Updated

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 29, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Welcome to "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington. It's too cold on the roof for me. The heaters don't work. Willful blindness to Trump's triumphs and how the FBI and DOJ can stop the bleeding. That's the focus of tonight Angle.

Think about how reporters would handle things under this hypothetical. Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, won the presidency in 2016. I realize that's terrifying to contemplate, but bear with me for just a second.

Imagine that Bill is too old to chase interns, so she isn't distracted by any new scandals, and somehow during her first year in office, Hillary oversees a stock market rocketing up, there's a big drop in unemployment, including among minority workers, and imagine this, imagine consumer confidence, business investment, even wages in certain sectors, all up.

Imagine Hillary announcing that dozens of American run businesses are bringing jobs back to the United States. They are doling out thousand dollars, $2,000 bonuses to thousands and thousands of employees.

And let's just say that Republican leaders respond to this news by calling that money crumbs, and it's all just a gimmick. Meanwhile, imagine President Clinton renegotiating important trade deals and taking unilateral action to level the playing field for American manufacturers and workers.

By the way, I actually remember when both Hillary and Barack Obama were running for president in 2008, and back then they both sounded a lot more like Trump than Trudeau on NAFTA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MSNBC, FEB. 26, 2008)

TIM RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: You will notice Mexico and Canada NAFTA is gone in six months.

HILLARY CLINTON, THEN-DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will opt out of NAFTA unless we renegotiated.

BARACK OBAMA, THEN-DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think Senator Clinton's answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of potential opt out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Does anyone even remember that? I do. Imagine Hillary Clinton targeting illegal immigrant crminals, felons, who are endangering their mostly Hispanic neighborhoods. Imagine if, thanks to the military planning under commander-in-chief clinton, we had smashed ISIS and driven them out of Syria. We all know on the economy especially with the press and the Democrats would be saying, and it wouldn't sound like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT.: The American people are deeply concerned about the decline of the American middle class.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans need to look in the mirror, think about the damage that they are causing to the middle class, our economy.

CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS"/NBC: President Trump consistently points to one highlight, a strong economy. It was a good year, but maybe not as good as President Trump wants you to think.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: Chuck, amazing. Not that liberals care. They not only don't give Trump credit for his policies or any rework to trade dealers or moves on deregulation, yes, there are actually some Dems even trying to give Obama credit for all of 2017's good economic news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, CNN: He thinks it started from the day he became president when in fact he inherited good conditions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "NEWSHOUR"/PBS: I thought Barack Obama did turn around the economy to bring it back from the precipice with tough action.

REV. AL SHARPTON, "POLITICSNATION"/MSNBC: Mr. Trump inherited an economy that was in full recovery for blacks and whites from President Obama. Now he's taking credit for picking up somebody at the end of a trip that somebody else broke the trip.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: Somebody else drove the trip. I don't even know what he's talking about. To add insult to injury, even while business leaders do credit Trump's tax cut with all the deregulation, what's the big business story of today? Here it is.

A new Reuters poll claiming that just 2 percent of Americans have gotten a raise, a bonus or other benefits from Trump's tax cuts. OK, kids, here's a lesson from Laura. You usually get a benefit from a tax cut when you pay your taxes.

Everyone is going to benefit except for upper income earners. Hello? And from the Trump tax plan, they will see more money in their pockets come April when most people pay their taxes. Most people don't pay quarterly.

We will see if at that point Reuters runs another poll just to see if people are happier or benefiting. A far more telling survey from the National Association of Business Economics finds that company say sales and profits rose at the end of last year and nearly half of the respondents say they are now paying more in wages and in salaries to their employees.

This is news that we've been waiting for and that will benefit workers long term. It's about time people had a raise. I promise you, if Hillary Clinton had had this record, the praise would be deafening on the eve of her state of the union.

Meanwhile, the media spent the day blaming the real president for the voluntary resignation of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The president played this very active public role in pressuring the Justice Department to get rid of McCabe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, CNN: So far, the White House is saying the president was not involved in this, was not pushed at all. Jake, it seems hard to believe that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "DEADLINE: WHITE HOUSE"/MSNBC: This is yet another instance of the president bullying and pressuring law enforcement agencies he's concerned about investigating him.

