Assange: WikiLeaks to release 'significant' Clinton material
WikiLeaks founder provides insight about his organization's process in a 'Kelly File' exclusive
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," August 24, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, Hillary Clinton under mounting pressure tonight from the left and the right to shut the doors of her Clinton Foundation once and for all.
And tonight the Clintons are fighting back big time. Welcome to "The Kelly File," everybody, I'm Megyn Kelly. Twenty four hours ago, we brought you a stunning report from the "Associated Press" suggesting Hillary Clinton held many, many meetings with Clinton Foundation donors while she was supposed to be doing the American people's business. The AP found that 154 people with private interests who met or had phone conversations with then- Secretary of State Clinton more than half or 85 of them gave money to her foundation, the Clinton Foundation, for a combined total of $156 million. The Clinton campaign quickly hitting back saying this report is flawed. And earlier today as a campaign stop, former President Bill Clinton chimed in. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: We're trying to do our thing. There's something wrong with creating jobs and saving lives. I don't know what it is. The people who gave the money knew exactly what they were doing. I don't have nothing to say. I'm proud of what they've done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: We begin tonight with our chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reporting from Washington. Catherine?
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, tonight, the Associated Press is standing its ground after Hillary Clinton's team tried and failed to get a correction. The Clinton campaign complained on the morning shows that this AP tweet was unfair, not accurate, and based on limited information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBBY MOOK, HILLARY CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER: By our count there were over 1,700 other meetings that she had. She was secretary of state. She was meeting with foreign officials and government officials constantly. So to pull all of them out of the equation, cherry-pick a very small number of meetings is pretty outrageous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HERRIDGE: And the White House defended Clinton telling reporters that even before she became Secretary of State, there was a transparency agreement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: To ensure that the ethics requirements that are in place went above and beyond those guidelines that are set by law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HERRIDGE: But the Associated Press says their reporting is based on documents released by a federal court after they had to sue the State Department and it took three years for the A.P. to get the Clintons' schedules. This showed the foundation donors. And it made sense to analyze meetings outside her regular government duties as secretary, quote, "This reporting was done by the same A.P. investigative team that discovered Mrs. Clinton's private e-mail server and whose reporting last week, resulted in the resignation of Donald Trump's top campaign strategist" -- Megyn.
KELLY: Catherine Herridge, thank you. In just a few moments, we're going to speak with the Congressman Trey Gowdy who just got back from Capitol Hill where he personally reviewed some of the FBI's documents from its investigation into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server. He'll tell us what he found.
But first we are joined by Roland Martin, host and managing editor of TV ONE's News One Now. Roland, great to have you on the program. Thank you for being here.
ROLAND MARTIN, HOST OF TV ONE'S NEWSONE NOW: Glad to be here.
KELLY: So, what do you make of this, of the Clinton Foundation, we're just looking at the publications today. USA Today, Boston Globe, New York Post, "Detroit News," Daily Beast, all saying these things ought to be shut down at a minimum if she wins.
MARTIN: Well, first and foremost, if she wins the presidency, you'll have her as president, you'll have former President Bill Clinton serving as first husband if you will. I do believe what they should do is transition out of business because even though they've done phenomenal work, you're now the commander-in-chief. You're now leader of the free world. And so, look, I see it on the group of 50CAN, education group. Students first. We merge transferred assets. And so, you can do that, you can partner with an existing NGO to do the work --
KELLY: But do you think -- what do you think of the existence of it now? Laura Ingraham was on FOX earlier calling the Clinton Foundation a machine for influence peddling. They're suggesting that they use it, they use it to sort of, you know, to get donations to use her power as secretary of state to sort of convince people to donate to their foundation.
MARTIN: Well, first of all I would disagree with that. Because let's keep in mind she's a former First Lady, she's a former United States senator. I think she probably had a hell of a lot more relationships even if she was secretary of state. The reality is, the work that they're doing as an NGO across the world is critically important. You have President Jimmy Carter who probably comes closest to having his own organization that does work around the world. It's very rare to have a former president that has this type of entity.
I would say Laura is absolutely wrong. She certainly has an ax to grind here. I don't. The bottom-line is, they do good work but I do believe what the Clinton folks have to understand is, it's not simply just a question of what took place in meetings, it's also the appearance. And so, I think one of the things that they should do, and they really should do this. They should say after Labor Day, they are going to suspend, accepting any funds into the foundation because you're in the middle of a presidential campaign. I believe it would be far more proactive as opposed to reactive. That's what the Clintons should be doing.
