Are Biden and Sanders too old and white to be the 2020 Democratic candidate?

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Are Biden and Sanders too old and white to be the 2020 Democratic candidate?

Biden gives rambling speech amid 2020 rumors; reaction from former Clinton advisor Doug Schoen and former House Dems press secretary Rochelle Ritchie.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," March 12, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

INGRAHAM: All right fantastic, we're going to extend your conversation on Lisa Page tonight, that was very important what you talked about. Sean, thanks so much, see you tomorrow night. I'm Laura Ingraham, this is The Ingraham Angle from New York City tonight.

The radical new Democrats are out for blood. But Pelosi is standing in their way. This is getting better and better. Congressman Devin Nunes's here to sound off on the impeachment game of the Left plus with word tonight that Biden is jumping into the 2020 race, I'm so having.

Someone should tell the Democrats that their two front runners are now white men with a combined age of 153, that's good if you're a first growth Bordeaux though, that's great. That debate and highlights from today's wacky Biden event with the firefighters, if you missed it, wait right here and an important Ingraham Angle update for you.

Portland state is now responding to this show after we covered the anti- free speech thugs at their school last week, you would want to stick around for that. But first, the elites admitting privileges, that's the focus of tonight's Angle.

We've heard a lot about white privilege lately from the social justice crowd now this idea that whiteness itself can be an asset, a proxy for class or other social privilege. But today we saw what the real abusive privilege looks like. When elites of different ethnic backgrounds and races use their money to buy status. Educational status that is for their children. What do Manuel Henriquez, CEO of Hercules Capital; Doug Hodge, former Chief Operating Officer of PIMCO; actresses Felicity Huffman; Lori Loughlin and Gordon Caplan, co-Chair of the power house international law firm, Willkie Farr; all have in common?

They were among the 33 parents and 9 athletic coaches across the country charged in a $25 million bribery scheme to get their kids into top colleges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Numerous parents paid Singer between $15,000 and $75,000 to have someone either take the exam for their child or to correct their child answers afterward. Parents also paid Singer, money that he then used to bribe coaches and administrators to designate their children as recruited athletes for various schools.

These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege. This case is about the widening corruption of elite college admissions to the steady application of wealth combined with fraud. There can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy and I'll add that there will not be a separate criminal justice system either.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Dubbed Operation Varsity Blues, it exposed a web of fraud, pay outs and bribes going back to 2011 until just last month so celebs and Titans of industry shelled out huge money. University staff at the prestigious universities who would then designate their kids as athletes.

Now athletes applications get considered under lowered standards at many schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every year hundreds of thousands of hard working, talented students strive for admission to elite schools. These students work harder and harder every year in a system that appears to grow more and more competitive every year and that system is a zero sum game.

For every student admitted through fraud, an honest genuinely talented student was rejected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now the man at the center of this fraud, is a guy you heard referenced earlier, William Singer otherwise known as Rick singer the founder of the college prep firm called the Edge College and Career Network AKA the Key. He pled guilty today and is cooperating.

‘The Sacramento Bee' quoting a local college admissions counselor, Margaret Ammot saying, "Singer would tell parents that he could get their child into the college of their choice. Professional education consultants don't say I can get you into a specific, particular college."

Well part of the Singer magic was allegedly having expert test takers take ACT and SAT test for his clients and also the added bonus of photo shopping applicants heads on to random athletic looking bodies.

Now in The New York Times piece about this, the focus was partly on how today's high pressure application environment effects this. "The charges underscored how college admissions have become so cut throat and competitive that some have sought to break the rules."

Well, guess what? The process has been super competitive for decades, especially since universities have increased admissions of foreign students. And this is no excuse though for gaming the system and in this case, that's just breaking the rules but breaking the law.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KIND LIVE: Something you long believed to be true but realize isn't.

FELICITY HUFFMAN, ACTRESS: Good behavior is rewarded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Don't we miss Larry King's laugh. That's what I call a desperate housewife, apparently driven to desperate and illegal measures and just a few years earlier by the way, Huffman was tweeting this photo of herself, demanding respect and equality. You see that hashtag about our daughter's.

I guess that equality though wouldn't apply to the girls applying opposite of her daughters for the same college slot. Well, here's how I see all of this. There was a time when colleges used to mostly admit on merit, mainly test scores plus athletics and extra-curriculars. Then they started various legal forms of corruption, legacy admissions, lowered standards for athletes, admission for big donors and of course affirmative action.