KATY TUR, "MTP DAILY"/MSNBC: If anybody is safe in the Justice Department --

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: Is anyone safe from media bias at NBC, that's my question. Here's the only problem with that lovely scenario they painted, there's no evidence to indicate that Trump is responsible for the McCabe resignation. Do we really want a deputy director of the FBI who was so afraid that he has to resign if he is totally in the right? Of course, we don't. White house spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you say definitively that the president did not play a role in him stepping down?

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes. I didn't say the president wasn't part of this decision-making process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now a more likely theory, I think, is that McCabe himself, along with his previous boss, Jim Comey, are actually to blame for this early retirement. Now given McCabe's partisan ties via his wife to Hillary's best friend, Terry McAuliffe, well, he shouldn't have been within 100 yards of either the Hillary email or the Trump-Russia investigation.

Not with that close tie. Remember, McCabe's wife received a $500,000 donation from Terry McAuliffe's PAC for her failed political campaign. Now given this, he should have removed himself or removed nomadic recused himself from both probes.

There was a New York Times story tonight suggesting that FBI Director Christopher Wray was concerned about the findings of a forthcoming government investigation into the FBI and into McCabe's conduct. That's the inspector general's report.

The Times source said that the director and McCabe had a frank conversation about that report and apparently a demotion was discussed for McCabe. Whatever the explanation for his departure, I say this, it's about time.

There's a larger point being lost in the McCabe blame game. The president is actually trying to restore confidence in law enforcement institutions that I think for a long time have been used as political instruments.

There are a lot of great rank-and-file people, of course, the overwhelming majority. But when the leadership appears to have a political ax to grind, nobody is served by that. It's time to cleanse the upper tiers of the Justice Department and the FBI of all partisanship. It's critical.

Sessions' Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may be the next one on the chopping block. He reportedly reviewed and approved that FISA application to surveil the Trump campaign, and we understand it looks like it was based on that phony Clinton-funded Russian dossier.

Of course, the anti-Trump partisans, Jeannie Reid and Andrew Weissmann should be immediately terminated from the investigation as well before any more damage is done to the credibility of both the FBI and the Justice Department. And that's the ANGLE.

Joining us now for a reaction from Minneapolis is John Iannarelli, a former national spokesperson for the FBI and here in Washington is Joe DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Joe, your reaction to the McCabe departure, and the media from the moment the story broke on all the other cables and on NBC, CBS, ABC tonight, it was Trump to blame?

JOE DIGENOVA, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY: To blame is McCabe and to blame is Comey and everybody else at the senior levels of the FBI. This is quite a disgraceful moment for the bureau. As someone who has worked with the bureau for over 30 years, I'm truly saddened by the fall from grace for everybody there.

But make no mistake about it, this was a plot to exonerate Hillary Clinton illegally and then if she lost the election, to frame Donald Trump with a legal crime. This is the worst period in the history of the bureau, much worse than the late Hoover period when they were spying on domestic groups.

This is the weaponization of the FBI for political purposes by all the people at the upper echelon of the bureau. I think it's really time for people in the other party who seem to make nothing but excuses for the senior people at the bureau and the Department of Justice, may I say, to kind of wake up and see that what's coming now is the federal grand jury and it's not going to be pretty.

INGRAHAM: John, you represented the bureau in the public domain and you are the spokesperson for the bureau. Your reaction to today's developments in the effort to blame Donald Trump for the early retirement of the deputy director?

JOHN IANNARELLI, FORMER FBI NATIONAL SPOKESMAN: Well, Andrew McCabe has been talking for some time that he was looking to go on terminal leave and exit the bureau. I think that was hastened as a result of the director just yesterday going to the Hill, looking at the information that went into this dossier.

But I will tell you, no president, whether it's Trump, Obama or anyone else, tells the FBI which I do. The FBI is independent. They are there for the people. To think for a minute that a sitting president would be able to push out a deputy director, that goes against everything the FBI has stood for the past 109 years.

INGRAHAM: Did you speak to McCabe a few weeks ago?

IANNARELLI: I happen to be at headquarters a couple of weeks ago and chatted with him briefly.

INGRAHAM: And what did he say?

IANNARELLI: We didn't talk about him possibly leaving. At that time, he was in the office while the director was out on other business, so essentially, he's the man in charge. It seemed to be business as usual. However, everybody in the bureau knew that McCabe's days would be running short because of the history. It was time for the bureau to move on with a clean slate and get back to the work that the FBI does.

INGRAHAM: Joe, I mean, he wanted to leave in the spring. The IG report is coming out in the spring. But it's a wild coincidence, if indeed the FBI director strolls up to Capitol Hill on Sunday, reads this very short report, four pages, and then it just so happens that Monday, McCabe is like you know something, I would rather go skiing in Breckenridge for the next two weeks. I'm not going to be doing this work any longer.

