Biden's calls for unity in inaugural address sends ominous message
Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele shares his thoughts on 'The Ingraham Angle'
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 20, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: All right. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington tonight. The Biden inaugural just wrapping up for the night, and we're here to break down everything you saw or you avoided. Victor Davis Hanson, Dinesh D'Souza, Ben Domenech, and Shelby Steele are all here. They're going to offer unrivaled analysis.
Plus, Raymond Arroyo is here with all the "Scene & Unseen" moments from the day, good.
Also, as Biden is pledging unity on one side of the country, as I referenced with Sean, Antifa lunatics are destroying cities on the other side. We have a live report on the ground in not so peaceful and unified Portland.
But, first, "Liberty Over Unity" that's the focus of tonight's ANGLE. Now, today, you might have heard as a day of first. First woman of color is vice president. First socially distanced inauguration. First time a sitting president left Washington before a new president was sworn in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: You know, I think if we take this moment just to realize how historic this is--
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Such a historic day and especially for such a historic duo.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A true, true historic first day in the White House.
KEILAR: The first female president, the first female Black president, also of South Asian descent. This is a very big deal as we are watching her walk down Pennsylvania Avenue here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Indeed, but there was another important first that was largely overlooked by politicos and the media. China's top news agency celebrating Trump's leaving office. Good riddance, Donald Trump. Well, China couldn't care less about historic firsts or diversity or Lady Gaga and her great song or performance. But they do know that with Trump out of the White House, well, they're poised to soar past the U.S. in wealth, military might and global influence.
Now, the 2020s will probably be known as the decade where China became the most powerful country on Earth. The CCP is giddy because it knows that America's Democratic Party, especially one led by an agent globalist like Biden, is not really willing or able to stand up to them, or for that matter, to stand up for freedom around the world.
Social justice activists and other radicals who support Biden, they don't care about China's rise or even the American jobs shipped overseas. Remember they care about the little people. Well, they certainly don't care about the Uyghurs or the internment camps, and if they do, we certainly haven't heard those concerns.
Now, in their warped world view, the GOP is far more dangerous than the CCP. They want Republicans to be vetted, surveilled, shamed and deplatformed, that's the agenda that the CCP can certainly get behind.
But according to our state media here - excuse me - the mainstream press, none of you should worry about the coming triumph of the CCP or the American elites who hope to make money off of it, because now that the Democrats are back in power, President Biden wants us all to just get along.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The push to vaccinate Americans against the coronavirus hitting a roadblock in many states, as they say, they're running out of vaccines while ramping up their distribution effort.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, it's a nice sentiment, but how is a nation supposed to unite when one side is essentially calling the other side systemically racist and evil?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: America has been through a civil war, world wars, a Great Depression, pandemics, McCarthyism and now a Trumpist and white nationalist insurrection.
REP. KATHERINE CLARK, D-MASS.: The truth is President Trump spent his presidency inflaming hate, white supremacy, anti-Semitism and violence.
REP. CORI BUSH, D-MICH.: Root out white supremacy starting with impeaching the white supremacist in chief.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, let's be clear, I don't think Biden believes that the United States is a racist country, dominated by white supremacists. Remember, he spent his whole career working with many Americans of different backgrounds, including Republicans. And he knows that those charges from the Left simply aren't true. In fact, he keeps telling us that Americans are good people. Sadly, though, he's too weak to stand up to the Marxists in his own party.
Now, look, the reason that they're stopping the border wall is that they want more cheap labor to flood into the U.S. and to eventually give the border crashers amnesty. That means, of course, that helps their effort to change America demographically and they hope politically.
But the reason they're doing climate change, well, it's because they think America needs to be restrained, and our policies harmonized with other climate policies around the world. So this afternoon, President Biden seemed exhilarated by his executive order rejoining the Paris Accord. It was another huge gift to China.
Biden's mask mandate, well, that's another prime example of a superfluous idiocy masquerading as virtue. 95 percent of America is already wearing masks, so his order represents just another way to do what, to control the people? And if you believe it's only going to be for a 100 days, you really are naive.