But this latest bus takes the corruption to an entirely new level where the elites played the process, turning what was a partial scam into a full scale racket. Once college admissions is perceived as a scam, well guess, what it attracts scam artists and the solution is to bust these scammers but also to reconsider the legal schemes, the elites have used and abused for years which only hurts the hard working qualified kids who deserve admission like the prosecutor said.

The reputation of elite colleges was built on merit and these institutions were envisioned as rungs for those with the qualifications to climb up that ladder. They were not supposed to be clubs for the elites.

Now we need to return to the principle of merit based admission again. Make the lawbreakers pay in this case but also it's time to look at the institutionalized abuses of the admissions process across the board, especially since a lot of these schools are being subsidized in one way or another by the taxpayers. And that's the Angle.

All right, joining me now, Harmeet Dhillon, Attorney and Republican Party official. Dan Lee is the co-founder of Solomon Admissions and Christopher Hunt is a college essay consultant for College Essay Mentor.

All right, guys, Harmeet, I don't know who this story is more damaging to, universities who've moved you know, far left than obviously this is terrible for them or the elites who are so desperate to get their kids into what they think are the best schools ever and I think to myself, is it worth going to jail? Is this really worth it and what really is going on here?

HARMEET DHILLON, RNC NATIONAL COMMITTEEWOMAN FOR CA: Well, I don't think these parents thought they were ever going to get caught. When you look at some of the secretly recorded testimony, it's clear they kind of thought they were going to get away with it and it's sort of wink-wink nudge-nudge.

And so number 1, that's one issue and number 2, as you mentioned, these kids have this entitlement mentality these days and everybody gets an award, everybody is number 1 and there's no such thing as competition anymore.

So these kids are already spoiled brats just to be very frank and you know, they weren't expected to excel apparently. The parents are waiting until, oh my God, now it's time to go to college and maybe they weren't thinking about it earlier.

Maybe they weren't paying attention so I think this is very bad for these individual parents but you know, that this is just the first shoe that's going to drop. This is probably a much bigger scandal than what we're seeing here.

INGRAHAM: Christopher, you were quoted in The New York Times piece written about this today and I know there are a lot of good college consultants out there who are just trying to advise parents who I think right now are very overwhelmed.

People are overwhelmed with this process. If I had a dollar for the number of friends of mine, my kids are young still, number of friends of mine who are like, oh my God, I'm doing this college, it's a nightmare. If you don't know somebody can't with - a friend of mine's kids got an 800 on his SAT, 790 on SAT, incredible kid.

Didn't get into Princeton, got into a couple of other really good schools but was basically goose sacked at the Ivies and I'm like, good for you, go to a great state school. What are your thoughts here? How deep is this corruption?

CHRISTOPHER HUNT, OWNER, COLLEGE ESSAY MENTOR: Well, in terms of criminality, I think it's pretty shallow. I doubt that this guy is the only one who has bribed or attempts to make a direct payment but in terms of how you want to define corruption, in terms of a process, clearly there is something other than merit at work across the board at Ivy League schools.

And perhaps that's even what the Harvard lawsuit was getting at.

INGRAHAM: Now we're going to get to that in a moment with a guest who was denied a position at Harvard because of what they describe to be discriminatory practices. Dean, I got to say regarding the criminality, they won't blow that off. We got tax fraud, we got bank fraud, we have a people making charitable contributions, getting write offs for charities that didn't exist really as a charity exactly, existed as a pass through.

So we don't debate the legal issues here but this goes right to the heart of this question a lot of parents today are asking. Is this really worth it? This struggle to get into these you know, top 50 schools, is it really worth it in the end?

DAN LEE, CO-FOUNDER, SOLOMON ADMISSIONS: It can be worth it depending on what your career goals are. So for instance, a lot of the students we work with want to go into investment banking and so for investment banking recruiting, you definitely want to go to a set of target schools as target schools being the Ivies like Houston, Duke and Georgetown.

And so for a lot of students we work with, we work with them starting in eighth or ninth grade, we basically plan their extra-curricular activities as well as -

INGRAHAM: No but, sorry about that - we plan - I got a problem with this and we've chatted, you seem like a great person. We plan their extracurricular activities, how about pick up a rake? You know, that's my extra-curricular activity like go, play softball down the street, pick up a rake.

I mean, this whole thing is a scam. If they want to play a sport or if there - if they want to push themselves to volunteer, good for them but when adults are telling kids, you got to have this check, you got to have this check and the kids are what.

Maybe those particular kids should go to a state school or maybe they should go to an Ivy League school even though they don't know someone really well connected to the university, that legacy thing, I'm sorry, I was privileged to go to a great school, I worked my tail off to get there.