KELLY: Roland, do you like her? I know that you're a big supporter of President Obama. What do you think of her?
MARTIN: I've met her. She's a nice woman. I've been critical of her. Like I've been critical of the President. The last time I interviewed him was seven years ago. So, it's not like that we've been body, body. But again, just like anybody who's in political office, you know, I have a very simple philosophy, Megyn, if you do good, I'll talk about you. If you do bad, I'll talk about you. I'll talk about you.
KELLY: Before I let you go, because that's a great sign up, but I have to ask you, are you open minded to Donald Trump?
MARTIN: Here's the deal. I have interviewed a significant number of African-Americans and I have been asking exactly the same question over and over and over. Where is your plan? Look. I voted for Republicans before, so this ain't the first time. I look at individuals. The problem for me is here. Donald Trump gives great comments. It's on my bumper sticker. But there's no specificity, there's no plans, and being when he keeps saying stuff, you'd come back and says, wait a minute, that's not true, I've got a problem when you simply running for office cannot even tell me how you're going to pay for your tax plan. You're not talking about HBCUs. You're talking about African-Africans. Well, then, where's your plan. I'm sorry. He's all hat and no cattle, that's what we say in my native Texas.
KELLY: Roland, good to see you.
MARTIN: Likewise, thanks a lot.
KELLY: Joining us now, the KELLY FILE exclusive, South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy, the former chairman on the Select Committee on Benghazi. Great to see you, sir.
So, today you had an interesting day taking a look at documents that the FBI had prior to you getting a look at them. Did you find anything particularly interesting about these documents that Hillary provided the FBI?
REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C., FORMER BENGHAZI COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Yes, ma'am. Keep in mind one notebook with the classified e-mails that she handled so negligently. The other notebook were the witness interviews, is summaries, what we call 302s. My number one takeaway Megyn is there's no reason in the world, you could not and should not be able to look at the same way these interviews that I had to go to Washington and look at in a classified setting. You and your viewers should be able to read some of these witness interviews.
The second takeaway, is a lot of the FBI's time and attention was spent debunking and refuting these fantastically false statements that Secretary Clinton made at the inception of this e-mail story. And the third takeaway, remember Director Comey said that he could not indict, did not have a realistic, probability of this successful prosecution on the issue of intent. So, I looked to see what witnesses were questioned on the issue of intent including her and I didn't see that many questions of --
KELLY: Let's go back to number two, let's go back to the second point which is, how much time they had to spend debunking. What you say were lies and falsehood that she told, what do you mean by that?
GOWDY: Oh, even -- I made even something as seemingly innocuous as us referring to Sidney Blumenthal her adviser. Remember, she got really upset when we used that term. You'll never guess what term the FBI used when they described Sidney Blumenthal and his relationship to her. He was interviewed. I think you would find very interesting what Colin Powell had to say and juxtapose out with what Clinton supporters have had to say over the last 48 hour. The multiple devices, how many phones she had. The very reason she set it up. All of that proved to be fantastically false.
KELLY: And I want to ask you this. So, she also of course claims that she never sent or received classified information. We now know that that's not true. I know you thought it might be interesting if the American people could see who sent some of the e-mails that she received with the classified information. What do you mean by that? Why would that be so interesting?
GOWDY: Well, right now, even Congress can't see the identities of them. They are so classified that even a congressman in a skiff with no telephone, no iPad, no notes, cannot even see who the author or the originator of that email string was. That is how classified that information was that she was handling on a non-secure server.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
GOWDY: So, Sidney Blumenthal is one author, of course, you know, Sharon Mills and Huma Abedin and Jake Sullivan. But there even some originators that even members of Congress cannot see the identity of them because of the nature of the information.
KELLY: Uh-hm. But meanwhile she was saying, I had no idea. No. No. Congressman Trey Gowdy, great to see you. Thank you for being here.
GOWDY: Yes, ma'am, thank you.