Meanwhile, things that would benefit working-class Americans like good- paying jobs and affordable energy, well, as of today they're no longer a priority. For example, Biden is cancelling the Keystone pipeline. Now, why is he doing that? Because at bottom climate change is the Left's new religion, which means they want to stop all use of oil and natural gas. They don't like the idea of you Americans having your independence from other countries for your energy.
Now, Jimmy Carter wasn't at the inauguration today due to poor health and age. But I bet he was pretty happy that the party that he has been a member of for so many decades is closer than ever to his legacy of long gas lines, and so China's power will continue to grow, and ours will continue to shrink.
While, China continues to dominate a lot of critical industries such as rare earth materials and develop space weaponry, Biden's administration will be busy with its own important work, like reinstituting the noxious critical race theory into all federal agencies. After all the Biden team believes the white patriarchy is the biggest threat right now to the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: A raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. A rise of political extremism, white supremacy--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: It's amazing, anyone wants to come here. Now, Biden wants us to unite behind the idea that America is a racist country, no way. What makes America the most incredible country on Earth is not unity or diversity, there's nothing wrong with that - this unity or diversity. But the animating principle of America is liberty, freedom.
And over the next four years the 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump will be re-energized and recommitted to protecting and defending the American values that we love. We're going to stand up without fear, and of course without violence, but with passion, resolve and good cheer, knowing that the facts are on our side even if John Legend and Tom Hanks aren't.
And over time, as the ruinous and divisive policies and sentiments of the Biden administration sweep across the nation, I predict that millions more will join the America First movement. After all, Biden did say he wanted unity, on our side we'll have it, and that's The Angle.
Joining me now, Dinesh D'Souza, Conservative Commentator and Host of the new daily, "Dinesh D'Souza Podcast." Ben Domenech, Co-Founder and publisher of "The Federalist" and Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow.
Victor, there were a lot of myths repeated about Biden and what today means. What's on the top of your list?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Well, I'm not - I meant not so charitable. I remember him 40 years ago or 30 years ago destroying the second African-American nominee to the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas.
The five occasions he called the President of United States a racist and then we get into you ain't Black, so that call for unity has to be matched by deeds. Maybe he could just make a call to Jim Comey and say, Jim, you were head of the FBI, don't say that the Republican Party should be burned down. Or maybe you could call Stan McChrystal and say, Stan we had problems in the past, but don't compare the President of United States indirectly to Saddam and his supporters to Al-Qaeda.
Then he could call "The Washington Post" tomorrow and say you ran two columns, one by Eugene Robinson that suggested that Republicans, mostly white, in your words needed to be deprogrammed. You ran another one by Max Boot saying, Fox News should be de-platformed and taken off cuff. Let's not do that.
And he can make another call to Mark Zuckerberg and say, don't you guys just stop the monopolies? But he's not going to do that. But what is going to happen is Donald Trump is a ghost now. He's gone. He can't even tweet, what's kind of offended people.
And now - Rasmussen says he's 51 percent, leaves office with the popularity, because they're overdoing it. They're sore winners, and they're stomping on a ghost. And now they've gone after the supporters and we've got a new boogie man white supremacist under every bed in America. And people are going to get tired, because they're nihilistic no, no, no. Where's the yes, yes? Where's the positive agenda? And we saw it today--
INGRAHAM: Well - yes, and I got--
HANSON: --it was just cancel this, cancel this, cancel this.
INGRAHAM: It was negative. I thought it was very negative.
HANSON: But where is it?
INGRAHAM: Everyone said, oh, it was so positive, come together, Dinesh.
HANSON: It is negative. It is.
INGRAHAM: Was this a positive presentation of what America is? Did you find that in this speech?
DINESH D'SOUZA, CONSERVATIVE FILMMAKER: No, absolutely not. But I was looking not just - I was not just hearing the speech, I was also looking at everything going on around it, with almost anthropological interest.
I mean I've never seen Washington, D.C. so militarized. I've never seen so many soldiers, so many guns, so many cops, so many National Guardsmen. Apparently, Biden had his own security police. And then I've never seen so many fences and so many walls.