I don't think my kid should have any special treatment at the school I went to. I absolutely do not think they should. I'm on the records saying that by the way.

LEE: Yes and I completely agree with you so a lot of the students we work with are actually are very self-motivated and so they'll come to us and say you know, I would like to go to Stanford or Harvard and they want us to tell them literally how to get there.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I know, the parents want to live vicariously through their kids and this Olivia Jade Giannalli talked about her college experience back in March 8. She was on a television show so she is the daughter of Felicity Huffman and excuse me, Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannalli. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLIVIA JADE GIANNALLI, LORI LOUGHLIN'S DAUGHTER: Mostly my parents really wanted me to go because both of them didn't go to college and then -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They did all right though.

GIANNALLI: Yes, I think they did fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They did just fine.

GIANNALLI: Yes, hypocrites. No, but I'm so happy they made me go. It's like the coolest thing getting DMs from girls, I'm applying to college right now like, what did you do?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Like - like totally. Like it's awesome.

DHILLON: So these two daughters have - they're big on Instagram and -

INGRAHAM: They're big media - social media influencers and they get - make a lot of money.

DHILLON: Yes, they make money on that.

INGRAHAM: Which is capitalism, it's free, I have no problem with that.

DHILLON: Right, but that's great, you should pursue that. They did need to take a slot away from a kid who actually wanted to get into school but you know, a couple of things going on here, Laura. One thing is that the supply of students has outstripped the demand.

You talked about foreign students but the federal government subsidizing anybody who wants to go to college means that people who shouldn't be going to college are going to college and that's really crowding out the illegitimate competition and then you know frankly quotas.

The reason that the scam was able to go on is that there's set aside in each of these top schools for sports and apparently, there's no actual standards, they don't check whether they're actually good at this sports or anything like that.

They just let them in and then they proceed not to even participate in the sports at all and I just wonder you know, there's absolutely no quality control at these schools, where these kids are.

INGRAHAM: The foreign students are part of it. That was different from when you and I went - we both went to Dartmouth, that was very different and it's big and it's opened up and a lot of them pay cash, colleges like that, let's face it.

Chris, there's a lot of countervailing factors you know, Forbes has published a lot of pieces by people who say, is it worth it, you still make more money in general if you go to college and if you don't go to college.

But we have a huge weight of college debt, $1.5 trillion outstanding in college debt today and I think it's average kid owes about $28,000 which you know, most people probably will be able to pay off but a lot of people won't. What about that?

What about that aspect of it and a lot of these kids don't even get jobs in the areas of study that they majored in, that's another issue that keeps getting raised in Forbes and beyond.

HUNT: Well, the group that you're talking about here is elite colleges so you're talking about the Ivy League and Stanford.

INGRAHAM: We're talking about Wake Forest, New Texas, it's not - whoa - it's not just Ivy League, Chris, it's Wake Forest, it's UT, USC and a number of others that you know, I was surprised to see on the list, like they were falling - I mean, they're great schools but you know, you're going to - again, you're sure going to risk - you're going to commit a federal crime, you kind of blew off the crime but you're going to commit multiple federal crimes.

Maybe this is the job you do and everybody bribes everybody but this, it's against the law to do what they did, that's why we had like 200 investigators on this case because regular kids don't get into the schools because the elite kids, coddled kids that Harmeet was talking about get the doors opened for them or mommy and Daddy pays for them. That's a problem.

DHILLON: And the taxpayers too.

INGRAHAM: And the taxpayers subsidise it.

HUNT: I think you would want to divide the elite into, it's not uniform so there are the elite who have power and influence and they're already getting into schools as legacies. For example, if your name was Bush, it was pretty easy to get into Yale. If your name was Trump, it would be easy to get into -

INGRAHAM: I already pointed that out at the Angle. That's the first level of corruption, we're now at the actual illegal level of corruption.

HUNT: So if probably the people who are committing these crimes were the elites who felt they didn't have access and then we're tempted with an angle which was through the sports window. It's a small room but clearly it's a search for access where you have none.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I think that - that's a fair point. One happens to be illegal, Harmeet, were they going to make an example out of them? Felicity Huffman was trotting around in the court sketches today.

DHILLON: No, they need to, this is - this is you know, federal tax crime, wire fraud -

INGRAHAM: Yes, mail fraud.

DHILLON: - taking advantage of other kids and you know, racketeering is part of this as well for some of the participants.

INGRAHAM: Yes, two cooperating defendants, both pled, the coach - one of the coaches and Singer himself.