KELLY: Also tonight, a new reason for Hillary Clinton to be very concerned about a potential October surprised. The fugitive founder of the controversial group, Wikileaks is here in an exclusive interview on the information he holds and what it may mean for Mrs. Clinton. Don't miss Julian Assange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: You know, right now, according to the average of all polls, she's beating Donald Trump by 5.5 points nationwide, she's way ahead of him in most of the swing states. Not all. Do you believe the information in your possession could be a game-changer in the U.S. election?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight with just 75 days go until the election, a series of unflattering new revelations about Hillary Clinton and possible influence peddling have come to light and there are new reports now from campaign insiders that Mrs. Clinton plans to, quote, "run out the clock," largely ignoring these controversies until the voters go to the polls. But our next guest has other plans.
He says, his website Wikileaks is set to publish information that will not be helpful to Mrs. Clinton and it may force her to respond. Moments ago, we had a lengthy and fascinating conversation with Julian Assange. Co- founder and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks. He only agreed to speak to us from an undisclosed location since he is currently wanted for extradition by Sweden and he's under investigation by the U.S. government too for his role in the largest leak of classified documents in U.S. history. Here is part one of that exclusive interview. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Julian, thank you very much for being here. So, let's start with the additional information you have regarding Hillary Clinton. When can we expect this information?
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Well, we're working around the clock. We have a lot of material (INAUDIBLE) and by a major DNC revelation which is now lead to the resignation of five officials at the DNC including Debbie Wasserman Schultz late last week. So, you know, it's a complex business what we do. We have to assess the voracity, we have a perfect ten-year record so far of never getting it wrong. We want to keep that reputation. Understanding how to keep things should be formatted, what media we should be involved in. What is the best way to stage it out? Do we accumulate everything in one batch or do we consider - - several batches. We decided to do several batches.
KELLY: But what, I mean, give us a general sense. I mean, are we going to see it before the November 8th election?
ASSANGE: Yes, absolutely. I mean in the case of the DNC leaks, for example, we pushed as hard as we could to try to get it in before the Democratic nomination conference because obviously people have a right to understand who they're nominating and what's involved and the same is true here for the U.S. electoral process, people involved in that election, have the right to understand who it is they're electing.
KELLY: Now, you've seen it, right? Can you tell us how significant you believe it is? I mean compare its significance to what we saw released by Wikileaks in July.
ASSANGE: Well, I don't want to scoop ourselves. We have a lot of pages of material, thousands of pages of material. So, while I have not read every single page, in doing that, I didn't want to give the game away. But there's a variety of different types of documents from different types of institutions that are associated with the election campaign, some quite unexpected angles that are, you know, quite interesting, some even entertaining.
KELLY: Do you -- you know, right now according to the average of all polls, she's beating Donald Trump by 5.5 points nationwide, she's way ahead of him in most of the swing states, not all, do you believe the information in your possession could be a game-changer in the U.S. election?
ASSANGE: I think it's significant. You know, it depends on how it catches fire in the public and in the media.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Joining us now, Chris Stirewalt, our Fox News digital politics editor. And Dana Perino, former White House press secretary and co-host of "The Five."
Part two of our interview with Assange is tomorrow, and wait until you see it. Okay. So, this is, I mean this is something a lot of people talk about, which is the October surprise, and despite all the polling we've seen for Hillary Clinton in her favor, whether that guy I just talked to, he's got the one thing that really could stop her, some sort of a bombshell that could be a deal breaker. Dana, what are your thoughts?
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CO-HOST, "THE FIVE": Well, he has a gift of understatement in a way. Right? This is what you call it deep tease. He's going to string us along. And I think Republicans will probably hope that there is something that will make so many Democrats stay home that it depresses the Democratic turnout and that Donald Trump can somehow get to victory that way. I would imagine given, you know, he said that they work very hard in order to get the DNC leaks out just in time, I mean, but they did it the night before.
KELLY: But he's admitted that they did that to influence, I mean, they want attention.
PERINO: So, I want to make a prediction that whatever it is that he has will come out the night before the third presidential debate.
KELLY: Oh!
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS DIGITAL POLITICS EDITOR: Hmm.
KELLY: Because that's close enough in time to really have an impact on the election?
PERINO: Because she would be forced to have to answer it on the debate stage. The third debate is the one that everyone pays attention to. I'm not giving Assange any ideas.
(LAUGHTER)
STIREWALT: He's writing this down.
PERINO: I mean, because that would be, you know that everybody is going to be watching that debate in particular. I imagine as these debates go, some people will think Trump won one and she won the other and it will come down to the third one and they'll have this big massive story right beforehand and she'll have to deal with it.