DIGENOVA: Well, according to "The New York Times" in the latest publications, Christopher Wray was shocked on Sunday when he read the four pages. First of all, if that's the case, where has he been since he was sworn in? There is enough evidence on the public record.

With the information from the inspector general and from the Hill with the legal release of documents that it was clear that Mr. McCabe and others had engaged in highly improper, probably illegal activity in the FISA court stuff along with the dossier from Christopher Steele.

First of all, McCabe should have been gone a long time ago and so should Strzok and Page and all the people involved in this. This is a dark moment for the FBI. It's going to take a lot for them to recover from this.

INGRAHAM: We had Jim Comey tweeting after the McCabe news came out. He's tweeting quite a bit. It's very poetic. He says, "Special Agent Andrew McCabe stood tall over the last eight months." He always makes height references, I wonder why. "When small people were trying to tear down an institution we all depend on. He served with distinction for two decades, I wish Andy well. I also wish continued strength for the rest of the FBI. America needs you."

John, what you make of the Comey tweets? Small people, tall people. He's 6'8", by the way.

IANNARELLI: Obviously, McCabe is part of Comey's legacy. Now Andrew McCabe did a lot of good things in the bureau during his career, but it doesn't matter. When you were doing something wrong, that is the time that it has to be stopped immediately. I had some very good agents that made an unfortunate mistake along the way --

INGRAHAM: John, he was the guy to whom Peter Strzok reported, correct?

IANNARELLI: Absolutely.

INGRAHAM: McCabe could have, Joe, we're almost out of time, McCabe could have used one of the regular field office set of investigators to do both the Clinton and the Trump investigation. Perfection also could run this thing and run it right. He chose to put together this team, correct? Kind of an unfortunate mistake.

DIGENOVA: Comey was a dirty cop and unfortunately, he dirtied up everybody else around him.

INGRAHAM: All right. Gentlemen, we also have a huge development, by the way, in the Russia probe. A House committee, of course, has begun investigating the investigators. Up next, we will talk to a congressman who voted tonight to publicly release that memo that could spell big trouble for both the FBI and DOJ. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Huge news tonight from the House Intel Committee, which voted this evening to publicly release that bombshell, we hope it's a bombshell, a FISA memo alleging serious surveillance abuses by top officials at DOJ and the FBI.

Now President Trump has five days to decide whether he has any objections to releasing this classified memo. Adam Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the committee is wasting no time expressing his outrage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF., HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Today this committee voted to put the president's personal interests, perhaps their own political interests above the national interests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: We also learned tonight that the Intel Committee has opened an investigation into the DOJ and the FBI. Joining us now to discuss these developments, Congressman Chris Stewart, a member of the Intel Committee from Utah. Congressman, great to see you. When can we expect this memo to be released?

REP. CHRIS STEWART, R-UTAH: I would love it release tonight.

INGRAHAM: It's in your pocket, I want that memo. Pull it out, come on, let's go.

STEWART: Hopefully soon. It's important for the American people to see this and I don't think the president would delay it. I hope he doesn't.

INGRAHAM: This is what Mark Walker, your colleague, a Republican from North Carolina, said earlier today. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK WALKER, R-N.C.: If your audience or if somebody is believing that this is the end all smoking gun, it isn't. Does it name names? Does it prevent some very intriguing facts that makes you ask even more questions to make to make the case that this is the most shocking document in the history of mankind, I believe that's a little hyperbole.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Are you guys engaged in hyperbole, Congressman?

STEWART: Well, I can tell you I haven't been. Some people have, and we have actually cautioned against that. This is an important document. It's very important for the American people. I think there's two things worth saying here.

One is the process. I listen to Mr. Schiff and my head just wants to explode. My father was an Air Force pilot. To accuse us of saying we would endanger national security is just silliness. This memo doesn't do that.

What it does do is ask these questions, was the FBI fair or they accurate? We've been making accusations against people, serious accusations. They've been called traitors, treasonous for more than a year now. Did the FBI make those kinds of accusations against innocent people with laughable evidence? That's the kind of think this memo will address.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Gaetz from Florida has been a frequent guest on the show. To listen to Congressman Gaetz, this is just got barn burner of a memo. I think people have gotten their hopes up that this guy's going to go and end this person will lose his job and maybe this one will go to jail. I always find that Republicans tend to, sorry, be bad storytellers. I'm worried about that as our other congressmen to whom I've spoken in the last 48 hours.