DHILLON: And the prosecutor said, there are other shoes that are going to drop as well so let's see.

INGRAHAM: Oh, yikes, all right panel, thank you so much, fascinating topic and our next guest graduated number one from his high school. He aced 17 Advanced Placement classes in high school, show off, excelled in extracurricular activities and scored Highness college admission test despite that Harrison Chen was rejected from Harvard.

He's supportive of a lawsuit against Harvard claiming discrimination against Asian-American, saying the college process has quote created institutions that fail to reward merit. Harrison Chen joins us now. Harrison, now when this story came out and you saw complicity of some college officials, did that surprise you at all?

HARRISON CHEN, FRESHMAN, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Not really, I guess.

INGRAHAM: What do you think about this? I mean, how does this make you feel after having gotten rejected at Harvard? Harvard's not one of the schools, I believe implicated, not yet Harmmet says but Yale is and number of other top schools. This is you know, these are wealthy people who can pay people either to take their test, you actually took your own tests, correct Harrison?

You didn't pay someone to take your test.

CHEN: Hopefully.

INGRAHAM: And they had people pay or they Photoshop heads on athletic bodies and falsified athletic records. This clearly is a far cry from the merit-based system you're asking for.

CHEN: Well, definitely, definitely. I would definitely say that.

INGRAHAM: And what are the students' reaction? Any students scuttled on campus today?

CHEN: Excuse me, sorry.

INGRAHAM: Excuse me?

CHEN: Sorry, I didn't get that. Sorry.

INGRAHAM: All right, are there - are students reacting to this? I mean, you're -

CHEN: I had a friend talk about it, we weren't really surprised.

INGRAHAM: Not surprised because you're - not surprised because you're used to this type of - you're used to this type of privilege being flaunted and utilized to try to open doors?

CHEN: Well, I guess, it was kind of unsaid thing that most college students wouldn't be surprised to - to like here about this news that we've heard about today.

INGRAHAM: Unbelievable. Harmeet, it shouldn't surprise you, right? I mean -

DHILLON: No. it doesn't surprise me because I mean, you know, you got people who have all the money in the world and you have all the loopholes that are there for exploitation and this is what smart people do and desperate people and you know, these people are desperate to get this badge, if you will, that's required to proceed in our society.

Maybe it shouldn't be but in any event what they did was totally illegal on multiple levels and but take aside the illegality, you still have people participating in sports just for getting into college, that's a form of corruption-

INGRAHAM: Just be about learning, I mean I played three sports, I was a big athlete, I was a big athlete, loved sports. Just loved them, love them, it was a big part of my life but academics was always first.

DHILLON: Academics is always first and you know, it comes - when you look at the profile of these people, most of them are white, okay and they're taking spaces from Asians who are studying and doing well.

INGRAHAM: But this is not a privilege that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the crowd that they should be focusing on, this truly is the use of positions of privilege to open doors. I don't think it has anything to do with the color of your skin. It has everything to do with the money, in some cases, celebrity.

And these are big time financial figures.

DHILLON: Oh yes.

INGRAHAM: CEO of PIMCO? Willkie Farr, Harmeet, did you interview at Willkie Farr?

DHILLON: I did. You know, Chairman of Willkie -

INGRAHAM: Big law firm.

DHILLON: - And so many of them had two homes. I mean, that's the level of privilege we're talking about here.

INGRAHAM: Well, all of you who didn't get into one of those schools and applied, well at least you're not in jail. All right, panel, thanks so much. Up next, you won't believe it but we have another case of corruption on our college campuses this time involving a foreign foe and then, well, it's now is semi-official.

Amtrak Joe Biden is said to be entering the Democratic primary field in the coming weeks but does he still have it and does the current Democratic Party even want it. Up next, highlights from a truly bizarre speech, the former Vice President gave this morning, stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: More attempted cheating of the American education system tonight if you can believe it. We brought you the outrageous stories of birth-right citizenship motels abused primarily by the Russians and the Chinese but now the plot has thickened.

Today the DOJ revealed that federal authorities arrested five people in a scheme to help Chinese nationals obtain student visas in the U.S.

Investigators say, students hired the defendants to take the required English proficiency test for the visas by using fake passports. The U.S. requires foreign citizens who wish to enter the country on a temporary basis to study at a college or university to first obtain an F1 student visa.

Members of the cheating ring are accused of impersonating Chinese nationals at test centers, across southern California. Is there something in the water in California with all this cheating on tests and they face up to ten years in federal prison if convicted of conspiracy, identity theft and using a false passport.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT: I appreciate the energy you showed when I got up here. Save it a little longer. I may need it in a few weeks. Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you wish for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Okay well, a congressional source revealing to ‘The Hill' newspaper that Joe Biden is definitely jumping into the 2020 race as he appears to allude to and the remarks we just played.