Now, the first thing to observe is that Trump didn't have any of this. If you go back to 2016, Trump didn't have this heavy militarized presence that made America look almost like it was some sort of a third world country where the politicians have to be protected from the people. Nor did Trump have these tall fences, even though there were riots, there was Antifa, there was all this burning going on and smashing of glass. Nevertheless, Trump didn't do it.
So, what I see happening in Washington, D.C. is that the Left, they like walls and they like guns and they like the military presence. They just don't want to put it around the country. They don't want to put it to protect the American people. They want to put it to protect the political class. And that message, a kind of giant up yours to the American people, I don't think can be lost on any - in any intelligent observer of this surreal scene.
INGRAHAM: Ben, it was quite something, was it not? After months of Republicans hearing that their choice for to be re-elected was Donald Trump, you're a racist, you're intolerant, you're a nativist, you're - you demonize people, you're probably stupid, you probably believe in this crazy thing called Jesus Christ. And then we're told we've got to unite. You got to unite. If you don't unite you're anti-American. What about this idea of uniting behind what we've heard over the past several months?
BEN DOMENECH, CO-FOUNDER, THE FEDERALIST: Well, look, you're not going to see a lot of unity in practice even this week. I mean, you're going to see uh taxpayer funded abortions internationally. You're seeing already, as you made reference in your in your opening, these dramatic moves to the Left when it comes to various areas of policy. And I think that you're not going to see any kind of real olive branches offered by President Biden.
On the flip side, I think, just to Dinesh's point, the scene that you had today, I think Americans have to reflect on whether it displays weakness or strength. Is it a strong regime, a strong center of power that needs this type of military presence or is it one that's weak, is it one that's frail and that's old?
I mean, frankly, looking at our leadership today, it's a bunch of octogenarians and septuagenarians. It's a bunch of - it's a bunch of people who are just white knuckling on to holding on to power as their generations fade away.
If you just look at Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and at Mitch McConnell, none of them were born after 1950. At some point, we have to have a transition of power within this country. And it's not aegis to say this, it's just that these people have been in power for so long that they allowed, frankly, for the rise of Donald Trump, because he was the one person who was calling them on the joke. He was calling out what the swamp really represents.
Ultimately, I think, the swamp drained him in a lot of different ways. He wasn't able to achieve what he wanted to do in all those four years. But I do think that his overall critique was one that Americans responded to and that is not going to be glossed over with some kind of pabulum about unity.
This was basically a, come on man, let's unify message. And nothing offered in terms of anything tangible. He couldn't even bring himself to compliment Vice President Pence who was there for - the work that he did on Operation Warp Speed, which every American should be proud of considering the kind of thing that was achieved there. He couldn't even do that.
INGRAHAM: Yes. They were anti-science in the Trump administration. They have their little jokes about drinking bleach, none of it's serious. And, Victor, there was an anecdote in POLITICO that caught my eye, but apparently no one else caught this.
I would never say this, Biden once snapped at an aide, aghast over the prepared remarks he was reviewing, where did you get this from? Well, the aide explained that Biden had just said it in a public speech a couple of weeks earlier.
Victor, he did a pretty good job today of reading the teleprompter, which isn't all that easy to do, frankly, it's a skill. But what kind of leader will he be and what kind of leader will we see?
HANSON: Well, he's going to have cognitive challenges. But even worse is, his party destroyed all of the institutions that we both agreed on. And one of them was, you don't promiscuously use the 25th Amendment to gain political points by calling a president crazy. Now we do that. And - but he's got issues that Donald Trump really didn't have.
We don't try to impeach a first-term president, especially in one day without evidence, without a special counsel. Is he going to be looking at that at 2022 if information comes out about Biden incorporated or his taxes? We don't fund 22 months, $40 million on a basis of a hoax. Are we going to do that with the Biden family?
INGRAHAM: Right.
HANSON: So he and the Democrats took a lot of institutions that were bipartisan and wiped them out for the utility or the short-term efficacy of getting rid of Donald Trump. And now he's going to play by the rules that he made. And I don't think he wants to sleep in the bed that he made. I really don't.
INGRAHAM: Well, it's hard to unite when your party is working on destroying so many of the institutions that used to unite America and the traditions and the songs and a lot of the other practices. But gentlemen great to see you all tonight.