KELLY: But the thing is, Chris. And we get into this more with Assange tomorrow. Look, he does not like Donald Trump. He's not fan of Donald Trump, but he really doesn't like Hillary Clinton at all, and I think he'd be just fine if he released something that hurt her campaign at a critical moment in this contest.
STIREWALT: Yes. What is Hillary Clinton but the embodiment of the American nation -- bipartisan national security state? Hillary Clinton is a continuation and re-intensification or the American National Security state that Julian Assange and others as part of this movement detest when it comes to the national security apparatus that is involved in tracking phone calls, that is involved in all of that stuff.
KELLY: But not even that. I mean, not only that, he also thinks that she's a hawk.
STIREWALT: Right.
KELLY: -- to her, you know, pushing of the policy in Libya and, you know, getting Gadhafi out of there and so on, which he thinks is a disaster. And he doesn't like her on a number of levels.
STIREWALT: Of course. And it stands to reason because this would be, Hillary Clinton would be more of a return to more of a foreign policy than former President Bush is. Donald Trump represents a dramatic deviation from American foreign policy to this point in the sense that --
KELLY: Okay. But here's the question. Here's a question for you. I'll ask you this, Chris. Could anything he released realistically, I mean given his description -- it wasn't like he said, I've got a bombshell, you just wait for it. Right? It was like --
STIREWALT: Right.
KELLY: It's quite unexpected, it may be entertaining, it's insignificant. I don't know. But could it really change the views and the votes in this election? Or people, I mean, it's hard to believe that people who are supporting her right now might switch over to Trump?
STIREWALT: Millions and millions of Americans are going to vote for people in this election that they say they do not trust. That's a fact and it's going to be true, on both sides, it's going to be true for Hillary Clinton. But there are going to be millions and millions of people, and the polls tells us that say, they don't trust her, they do not find her honest and trustworthy. But they're going to pull the lever for her anyway. What you need in order -- and the Clintons have set this threshold and the Republicans oddly have reinforced the threshold which is, she's either going to the clank, she is either going up the river or she is going to the White House. Either she is found to be guilty of a serious crime or whatever.
KELLY: Or the clink.
(LAUGHTER)
The fear is maybe not that they're going to switch from Hillary to Trump. You know, the fear on the Clinton's people part is that it will depress enthusiasm.
PERINO: Right. So, as you go back to 2000, that Election Day was very close, so Gore and Bush. And right before them, you remember the news that broke was that George W. Bush had had a run-in with the law, with a DUI situation that he had not disclose and Karl Rove and others will tell you that that absolutely depressed evangelical turnout. Now, if Trump can get this election closer and depress has turned out on her side, maybe that helps.
KELLY: Uh-hm. Fascinating. Great to see you. You as well, Chris Stirewalt.
STIREWALT: You bet.
KELLY: We have much more with Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange including questions about the mysterious murder of DNC staffer Seth Rice who was killed last month in Washington, DC. And whether he is a potential source for Wikileaks. Assange goes farther than he's ever gone before on that question. Don't miss that extended interview tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. right here on THE KELLY FILE.
Well, we also have big news breaking tonight on Donald Trump on a critical part of his pitch to the voters on immigration. He's done a 180 on the big issue and our all-star panel is next with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Jose Antonio Vargas and Erick Erickson. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: We may be witnessing a new and stunning shift from Donald Trump on immigration tonight. Yesterday, Trump said, he would consider softening his plan to deport some 11 million people here illegally, that was of course after he spent months, months making explicit promises that he would not compromise on this point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're going to keep the families together. We have to keep the families together, but they have to go. They have to go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What if they have no place to go.
TRUMP: We will work with them. They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country or we don't have a country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to have a massive deportation force?
TRUMP: You're going have a deportation force and you're going to do it humanely. They're going go back where they came. If they came from a certain country, they're going to be brought back to that country. That's the way it's going to be. Now, they can come back but they have to come back legally.
We need to have a country or we don't have a country. We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Now Trump is suggesting they may not go out. That a policy expelling illegal immigrants and their families could be too tough. Watch this from part 2 of Sean Hannity's town hall which airs at 10:00 p.m. tonight. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, HOST, "HANNITY": Originally you said they were all out and there's a big brouhaha, but you're saying that if somebody can prove that they've been here, proven to be a citizen. But, well, here's the big question though --
TRUMP: Go ahead.