Now, Biden - the Biden you saw today is not necessarily though striking fear in the hearts of his potential democratic opponents. He gave a bit about rambler of a speech, one in which he repeated himself over and over and over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: My name is Joe Biden, I'm Joe Biden's husband. I'm a community, you're community. It's not hyperbole, it's not hyperbole. Literally - literally - literally - leave nobody behind - don't leave anybody behind. Maybe nobody behind - not a joke - not a joke - not a joke - not a joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Okay, wait a second, that - is that real montage of it, he's potential entry into the 2020 races important because it means the two current Democratic frontrunners nationally in Iowa and New Hampshire have a combined age of a very young, 153 years old.

Now is that going to fly in this new, more diverse Democratic Party and what exactly does Biden bring to the table. He was V. P. for eight years under President Obama who was granted unlimited goodwill and he's beloved to this day.

But what did they actually achieve? Well, joining me now is Doug Schoen, Fox News Contributor and Former Adviser to President Bill Clinton and Rochelle Ritchie, former congressional Press Secretary for House Democrats, great to see both of you.

Doug, let's start with you.

DOUG SCHOEN, FORMER ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Sure.

That was an odd address. I wish we had an hour to play the full sound bites but let's just say, maybe he's a little rusty because that is that - could that be -

SCHOEN: I think he's rusty but there's also with Joe Biden, Laura, let's be frank, a history, let's call it, rustiness, inappropriate remarks, rambling and he's already offended this activist left wing by saying nice things about two Republicans most recently, Vice President Mike Pence.

So you know, there is the not ready for prime time, this is maybe past prime time ready.

INGRAHAM: I was wondering when Ed Rendell, he is beloved former governor, Pennsylvania and Ed Rendell actually is very excited about the Biden candidacy, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED RENDELL, FORMER GOVERNOR, PENNSYLVANIA: We will have trouble winning if we don't get back some of those white working class Democrats who voted for Donald Trump. The best person in our field without any shadow of a doubt to bring them back is Joe Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Rochelle, is that the future of the Democratic party, 153 years combine of the two frontrunners.

ROCHELLE RITCHIE, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY FOR HOUSE DEMS: But you know, they're still in a position to run our country but I think that Biden is the hope for the Democratic Party right now and the reason why I say that is that he's going to be more of a moderate candidate than what we're seeing right now from someone such as Bernie Sanders, who is also leading.

I think the problem that Biden however will have is that people are going to continue to associate him with Obama and so you're going to have a lot of Obama supporters coming out and saying, yes, go Biden.

But they are going to have those people that don't like Obama or didn't like Obama saying, I don't know so he's going to have to really put out his plan if he becomes President.

INGRAHAM: But did he sound coherent to you? I mean, honestly- and just as - and again, don't turn into a thing on Trump.

RITCHIE: Why not?

INGRAHAM: Well, because I'm focusing on Democrats right now. We know what you think of the Republicans but I don't know, there could be a drinking game with how many times Joe Biden uses the word "literally." It's one of my pet peeves. People use the word "literally" incorrectly all the time, but it's usually the kids like in the colleges, or the ones who didn't get into the colleges that want to get in. Come on.

ROCHELLE RITCHIE, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY FOR HOUSE DEMOCRATS: I think that he just gave a rambling speech, as Trump has given rambling speeches as well. I don't really think this is an indication of his ability to lead or to speak in front of a crowd.

As Doug said, Biden is kind of a wild card. He kind of does his own thing in reality. But I think that what Democrats are going to have to do is there going to have to take I would say some supporter or some advice from someone like Congresswoman Cheri Bustos, who I worked for when I was in the House. And she is someone --

INGRAHAM: No one knows who that is. I'm sorry.

RITCHIE: They don't. But --

INGRAHAM: Why are they taking advice from her? With all due respect.

RITCHIE: I said they should because she won a district that Trump won, and she won it by 20 points.

INGRAHAM: Oh, got it. Got it, got it, got it.

And Doug, this is what they're looking at, right. But Senator Gillibrand, she's also concerned because the party is changing. Everybody knows it.

DOUG SCHOEN, CONTRIBUTOR: So is she. She started out as a moderate conservative Democrat. She's now --

INGRAHAM: Pro-gun rights, remember her, when she was a Congresswoman?