And within hours of taking office the newly minted President Biden, of course, as we just referenced, wasted no time issuing executive orders to radically change the country. But does he have the historical mandate that he thinks he does?
Joining me now is Craig Shirley, Presidential Historian, Reagan Biographer Extraordinaire. Craig, there's a danger in what he's doing, is there not?
CRAIG SHIRLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN & AUTHOR: There always is a danger when a president overreaches, especially on his first day. You remember when John Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Act, where basically they put editors in jail for criticizing the U.S. government.
Lincoln did the same during the civil war. Woodrow Wilson did the same with his own sedition acts that were passed in 1917-1918; and, of course, George Bush with the PATRIOT Act. There's always a tendency on the part of a president, especially when he's just assuming powers, to overreach and grab for too much power that often most times uh come back and bite him you know where.
INGRAHAM: Craig there was a gaggle of or bevvy, I should say, of presidential historians on television today. This is from NBC News's historian Michael Beschloss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: This is going to be the view of history is that for four years history was hijacked by Donald Trump, taken in a white supremacist. But the three words his speech will be known for are democracy has prevailed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Craig, democracy has prevailed.
SHIRLEY: Yes. Has prevailed. Well, democracy has prevailed you know since George Washington was selected president just some 240 years ago. Democracy always prevails. It's not a profound statement for Michael to say that.
And I might add too is that, that his speech today was among the most mundane, uninteresting speeches I can recall in a long time. It did not have the soaring rhetoric of John Kennedy, didn't have the uh sparkle of Ronald Reagan in 1981. It didn't have any money lines.
Ask not who your country can work for, but who - your country for you. And Reagan in 1981, if no one among us is capable of governing themselves, then who among us is capable of governing somebody else. There are no money lines or no sparkle lines on this. And it'll quickly be forgotten.
INGRAHAM: Well, a couple of historians on Trump's legacy over at CNN. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: When we look at the death toll as it grows every day you feel that Donald Trump is implicated. In my mind it puts him at the rank bottom.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: He has surpassed in awfulness Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, Johnson and Richard Nixon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Craig, he has surpassed an awfulness --an awfulness. That is when I think of presidential historians, I think he has surpassed an awfulness. Craig--
SHIRLEY: Yes.
INGRAHAM: I'm sorry. Maybe they're nice people, but it's abominably bad analysis. And not even - they're not even trying.
SHIRLEY: I agree. I agree. This is the lazy historian analysis is that, when the - look, it took 150 years for a decent biography written - to be written about Andrew Jackson, "The Age of Jackson" by Arthur Schlesinger.
And it won't take 150 years, but in a relatively short amount of time, and it depends on how Biden does to a certain extent, but in a relatively short period of time people are going to look at the Trump presidency and separate out the personality and just focus on the remarkable accomplishments of four years. And they will regard the four years of Donald Trump as being --is being not the awfulness, but as being a pretty darn good presidency for four years when a lot of things were turned around, a lot of things were changed, a lot of things were gotten done.
That will not be done by the liberal historians who have - who are who are tied to the liberal establishment. But there are historians out there who are willing to look deeply into the administration of Donald Trump--
INGRAHAM: Yes.
SHIRLEY: --and then come to the conclusion that a lot of things were accomplished.
INGRAHAM: Who doesn't want their entire life to be looked at in the full sweep of your life, right, and everything that you've done. And that's what I thought we were supposed to do as historians. But, I'm sorry, these people embarrass themselves. They fell over themselves to embarrass themselves today. Craig, thank you so much. Great to see you.
And president Biden called for confronting white nationalism under the guise of unity. Shelby Steele says this will only increase divisiveness. He's going to tell us why, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: A rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat. To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America requires so much more than words--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And what else? What more than words is he talking about? We've already seen what happens when Democrats take action against domestic terrorism, they end up basically accusing their GOP colleagues of sedition. And then they turn the military into essentially a political prop to intimidate fellow Americans. Then they vet the military to make sure they're all copacetic.