STEWART: We've tried to get some people to kind of to temper their language. I can't speak for what everyone has said, but this memo is very factual. It's not emotional. It doesn't draw any conclusions, it just lays out the facts and let you draw the conclusions.

INGRAHAM: Nancy Pelosi spoke about an hour ago and I know you haven't seen it, so this is a gift for you, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., MINORITY LEADER: They have made up a memo if that isn't even true, and they are lying to the American people.

ANDREW CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So, what are you going to do about it?

PELOSI: The Republican Party, as I said, has crossed over to cover up. They are deadly afraid of the Russia investigation.

CUOMO: Wray, the director of the FBI obviously recently selected by President Trump, he got the memo. He could have come out and said this is reckless, don't release it?

PELOSI: With due respect, you don't know what you're talking about right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Wow, she even gave it to Chris Cuomo. Has she read it?

STEWART: I don't know.

INGRAHAM: I want to know.

STEWART: We had members of the Department of Justice over the weekend saying was reckless to release this memo when they had not read it. They didn't know what was in it. They were making accusations that they have no knowledge of.

INGRAHAM: What about Sessions in all of this? What has he said? He is the head of the Justice Department in which the FBI resides. Is he just not going to comment because Russia? I recuse myself from all things related to Russia, which I still don't understand.

STEWART: I think Jeff Sessions is one of the most decent, honorable men in Washington, D.C. but --

INGRAHAM: He should have put Rod Rosenstein, huge mistake.

STEWART: But I would say he has recused himself from one of the most important --

INGRAHAM: You can't recuse yourself if you're going to be attorney general.

STEWART: I said to him, sir, I wish you had not done, but because you have I think you have an obligation to step aside and let the department to be led by someone who will not step aside.

INGRAHAM: Do you think Sessions can't lead this department under these circumstances?

STEWART: I've said it in the past, it's unfair for him, it's unfair for what we are trying to accomplish.

INGRAHAM: Are there other people who are agreeing with you other than the few that we've seen quoted publicly?

STEWART: I think there are a few.

INGRAHAM: I love Jeff Sessions, first of all. I think he would have been a great DHS secretary. For some reason, I'm concerned about this. Great on immigration, good on some of the enforcement, gang stuff. Frankly, the marijuana enforcement, which I think is good to give discretion to the field officers.

But this investigation, I'm sorry, was a fraud from the beginning. Should have never have been undertaken. Rod Rosenstein wet himself when he went over to the Hill and is worried about answering questions. That just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

STEWART: These accusations in his testimony, that's just nuts. He was answering the question as he understood it. But unfortunately, this city chose up good people sometimes.

INGRAHAM: That's why you can't be recusing yourself and naming Rod Rosenstein as your deputy. Thank you, Congressman. We look forward to the release, and if you can give it to me before the end of the hour, I would appreciate it.

As Congress struggles to find an immigration solution, that's a big deal for you guys, there's already a great plan in the Senate that would address all the pressing problems, really? One of the authors of that bill, Senator David Perdue, joins us with the details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Congress has a March 5th deadline to hammer out an immigration plan before DACA protections expired for about 800,000 of the so-called DREAMers. Democrats rejected President Trump's offer last week of amnesty for nearly 2 million illegal immigrants in exchange for border security and legal immigration cuts.

But another plan exists that should be put on the table. Republican Senator David Perdue is one of the men behind it. He joins us now with more. Senator, always great to see you. I ran into you at an event on Saturday and I said you better come on the show, and here you are, so thank you. So you and Tom Cotton in my view came up with an original idea that kind of in some ways mirrors what was going on in the Hill with Goodlatte and Mike McCaul. And it was focused on the 800,000 DACA people, who are not kids, they are adults now for the most part. And then you did the chain migration, end of that, and a visa lottery. Three or four days later suddenly it's at 1.8 million. How did you go from 800 to 1.8, and was that thought process because you needed to pick up a few people?

SEN. DAVID PERDUE, R-GA.: It's great to see you, again, Laura. A year ago you had Tom Cotton and myself on here, and we started then with a very conservative approach to this to solve the legal immigration problem once and for all. And we warned about the diversity lottery and we said we needed an end to chain migration. And so what we've done now, the president has laid out, I believe, a framework that's ingenious, because we're going to find out if people are really serious about solving this immigration problem on both sides. And I think we have the framework to actually get it done now finally.