SCHOEN: Right, absolutely. Worked for tobacco.

Look, the Democrats need a moderate. Ed Rendell is right. The question is, is Joe Biden, at a time when the party is, as you say, more diverse, more oriented towards women and minorities, going to go for a man who will be, I guess, 78 at the end of the campaign? Doesn't make a lot of sense, though we don't have anybody else because of the party for me has left moderates like Rendell and myself far behind.

INGRAHAM: But literally, when he's criticized for saying I worked with Republicans and we could get things done, that's considered --

SCHOEN: It's crazy.

RITCHIE: It shouldn't be, though.

INGRAHAM: -- completely radical. But he's the radical for saying that. Kirsten Gillibrand is upset, though. She's not upset about our own little problem with sexual harassment scandal in her office, but she is upset about something else. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Does it worry you to see the top three being white guys?

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-NEW YORK: Yes. I aspire for our country to recognize the beauty of our diversity. And at some point in the future I hope more people of color not only aspire and win the presidency, because that's what makes America so extraordinary, that we are all of that. We are everything. And I think a more inclusive America is a stronger America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Is that, is that, is that it?

RITCHIE: No. I don't believe in identity politics, and I think that in this election people need to vote for who they think is the best candidate. Don't vote for someone because they are black. Don't vote for someone because they are white or they're a man or a woman. We know that Kirsten Gillibrand is one that sort of runs -- she's the woman's presidential candidate. I think she said she wanted more than 50 percent of Congress one day to be made up of women.

INGRAHAM: Not conservatives, though, just women.

RITCHIE: Right. She really does pander into this sort of identity politics that I don't agree with at all.

INGRAHAM: I just want to take a trip down memory lane, because when I was a few years out of college, Joe Biden ran for president. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: I do it with incredible reluctance, and it makes me angry. I'm angry with myself for having been put in the position, put myself in the position, of having to make this choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: His choice at that point was to drop out because he had plagiarized a book by Neil Kinnock. That just shows you how long these guys have been around. I could make the argument, give a new person a try. You are a little long in the tooth.

SCHOEN: And I think that's what Democratic primary voters are inclined to do. The problem is they are not really electable. He is more electable but he's going to have a tough time getting nominated, Laura.

RITCHIE: And Biden-Harris is a winning ticket.

INGRAHAM: Biden who?

RITCHIE: Biden and Harris.

INGRAHAM: Biden-Beto, I'm going to make a prediction right now. All right, panel, thank you so much.

Is Nancy Pelosi losing control of her own party, though? Doug was just referencing it. How the radical newcomers are taking the career congresswoman to the brink in a push for impeachment. Congressman Devin Nunes here to react, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: The Democratic Party becoming even more divided as far left lawmakers continue to break with Speaker Nancy Pelosi on her opposition to impeaching the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you agree with Nancy Pelosi that Trump actually shouldn't be impeached?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think I've already made that very clear.

REP. ALEXANDRA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: I know a lot of members in the caucus have a different opinion, but that's why we caucus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a different opinion?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I happen to, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm confident that the impeachment will go forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Here with reaction, California congressman, ranking member of the House Intel Committee, Devin Nunes. Congressman, is Pelosi just losing control of her party at this point?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CA: I would look at it as more of a tactical move. So Nancy Pelosi definitely wants to impeach the president. They just want to find more evidence. So she is taken out of position that ultimately I think she will come around if they do in fact find their mythical animal that they are looking for on collusion, obstruction, or any of Trump's business deals.

So I see it as a tactical move. I wouldn't read a lot into it other than it's just something that they normally do. She's actually just saying something publicly that privately she's probably not saying to her members.

INGRAHAM: The congressman is into the tactical play here, very interesting. Your colleague, House Intel Chair Adam Schiff, has spent now the better part of, what, two years claiming the president was in bed with the Russians, right? Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF: There's clear evidence on the issue of collusion.

For people who wonder what does collusion look like when it's charged as a crime, Bob Mueller has told us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have Democrats found any evidence of collusion?

SCHIFF: Yes, we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Wow, this is amazing. He had evidence. But given all that he laid out, Congressman Nunes, it was little surprising to hear Schiff offer this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: What will be necessary to make an impeachment a bipartisan process would have to be extraordinarily clear and compelling. I don't foreclose the possibility that the Mueller investigation will produce that, or that our own will, but I think that the speaker is absolutely right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Is he part of this tactical kind of underplaying this now, because they don't think Mueller is going to deliver all the goods? Or is there something else going on?