Now, what's surprising, though, is that this dark line completely took hold of the media.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: I heard a declaration of war against white supremacy and against the lies that brought our democracy to the brink.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: White supremacy, racism, these awful things that that exploded onto the scene can be put back into their corners.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST, "AM JOY": Trying to do what Lincoln did, trying it again and we're going to take a second shot at trying to end this civil war in America that feels that some people are captors and some are captives and in an America that grant believed in--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Joining me now is Shelby Steele, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and Documentary Filmmaker, Author of "Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country."
Shelby, they're simply deeply - deeply divisive and negative in this Biden message cloaked in unity.
SHELBY STEELE, HOOVER INSTITUTION SENIOR FELLOW: Yes. Yes. Well it's the same message that liberalism has been using in one form or another since the 60s. And it's based on the - to oversimplify it just a bit, it's white guilt. It is the - it is - what the Left did, what Biden did at this point was associate conservatism with America's history of racism and then to position himself as a redeemer, such that moral authority rebounds to him.
And so what he can do with the American people as he runs for presidency, as he leads is, is sort of he - he's selling innocence of that past. That is an enormous political power in today's America. Innocence of the racist past, that's the word they call everybody. Racist, racist, racist, you are aligned with American evil. I am innocent, I will fight white supremacy, I will fight all of these things and therefore he won. He didn't win by much, but he won.
It still works is old and tired and bedraggled, as it is. White guilt is still an animating force in American life, and it won't ever - we won't ever get beyond it until white America begins to feel to lose its insecurity around race.
Yes we did horrible things. But today America is remarkably free of racism. If you're a Black person in America today you are not - your life is not going to be stunted by racial persecution. When whites accept that truth about themselves, I think the election might have gone another way.
INGRAHAM: Here's what Biden hopes to accomplish, Shelby, with his calls for unity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Uniting to fight the foes we face, anger, resentment and hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness -- with unity, we can do great things, important things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That is a real pick me up, Shelby. My God, they said Trump's inaugural four years was like dystopian. I found this to be a depressing story of a great country.
STEELE: What's interesting is that he talks about unity, which is a rather worn-out banality, but he talks of unity, covering up the fact that he is practicing racism himself when he picked his vice presidential candidate. He picked her solely because she was black and she was a woman, no other reason. He dehumanized her to those qualities such that she could represent innocence to the American people. You could identify with a white male who embraces a black female, then that gives him innocence. And that was, again, as we saw, I think that is the secret of his power. It's considerable, and the conservatives are at a disadvantage. It's very difficult for them to offer the American people that same illusions, it's always an illusion, of innocence.
INGRAHAM: Shelby, it's wonderful to see you, thank you for joining us tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: -- the toxic leftwing propaganda in our schools, I recently announced we are launching a new pro America lesson plan for students called the 1776 Commission. We will teach our children the greatness and glory of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, until today, that's because President Trump, but President Biden issued an executive order ending the really offensive 1776 Commission, apparently siding with those who believe the real story of America's founding starts in 1619.
Joining me now is Dr. Matthew Spalding, former executive director of the 1776 Commission. Dr. Spalding, the Biden team says your commission attempts to erase America's history of racial injustice. Your response?
DR. MATTHEW SPALDING, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 1776 COMMISSION: Good to be with you, Laura. I have to say I was both shocked and honored by being at the top of the chopping block today. Shocked because I can't imagine any president, actually, getting rid of the commission to celebrate 1776 as our history. Those are the unifying principles that we should be turning to right now of all times.
But I think the report actually struck a nerve. It defended those principles on Martin Luther King Day in the name of Martin Luther King, but also Lincoln and the founders themselves as claims of truths, and defended those truths against challengers abroad in the form of fascism and communism, which clearly denied human rights, but also at home, especially in those cases where individual rights have been denied in favor of group rights.
John C. Calhoun did that as a way to defend slavery, and he of course was denounced by Abraham Lincoln. But there are others who have denied equal rights and are turning to arguments of group rights in the form of identity politics, and we called that out as well. So I think that argument, that claim of equal right that goes back to our founders that we've always turned back to for sources of unity, is now divisive within liberalism. And the fact that he had to get rid of this at the immediate moment of his new presidency unfortunately tells us a lot about where liberalism is right now, and it's turning away from those great liberating and unifying principles of the American founding.