HANNITY: No citizenship.
TRUMP: There is no amnesty, but we work with them. Now, okay. But when I look at the rooms and I have this all over. Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out, but when I go through and I've meet thousands and thousands of people on the subject and I've had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me and they've said, Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person that's been here for 15 and 20 years and throw them and the family out, it's so tough, Mr. Trump -- I mean, I hear it all the time. It's a very, very hard thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Chief political correspondent Carl Cameron is live in Jackson, Mississippi, where Trump was tonight. Carl?
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They're breaking down the show here, Megyn. And it was quite a show. Donald Trump didn't talk a great deal about immigration tonight. He did say there would not be amnesty, which is exactly what he said to Sean Hannity. But when you put it into context of decades of immigration reform, battles on Capitol Hill, the question of what constitutes amnesty becomes a critical one.
For years, Republican conservatives argued that anything that amounted to citizenship at an end of a process, for those who were here undocumented illegal immigrants now, that that would be amnesty. So, the language changed to what many said would be a path to legal status which meant they wouldn't get citizenship if they would be allowed to stay. That appears to be what Donald Trump is warming up to actually announce, though he says it's not amnesty. It is exactly what he accused Jeb Bush and several others of his rivals in the primary process of essentially promoting. Amnesty is anything that allows people to stay here who aren't legal immigrants.
That said, there wasn't a lot of talk of that here at the rally tonight. Instead, he went back to the law and order attack on Hillary Clinton saying that liberal policies have kept down minorities, specifically African- Americans and Hispanics and he upped the rhetoric significantly. And even though his senior new aides have said that the name calling would subside, it escalated tonight. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings, worthy of a better future. She doesn't care what her policies have done to your communities. Hillary Clinton has no remorse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMERON: Trump has been campaigning in red states here in Mississippi, although he was in Tampa, Florida earlier today and last night he was in Texas. These are states that have been red and voting for Republicans in presidential races for decades. He should be very, very safe here. He returns going back to battleground states more aggressively tomorrow.
But, boy, he's left some real footprints. Hillary Clinton is surely not going to tolerate being called a bigot and she may have some ammunition given some of the rhetoric that Trump has used on the campaign trail for the last 14 months, Megyn.
KELLY: Carl, thank you. Joining me now is Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, also Jose Antonio Vargas, the editor of #EmergingUS and founder of defineamerican.com, himself an undocumented immigrant and Erick Erickson, editor of "The Resurgent," great to see you all. Erick, let me start with this, with Trump's clear 180 on his promise to deport all 11 million of those here illegally. I mean it's a 180, is it not?
ERICK ERICKSON, THE RESURGENT EDITOR: Right. It absolutely is. I mean, it turns out that Trump is just as much a politician as all the politicians he attacked for being politicians. This was Jeb Bush's position, Marco Rubio's positions, John Kasich's position and Ted Cruz's position, and it wasn't enough for him. He attacked all of them for being soft on immigration saying we had to round everybody up and send all of them home and maybe they could come back. But was very, very clear they all had to go and now not so much.
KELLY: Sheriff Joe, do you deny that this is a 180?
JOE ARPAIO, MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF: Oh, I don't know. First of all we would not be having this conversation if 16 months ago he had the courage to bring up the illegal immigration problem. Nobody wanted to bring it up. He brought it up with the wall which I agree should be built, and now he's looking at the situation with 11 million people. He has always said you have to obey the law. The last I heard that if you come into this country illegally, you're violating the law. So, let's see what his plan really is. Everybody is...
KELLY: You just heard him. You just heard him say no amnesty. We're going to get rid of the bad ones first, but as far as those who have come to this country he says, you know, 15 years 20 years, it's just so tough and it's a very different message, is it not, sheriff, from what we've heard from Donald Trump to date.
ARPAIO: I don't know. He hasn't made a decision. I'm very happy he's meeting with the minority groups. This is great because he knows how to relate to the people on the street, so I'm sure he's picking up some ideas. But I also believe that he said he's going to enforce the law. So let's see how this situation falls within the laws when you're talking about visas and work permits and everything else.