NUNES: Remember, they have been all for impeachment. If they really believed that the president of the United States is being controlled by the Kremlin, this is what they've said. This is what they promised Mueller would produce. This is what we spent tens of millions of dollars of American taxpayer money to prove collusion. So now that they are moving off of that, I wouldn't take it as that they are giving up. Remember, they have opened up an entire investigation where they are going to supposedly go after all of Trump's businesses. So I think what this is, is it's a tactical pullback from Mueller, and then they're going to go once again out drilling wells looking for the oil, the gold, whatever you want to college.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, I want to move on to another startling development with the Hillary, non-prosecution of Hillary for the private email server, destruction of emails, and so forth, and Lisa Page's full testimony, her transcript was released today. I think it was Congressman Collins who pushed for that. And here's a part of what she said. At one point she said "We had multiple conversations with the Justice Department about bringing a gross negligence charge," meaning against Hillary, "And that's, as I said, the advice that we got from the department was that they did not think that it was constitutionally vague and not sustainable." So in other words, they discussed charging Hillary, but Justice is like, no, no, no, that won't work. What do the American people need to understand about just that one excerpt?

NUNES: Well, let's just take other cases that are very similar. We have many cases where you have sailors, for example, who took some pictures that appeared to be just fun pictures, but they had classified equipment in that picture. They got kicked out of the Navy and sentenced. There's multiple examples of where somebody takes classified information accidentally. They get prosecuted. This was done on purpose, a private server, emails being sent to the private server. The private server then disappears. Later, emails show up that are classified. Any person in the military or in the intelligence agencies would have been fired, or even worse, put in jail. Those are the facts.

INGRAHAM: I think what happens is our viewers watch this. They have seen this all laid out over the last two years plus, congressman. Then they get demoralized because they say, look, all this stuff happens, going back to what they were accusing Kavanaugh of wrongly, leaks from Feinstein's office it looks like. No repercussions, and no repercussions in a case where regular Americans, military men and women, get prosecuted and get the book thrown at them.

But again, going back to what we talked about earlier in the show, the college admissions scam, people seem to get away with the stuff. And so people get discouraged. So do you have confidence that the new attorney general, Bill Barr, should he and will he look into this?

NUNES: Look, I hear it every day, but I want to give your viewers and use some help. There are people here in Washington every day going brick by brick trying to bust down through this wall. Look, we've been doing this for two years, the House Intelligence Committee Republicans. Everything that we have done is now being proven to be true. Everything the Democrats have done and said in the reports, the memos that they put out have proven to be false. You have them now changing their tactics from we're going to go down the impeachment road to now something else. So we continue to work on the House Intelligence Committee. We will be making several criminal referrals, and we hope that the Justice Department is will take these up and actually move forward on them.

INGRAHAM: When is that going to happen? When are those criminal referrals going to be made?

NUNES: I would guess sometime in the next two, three, four weeks. We'd like to see what's in the Mueller report. I would also remind you, Laura, that we are going to have a deposition from both Christopher Steele and David Kramer. These are two witnesses that either pled the fifth or wouldn't come to present before the Congress.

INGRAHAM: OK, we are waiting with bated breath, because this is just a joke. And you're always trying to lay out the facts for us, and we really appreciate it, congressman.

And a lot more to get to tonight. Updates on the story out of Portland State that we brought you last week where a conservative speaker was shut down, the most disgusting display of rudeness and just leftwing usual Alinskyite tactics.

And new details on the Jussie Smollett case. Plus, as President Trump is attacked for questioning climate change, we'll speak to a man who has spent his entire life dispelling certain climate myths. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: There is new video tonight of Jussie Smollett ahead of his court date later this week on 16 federal charges connected to his hate crime hoax. The "Empire" actor appeared in the Chicago courtroom to, quote, show his confidence in his innocence. As the judge determines whether cameras should be allowed in the courtroom going forward, neither the state nor Smollett's defense team objected to the request made by the media. Smollett's attorney says they want everyone to hear the real story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TINA GLANDIAN, SMOLLETT'S ATTORNEY: We welcome cameras in the courtrooms so that the public and the media can see the actual evidence and what we believe is actually going to be the lack of evidence against Mr. Smollett, and we look forward to complete transparency and the truth coming out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Excellent. Good for us and you.

Now, despite the federal indictment, many high-profile individuals are still standing by Jussie. Terrence Howard, Tyler Perry, Queen Latifah, even Congresswoman Maxine Waters have all either doubled down on their support or refused to comment following the latest revelations. We will stay on this story.