INGRAHAM: I'd say they are anti-science in many cases, and anti-history, certainly in this case. And the media would shock you, Matthew, to find out that the media also took almost universal issue with the commission.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You look at that 1776 garbage he put out yesterday, these aren't the attempts to bring America together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of dog whistling and a lot of using of the racial bullhorn.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With a new version of history that says slavery was fine, it's all good, don't say mean things about our founders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: First of all, Jim Acosta, can he spew more tired bromides in one report? Did you all claim slavery was all A-OK there, Dr. Spalding?
SPALDING: So, look, the problem with most modern revisionist history is they see all negative, it's all flaws, and it's a bad country from the beginning, the claim of systemic racism. That's not actually history. That's ideology meant to manipulate the minds rather than to educate them.
Real history, good history, honest history looks at everything that happened, looks at the record, the facts, warts and all, and looks at it honestly. And what we see are -- is a nation based on a claim of principle that all men are created equal, and then aspiring to live up to those principles. It's imperfect. We're a flawed people, as all people are, but we are a nation that has done a great job trying to live up to those principles, building a great nation and a noble nation.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Spalding, great to see you.
SPALDING: Good to see you, Laura.
INGRAHAM: And Hollywood glitz and glam were on full display at Biden's inaugural today, but there were some telling moments that I know you missed. Raymond Arroyo has them all, he watched so you didn't have to. "Seen and Unseen" next.
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INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment, examining the optics and cultural impact of the inauguration. For that, we turn to Raymond Arroyo, FOX News contributor. All right, Ray, what were your general impressions of the inauguration?
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Look, Laura, like you, I've covered five of these inaugurations. I've never seen anything like we witnessed today. Before the big event, Wolf Blitzer at CNN took this shot at President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: What a difference four years makes. He had a very impressive, huge crowd at his inauguration. It's going to be a little pathetic, a tiny little crowd at Joint Base Andrews where he's going to say goodbye.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Why that pettiness, Laura, on a day when unity is being stressed and Trump is already out the door? This was President Trump's goodbye, by the way, a decent crowd. And this is a shot of the Biden inauguration, OK. That's not a puny crowd? As I watched, I thought that this could be the first VIP elite inauguration in American history. No citizens allowed, just credentialed invitees and lots of celebrities. It actually contradicts President Biden's message of coming together, and frankly, I think there is no reason thousands of Americans couldn't have socially distanced at least watch the parade. And the security measures were obviously way overblown in capitals across the country.
INGRAHAM: Apparently they are taking the fencing down around the Capitol now, and offering up on eBay just to get rid of it, because they are certainly not going to send it down to the border now, Raymond. They just put out the order to stop all deportations starting on Friday, that just broke, just crossed the wires.
Speaking of the elites, now let's talk about these performances. Lady Gaga, she sang the National Anthem.
ARROYO: She did. And look, Laura, she's a great vocalist, but the theatrics here were all about her. She wore a dove, first of all, this brooch, which was so big it could've been a reused tree topper. And her performance had this Eva Peron air. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: There was a very hunger games vibe about this whole thing, Laura. Somewhere there's a pumpkin chariot looking for a passenger. But the choice of Gaga was a little tone-deaf, I thought, if unity is the theme, OK. Remember that video she released before the election trying to appeal to those rural swing voters. She ended up mocking them -- not a good look, not a good look at all.
INGRAHAM: And Garth Brooks was at the inauguration to sing "Amazing Grace" today. Wow.
ARROYO: This was the red state booking. They wanted this for red state.
INGRAHAM: Garth could've perhaps used a pitch pipe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: How many Grammys did he win? He is one of the most successful recording artists of all time.
ARROYO: At least he got his steps in, Laura. Did you see him, he took off up the steps -- I don't know if the Secret Service --
INGRAHAM: I thought it was the "Price is Right."
ARROYO: Come on down, Garth Brooks.
INGRAHAM: What was that?
ARROYO: Than he had a little sing-along, and that helped keep everybody awake, except for Bill Clinton, Laura, who I noticed grabbed a little shuteye during the Biden speech, and my sense is he wasn't alone.