KELLY: But with all due respect to the sheriff, Jose, he's sort of ignoring the additional part that he gave to Sean Hannity tonight. You know, what he said last night to Sean which was that he's softening and what he said tonight, which is you know, I've been on the campaign trail. This is what I've seen. It's just so tough to deport, which you;ve been saying, Jose, yourself that, you know, you can't. These people are -- they are part of the American society now and to rip them out and rip them away from their families is impractical and you tell me whether he's now rounded back to Jeb Bush's position almost exactly.
JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, DEFINEAMERICAN.COM: You know, what I think is interesting about this is like having Donald Trump talk to his own undocumented workers who have built and actually, you know, make sure that his golf courses and his hotels are working properly. Actually one of my friends, Gaby Pacheco is in the board of Define American, met with Donald Trump three years ago and Donald Trump actually said, hey, you know, it makes sense that undocumented young people should be here and be able to stay.
Look, I mean, Erick just said, Donald Trump is a politician. He's flip- flopping, right. And I think what's sad about this is you can't take away all the months and months of comments of Mexicans as rapists, as Muslims as terrorists. All these blanket simplistic statements that are not only untrue but are very hurtful. And now he's looking 80 days before the election and he's like, wait a second, how am I going to win this election without Latino voters and Asian voters and immigrants?
KELLY: You know, Erick, you have not been a supporter of Mr. Trump. You're part of the Never Trump crowd, but you've been saying for months that he's going to reverse it like you can't believe these promises. And it was interesting because during the campaign season, the primary season, I asked him about his flip-flops, his frequent flip-slops at the third presidential debate, the third for Fox News, that is hosted in Detroit, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is they believe you tell it like it is but time and time again in this campaign you have actually told voters one thing only to reverse yourself within weeks, or even sometimes days. But the point I'm going for is you change your tune on so many things and that has some people saying, what is his core?
TRUMP: Megyn, I have a very strong core. I have a very strong core. But I have never seen a successful person who wasn't flexible, who didn't have a certain degree of flexibility. You have to have a certain degree of flexibility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Erick, is that what we're seeing now?
ERICKSON: Well, yeah, you know, this is a pattern with Donald Trump that every clause of every sentence (ph) uttered in every breath is subject to change sometimes by the very next sentence (ph). And this is actually to his credit going back to the exact same position he held until almost the day he announced for president he declared Mexicans as rapists.
In 2012, he attacked Mitt Romney for being too harsh on immigration. In 2013 and '14 he cajoled the Republicans to actually allow people to stay here. It was only when he began running for president that he took the position we need to expel everyone. Well, now he has the nomination and he can actually go back to the position he held up until the day he announced.
KELLY: Now, Sheriff Joe, explain to us why, notwithstanding, but we're hearing from him over the past 24 hours, you, I mean obviously you are anti-illegal immigration, we all know that. Explain to us why you still believe in him and he still fully has your support.
ARPAIO: He's had it to begin with and he will always have it. He's a great guy and sometimes people make comments taken out of context. OK, so what's wrong with him studying an issue and trying to find out what's the best thing for our country? He's got good character and that's what counts. Some people may not agree with me, but I think I know him pretty well. And when he says he's going put the wall up, believe me, that wall is going up.
You don't seem to talk about that. So now we're talking about the millions of people that are here, which is a very controversial subject right now. Something has to be done about that. Maybe Congress ought to do something and get some laws passed if you have to or enforce the laws that we already have on the books. That's what we should do and that's what I believe that Mr. Trump will accomplish.
KELLY: Jose, I'll give you the quick last word.
VARGAS: Sheriff, I did not cross that wall. I'm from the Philippines actually and legal border crossings for Mexico are at lowest levels since the 1970s. Can we talk about facts when we talk about this issue? Donald Trump has been running a fact list, an inhumane campaign when it comes to immigrants in this country and he can't just take it back. What's at stake in this election is really how we define American.
ARPAIO: Well, he wants a wall to protect this country from terrorism and the drugs. Forget the drug traffic coming into our country.
KELLY: I got to leave it there -- I go to leave it there. It's great to see you all. Thank you, gentlemen.
Also tonight, a shocking story playing out at a major university publicly funded, and it involves a select group of students receiving training to quote "stop white people" funded by the public.
Plus, big news on the 2016 race and some new polls from the swing states -- Tucker Carlson, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Ben Domenech are all here next.