And we also have an update on the story we told you about last week about that anti-free-speech thug on a certain college campus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as I can tell, I've been totally successful. I've shut this entire -- down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And protesters with cowbells of course interrupted that conservative blogger as he spoke at Portland State University during a College Republicans meeting. We reached out to 17 people at that university to come on our show last Thursday to provide a statement to us about free speech on campus, what they are doing to protect it. Only the media relations department ever got back to us.

As promised, we followed up on this story, and we asked Portland State officials today if there had been any arrests or any kind of action taken against that protester. Well, we received another statement. Quote, "The individual who disrupted the meeting is not a current student at Portland State. If he was a student, he would be subject to PSU's student code of conduct that has sanctions for violating rules governing student conduct."

Now remember, police stood by for an hour while this man tried to derail a conservative event. The university says that protester, though, didn't break any laws. Free-speech experts, however, still beg to differ.

And after a prominent Greenpeace Canada member took climate alarmists to task this morning on "FOX and Friends," President Trump quoted him on Twitter. In response, the media immediately we lack jackals on the president. The independent U.K. blaring "Trump repeats false claim." A CNN headline called the president's tweet his "latest denial of science." "Huffington Post" claims Trump parrots anti-science misinformation.

But is that accurate? Well, we put that question to a man who studied climate change for 35 years. Greg Wrightstone is a geologist and author of the book "Inconvenient Facts, The Science that Al Dore Does Not Want You to Know." It should be noted that Apple approved an app that he built for this book, but then they pulled it down.

Greg, I want to begin this, with this dire warning about carbon. The United Nations recently issued a warning that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at levels not seen in 3 million years. That's a long time, Greg. That sounds scary. So why are you denying the impact of this? You denier.

GREG WRIGHTSTONE, AUTHOR, "INCONVENIENT FACTS": Yes, well, the fact of the matter is we increased carbon dioxide by about 120 parts per million since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We are a little over 400 now. To put that in perspective, throughout earth's history prior to our current period, the average CO2 levels on earth were 2,600 parts per million, six and half times what they are right now, and earth thrived. So this is really a minor increase in carbon dioxide. It really needs to be put in that long-term perspective, and we see it's really just a blip.

And the other thing is that when I'm talking around the country, my talks usually center around how rising temperatures and increasing CO2 are benefiting the earth and humanity. We see tremendous benefits from increasing CO2. CO2 fertilization effect is benefiting the plants.

INGRAHAM: Greg, I also want to get your thoughts on the idea that we will see massive famines because of climate change. Here is Bill Nye, The Science Guy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL NYE, AUTHOR AND SCIENTIST: The agriculture in North America is going to have to move north into what would nominally be Canada. We don't have the railroads and roads to get food from that area to where we need it around the world. The longer we mess around and not address this problem, the more difficult it's going to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Are you ready to plow fields in Saskatchewan? Come on.

WRIGHTSTONE: I don't think so. What we have seen is continuing -- what he's doing, and it's important to look at this is a lot of what we hear from people like Bill Nye is speculation about what might happen 30, 50, or 80 years in the future based on failed climate models that over-predict warming. We know that throughout human history, warming periods like we're in now, and, yes, we are in a warming period, it's been warming for over 300 years. Those warming periods were hugely beneficial, with bountiful crops, bountiful food. It was the cold periods that were really bad in between. That's when famine occurs. Completely opposite of what Bill Nye is telling you.

INGRAHAM: Really quick. The claim that it's not just famines we need to worry about but massive droughts too. Here's a NASA climate scientist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In our projections what we're saying is that with climate change many of these types of droughts will likely last for 20, 30, sometimes even 40 years. These droughts really represent events that nobody in the history of the United States has ever had to deal with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, NASA is never wrong. Really quick, Greg.

WRIGHTSTONE: They are wrong here. If you have my app, you can see it. I look at the massive droughts of the 20th century, and we've seen most of those occurred before 1960. These were the really bad droughts, and they are in decline.

INGRAHAM: We'll be right back. We appreciate that. I hope Apple reconsiders and puts your app back up.

We'll be back with the Last Bite.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ran into a buzz saw today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: Should Wells Fargo be held responsible for the damages incurred by climate change due to the financing of fossil fuels and these projects?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know how you would calculate that, congresswoman.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: How about the cleanups from the leaks of the Dakota Access Pipeline?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not aware of the leaks associated with the Dakota Access Pipeline that you're describing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The point was the bank didn't build the pipeline, which is what he said. We didn't build it, OK? We just financed it. We did our own risk assessment. My friends, Shannon Bream and the Fox News @ Night team is next and they're in New York. Shannon, take it away.

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