INGRAHAM: A wise move. Now, Raymond, you and I talked earlier about the religious narrative being created around Joe Biden, the second Catholic president.
ARROYO: The religious talk here is striking, Laura. This is the media and a Delaware rabbi who compared Biden to --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Moses is freeing us from 400 years of backbreaking Egyptian slavery at the hands of an autocratic, cruel pharaoh. In many ways, dear Joe, you are our Moses.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a God-given gift, I think, to this country and a relief to this country that he arrives today. He's had faith forever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's very comfortable being in a church, speaking in a church, as faith is really central to who he is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are our Moses, and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris is our Aaron.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Oh, my God!
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: This was really something, messiahs, deliverers in the biblical sense.
INGRAHAM: No.
ARROYO: This was really something. But there is this disconnect between Biden's talk of faith and what he actually plans to do. And as a Roman Catholic, he is in conflict with his own bishops. They have already written a letter to him saying, look, we are worried you are about to step into moral evils here in your policy. We'll see where this goes, but if you're going to talk the faith, you better walk the walk. Otherwise, just don't affiliate with that religion, that's fine. This is like a Muslim eating porkchops on the weekend. They're not a part of the faith if you violate its tenants. And Joe Biden has to be held to the same standard everybody else is, particularly as president.
INGRAHAM: Raymond, next time we have "Amazing Grace" sung, could we have a gospel singer singing? I'm sorry, but I still can't get over Garth Brooks, and I'm actually a big Garth Brooks fan. Let's just bring a gospel singer in.
ARROYO: We'll make that note for your inaugural.
INGRAHAM: That would have worked. Thank you, Raymond.
As Joe Biden promises this new chapter called unity, Antifa thugs on the other side of the country are smashing and burning their way through Portland tonight to celebrate Biden, I guess. Julio Rosas is live on the ground moments away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Peace and unity are breaking out all over tonight on the west coast. President Biden's calls for harmony fell on deaf ears when Antifa and other radical leftists are concerned. Look no further to what they did in Oregon, the Democrat Party's office in Portland tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SHOUTING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Joining me now from that scene of the destruction, Julio Rosas, Townhall.com senior writer. Julio, were they just celebrating with exuberance Biden's installation as president?
JULIO ROSAS, SENIOR WRITER, TOWNHALL.COM: It is the myth that keeps on giving here in Portland. So basically the crowd was wandering around aimlessly. They were marching through the streets, and they ended up here at the Democratic office building. And initially they were just graffitiing the windows, they had vulgarities against now President Biden. They were chanting that they didn't like Biden. And then as the videos that you've shown, people started to break the windows and started to things at the building.
I can say the Portland police just released a press statement saying that eight people have been arrested in connection with this destruction. So it remains to be seen whether or not the charges will stick by the district attorney's office.
INGRAHAM: Julio, we saw a moment ago the sign that I guess you video that said "We don't want Biden. We want revenge." There it is. What does that mean? What form does that take?
ROSAS: We saw a little bit of that vengeance take place just here. There are other stuff they're planning to take place in Portland and also in Seattle as well. So one thing is for sure, that the Antifa groups here, they do not like Biden just as much they don't like Trump. They view them as one in the same, and so they want a revolution, but they don't really like either place because they just hate America in general.
INGRAHAM: Did you get the sense that the Portland mayor is now going to do something about this? They were able to track down all those folks in the Capitol on January 6th, but they don't seem to have much luck tracking down a lot of these folks.
ROSAS: It remains to be seen, really, because after there was a riot in the federal courthouse in Portland, the mayor did actually call out Antifa by name and said that they weren't going to take all the rioting that had happened anymore. But again, it just remains to be seen whether or not the city will actually take any harsh action against these groups.
INGRAHAM: Some things never change, Julio. Thanks so much.
Be glad you weren't watching this cringe that was the celebration tonight at the inaugural. We have the lowlights next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: If the goal was to make the Biden inaugural totally unwatchable, then mission accomplished.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's celebrate America. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once in a lifetime, that justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.
(MUSIC)
INGRAHAM: Zoom is tough. That's all the time we have tonight, whatever it was they were using, Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team take it all from here, Shannon.
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