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KELLY: Breaking tonight, 75 days from the election. Hillary Clinton is maintaining her 5 plus point lead over Donald Trump in the average of all national polls but in battleground North Carolina, the candidates are locked in a virtual tie. That has not stopped Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, however, from saying that the surveys aren't really telling the whole story. Why? So-called undercover Trump voters. We're hearing more and more of this.
Joining me now to discuss it, Tucker Carlson, editor-in-chief of The Daily Column, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster and Washington Examiner columnist, and Ben Domenech, publisher of the Federalist.
So, what Kellyanne is saying and we've heard this from a few Trump supporters now and campaign (inaudible) there's the undercover voter who doesn't want to tell the pollsters that they're in Trump's camp because the social stigma has been attached to being a Trump voter in her mind and so he's underpolling what he really is -- how he's really going to perform. Tucker, do you buy it?
TUCKER CARLSON, THE DAILY COLUMN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I mean there's always some truth. I think it's a pretty slim hope to hang a campaign on. On the other hand, we just saw a pretty clear example of this in late June in Great Britain with the Brexit vote.
So, the night before the Brexit vote, the stay side, the anti-Brexit forces were 4 points up in the polls. They won by two. That's a six-point shift in 24 hours. The betting market which traditionally are pretty accurate because actual money is at stake, had it 90/10, stay/leave. The demographics were pretty similar to what we're looking at now.
People who supported stay were the finance community, ethnic minorities and young people. And I think what happened was a lot of those people didn't vote in the numbers that the leave people voted in. So, that's not a crazy comparison actually. If it gets tight, I think that could be real.
KELLY: What do you think, Kristen?
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: In the primaries there was a big difference between how Trump performs in calls where you had a live person asking someone over the phone who you're voting for and some of these surveys were online, where you're not saying to an actual person who you're voting for.
Trump tended to do a little bit better in those surveys. But here in the general election, we're not seeing that same kind of divide. You know, as Tucker mentioned, there have been cases in the past where we had what we call social desirability bias. People think they've got to give the right answer on the phone but it doesn't make up for the kinds of margins that we're seeing Trump down by in some of these key swing states.
So, I think to the extent that there are any missing Trump voters, there's also the chance that there are voters that are Democratic voters who get missed because they're hard to survey. Maybe they don't landline phones and such. So, there's a chance the polls could be off a little bit in either direction. It is slim hope to hang a campaign on.
KELLY: Ben, the "Weekly Standard's" Jonathan Last tweeted out, "If Trump's actually winning, or basically suggesting if he's got all these voters who are prepared to vote for him, but we don't know about them, then why did he reorganize his successful campaign operation?
BEN DOMENECH, THE FEDERALIST PUBLISHER: Absolutely. It's something you have to ask. I mean, it's one of these situations where to Tucker's point earlier, if Donald Trump was able to make this close, if he was able to become more acceptable, more socially acceptable as a choice, I think that you would see much tighter numbers in all of these states. I think you'll be seeing him doing a lot better.
I think the problem that he's run through the course of what people know about Trump now. He's very much a settled proposition. People know who he is and I think that these types of claims that there is some great mass of people out there who want to vote for Donald Trump and just haven't been willing to say that to a pollster, that's just too much of a reach at this point in the game.
KELLY: But now he is trying to mix it up, Tucker. I mean, clearly the shift on immigration is an attempt to bring more people into the fold and banking on his long held belief that not a single one of his core supporters will leave no matter what he does or says.
CARLSON: Right. And that maybe true. I do think it's a mistake to finesse a policy that hasn't been laid out yet, which is in effect what he's doing. I mean, look, the Brexit people won under the leadership of Nigel Farage because they articulated really clearly what it was about. And what it was about was democracy in action.
He was making the case, look, a small group of people make all the decisions in this country. It's supposed to be a democracy, it's not. And now is your chance to make your voice heard on behalf of borders and sovereignty and acting on behalf of your own country. That's a really powerful message. That's in effect what Trump is saying but he's not saying it explicitly enough.
I think if you were to shift to that and stop with this dumb, well, you know, maybe deportation first. They were like, no. Big picture -- stick to the big picture and I actually think even at this late day he could pull it off?
KELLY: What about, like, is Trump optimizing his schedule? I mean, what was he doing in Mississippi tonight?
ANDERSON: This is one of the big challenges that I see the Trump campaign really needs to re-adjust to. There are a handful of states that are going defy (ph) this presidential elections. We can talk about the national polls, is Trump up or down, you know, is he down by five right now, down by six. But it's really all about states like Ohio, states like Pennsylvania, like Virginia and Florida.
