing" -- Jesse.
WATTERS: So on the anniversary of 9/11, I think it's apt to show the, probably for me, one of the most defining moments of my lifetime. A couple days after 9/11, George W. Bush came out of the dugout at Yankee Stadium in front of a full house and threw it from the rubber. And this was a moment where everybody was very nervous, and I think he had a flak jacket on, too. And he threw it right down the middle with a lot of confidence.
And once that ball hit that leather, I think chills went down the spine of all of Americans. And we knew at that moment that America was back and that things were going to be OK. So I just want to make a note of that and thank you, George W. Bush, for having a great arm.
PERINO: That's such a symbolic moment. And also, you might know, right right before he left the dugout Derek Jeter said, "Don't bounce it. Don't bounce it or they will boo you."
WATTERS: Yes, sure will.
GUTFELD: Dana.
PERINO: OK. So I want to talk about Dan and Mike Friedman. They lost their father in the World Trade Center attack 17 years ago. I believe they were 11 years old. But out of their personal tragedy, they've gone on to create and do great things. Graduated college. But they've created a company called Tall Order Socks. These guys are like 6'7" and a half or something, and they've got to complain because socks don't go up high enough. Here's a bunch of them.
WATTERS: They go up to Greg's hips.
PERINO: A portion of the profits --
GUTFELD: And I wear them.
PERINO: A portion of the profits goes to a group called Tuesday's Children. That's an organization which communities and families facing tragic loss from incidents like 9/11 and Sandy Hook. And they have colorful socks. You can get them at TallOrder.com. And I have some here, Jedediah, for your husband.
BILA: He will love these.
PERINO: I got the basketball version for Juan.
GUTFELD: Why basketball?
PERINO: I did golf for you.
WATTERS: Thank you.
BILA: Love it.
PERINO: And I did baseball for you.
GUTFELD: All right.
BILA: My husband loves socks like this.
PERINO: Those will be great as thigh-high socks.
WATTERS: Knickers.
PERINO: They have smaller sizes, too. They're not just all for tall people.
GUTFELD: All right.
BILA: I love these.
GUTFELD: How shortist of these people?
All right -- Juan.
WILLIAMS: All right, so get ready for me to tug at your heart strings. I want to show a video of Cubs fan Stefan Xidas singing the national anthem at Monday's Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEFAN XIDAS, CUBS FAN (singing): And the home of the brave.
(SPEAKING): Go, Cubs! Let's play ball.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: The young man has Down syndrome. He launched a GoFundMe campaign and raised more than $30,000 for the Special Olympics, but he also asked the Cubs owners if he could sing the national anthem.
The 30-year-old had sung the anthem at a White Sox game as a teen. This time, he brought 100 friends and family to watch. He's said, "It's the best time I've had in my whole life."
So you guys know I'm a Nationals fan, but the Cubs' kindness in this moment is enough to make me shout, "Go, Cubs." That was terrific.
WATTERS: Awesome job.
GUTFELD: Just a little bit of a change of pace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: I hate these people!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: On the anniversary of 9/11.
PERINO: Who's it going to be?
GUTFELD: Joe Scarborough. All right. I don't think I have to say anything else.
WATTERS: Got it.
GUTFELD: Jed.
BILA: Yes, I have really exciting news. My new book, which is "#DoNotDisturb: How I Ghosted My Cell Phone to Take Back My Life," is now available for preorder, Amazon, B and N. You can get signed copies at Premier Collectibles.
I poured my heart and soul into this book. It's my personal responsibility manifesto in the tech time. I talk about how Silicon Valley is purposefully making these apps to lure you in and get addicted. I went from being someone who was engaged in the world around me to someone who was obsessed with cell phones and iPads and never looking up at dinner tables. Talk about crazy ex-boyfriends, crazy stories in here.
GUTFELD: I remember your Instagram.
PERINO: Can I get an interview with you when the book comes out?
BILA: Of course, of course. Everything is in there. Dana Perino is the first person on the dust jacket.
GUTFELD: Does that mean you're off social media?
BILA: No, no. And that's the important thing. I didn't throw my phone away. And I didn't -- I learned how to bring the best of technology into life to help it but not be completely embedded.
WILLIAMS: Is this a futile effort, Jedediah?
BILA: No, it's not. It works. I did it. And also in the book, key, I give everyone tips as to how I did it. I have an amazing balance now. I'm not losing my mind from social media, and it's good. I even talk about (UNINTELLIGIBLE) robots. You can't miss it.
PERINO: Good for you. Congratulations. A big moment.
BILA: Thank you so much.
GUTFELD: Set your DVRs. Never miss an episode of "The Five." "Special Report" is up next. Hello, Bret.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: Hello, Greg.
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