And the Obama campaign in 2012 really focused on optimizing not just what state president Obama was going to travel to for campaign rallies, but what county in those state, and use data to decide what is the best way to optimize every hour of that candidate's time. And it seems to me that Donald Trump is really good at building a fan base. He's good at going places where he can get excited rallies. But that's not the same as putting together the electoral votes to be president.
KELLY: Ben, quickly, the debates, how big a factor?
DOMENECH: I think the debates could be a huge factor. The problem really is that in Donald Trump's case, you have to assume a campaign -- a campaign that doesn't really exist yet in terms of the people on the ground who could exploit a good performance in those debates and actually bring people into the fold, especially in those critical states that Kristen just mentioned.
KELLY: Great to see you all.
DOMENECH: Good to be with you.
KELLY: Up next, Ben Shapiro with the story of the college campus now running the "Stop White People" training program on the public's dime.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the world headquarters of Fox News, it's "The Kelly File" with Megyn Kelly.
KELLY: A head-turning story out of the state university of New York at Binghamton tonight. Resident advisers there being offered an optional training course called "Stop White People 2K16." Supposedly, this is diversity training, but some say it's actually racist. Ben Shapiro joins me now, an attorney and editor-in-chief of "The Daily Wire" which broke this story. Ben, good to see you. What's this about?
BEN SHAPIRO, THE DAILY WIRE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: So basically, there's a resident assistant program, a training program, 40 to 50 RA's attended it. And the goal was to teach all of these RA's how to deal with white privilege and all of the racism inherent on the campus to explain that reverse racism didn't really exist and to correct the misconceptions evolved what they call the under educated people who think things like white privilege is a buzz word for leftism and that people should actually be treated equally without regards to their race.
This is particularly -- this is just plain leftist politics under the guise of re-education by a bunch of resident assistants. The university says, of course, that they have nothing to do with the concept (ph), but they assured everybody that retroactively there is nothing really objectionable. They were just using the terms stop white people facetiously.
KELLY: It was a joke. Can you imagine if there was a program, like, stop black people? The reaction that we'd get at a publicly funded university?
SHAPIRO: Yeah, I mean the whole thing is absurd, of course. You can try to give a lecture sponsored by a group on campus that has anything to do with race. There is a good shot you'll be protested and shut down.
KELLY: As you know firsthand.
SHAPIRO: Exactly. They can actually run a program called "Stop White People 2K16" that's totally fine, neglecting of course the fact that most of the taxpayers in the state of New York are white and therefore subsidizing education presumably most of the people giving the grants in a state university of New York.
KELLY: But they must be stopped?
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KELLY: But this is what the students said. The student group says, this is vice president for student affairs say, look, it wasn't anti-white. We're trying to improve people's ability to handle conflicts around the issues of diversity and race and it was very respectful and, you know, only a couple of people complained.
SHAPIRO: To whom? Respectful to whom? Again, as you said, I mean you tell all these things "Stop Black People," and the entire country shuts down. President Obama sends the DOJ to investigate, you got to stop white people. And that's just another way of expressing yourself. It's just a way of bringing up conflict.
Listen, this is the sort of intellectual rigor that I would expect from the Harvard of Binghamton, but nonetheless, it's not exactly, I think, an even playing field with regard to white and black at the state universities.
KELLY: They are saying only a couple people had mixed reaction, but what about those who didn't feel comfortable saying because they worried they're going to be called a racist if they say I don't really like this, it makes me feel uncomfortable? Ben, great to see you. We'll continue to follow it, and we'll be right back with a preview of Julian tomorrow night.
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KELLY: Tune in tomorrow for part two of our interview with the founder of WikiLeaks set to release quote "significant new leaked information about Hillary Clinton." And watch his response when I ask him about who leaked these documents to him and whether the leaker was murdered in July.
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KELLY: There was also speculation about whether your source was inside the DNC and whether it may have potentially been a man named Seth Rich, who was killed, he was shot. Why are you so interested in Seth Rich's killer?
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: We're very interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged WikiLeaks sources.
KELLY: I was asking you explicitly whether you believe somebody connected with the DNC or somebody upset about the leak may have been behind it.
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KELLY: Hear his answer tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. See you then.
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