INGRAHAM: My listeners are livid, I have to tell you. I've done this on the show for the last three or four days, and they're like, well, when did he campaign on this? And my point is if you want cuts in legal immigration, which is a big number, a million green cards every year, most of those are based not on merit but on extended family ties, aunts, uncles, cousins twice removed. Everyone is coming in. Need to do it that way. But I'm not an amnesty person. I think it hurts people's feelings and sensibilities who have been waiting in line for a long time. What you say to those Americans, Americans who are upset and the people waiting in line who played by the rules?

PERDUE: The president has really laid out, he wants an end to DACA. And what that means is he wants to provide certainly. They're not going to get in front of anybody, but what he is also done is given the conservatives of his party what he promised he would do, a safe and secure border with the wall. He wants to end chain migration, which is the most insidious part of this. It's what's caused us to be here. And then we know we have a security issue with the diversity lottery.

INGRAHAM: Chain migration, I've got to play this for you, Kirsten Gillibrand, who is going to run for president in 2020. She's already kicking off her campaign practically, on "The View" this morning on chain migration. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: I think a lot of President Trump's rhetoric is racist.

(APPLAUSE)

GILLIBRAND: And let's be very clear, when someone uses the phrase "chain migration," it is intentional in trying to demonize families, literally trying to demonize families and make it a racist slur.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERDUE: You know, Laura, it's very interesting. They were out of touch when they tried to shut the government down. The Schumer shutdown was so out of touch with America. But the idea, the term "chain migration" was created by Lyndon B. Johnson, I think he was a Democrat. Bill Clinton also called for an end to chain migration when he and Barbara Jordan wanted to go to a merit based immigration system like Canada and Australia. So this is nothing more than Democrats revealing how far out of touch they are with mainstream America. Two-thirds of America wants to end chain migration, end the diversity lottery, fix the DACA problem, and build that wall and make our border secure.

INGRAHAM: By the way, she kept saying "chained." She has changed the term to be an "ed" at the end of chain.

PERDUE: Totally.

INGRAHAM: These are some of the polls, America's view on immigration - 65 percent want a DACA deal with strong border security, 68 percent oppose the visa lottery, 81 percent want legal immigration reduced. That's always the case whether it's a Gallup poll or the Harvard Harris poll that just came out. And 61 percent think border security is inadequate. But you have people like Steve King who was on my show on Friday, he said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. STEVE KING, R-IOWA: The numbers are just stunning to see that President Trump has proposed 1.8 million amnesty to illegals. I think that this will demoralize so very many of his supporters. And how do we get back now to a place where we need to be with this?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERDUE: The answer is very simple. Keep our eyes focused on the prize. And the prize is to end the problems that got us here in the first place, chain migration, diversity lottery, and that porous border with have with Mexico.

INGRAHAM: And no more amnesties after this? This will be the last one?

PERDUE: This is the idea, to end the problem that created this crisis in the first place.

INGRAHAM: Are they going to make you go up to 3 million, 4 million, I will say 5 million? It is going to keep going up?

PERDUE: No, but if you do nothing it's going to be 7 million or more. That's what people don't realize. This is an opportunity to stop this once and for all.

INGRAHAM: You think the Democrat, you're going to get enough Democrats to support this?

PERDUE: We're going to find out if they are really serious about solving the DACA problem.

INGRAHAM: They don't want to give you a win on DACA, senator. They don't.

PERDUE: No. But we're going to find out.

INGRAHAM: Senator Perdue, thank you so much.

And by the way, a stunning new example and the contrast of the media's treatment of Melania Trump and Michelle Obama. You don't want to miss this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Check this out, the media have bombarded us with stories suggesting that first lady Melania Trump is acting like a woman scorned. CNN, for instance, turned it into Melania-gate and declared the first lady has gone AWOL.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS, CNN)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Especially these past couple weeks she's been laying low.

TAPPER: I would think so, because of course there have been some cringe-inducing stories in the first few weeks of this year.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can only look at those clues like last Saturday when she posted on twitter the anniversary of the inauguration with herself and sort of a military escort from that day, not her husband. No mention of her husband.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER 360": She was scheduled to travel to Davos with the president but canceled that trip at the last minute. Yesterday she left for West Palm Beach, Florida, and was back on the plane late today. We don't know the reason for the trip.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not moving to the White House immediately was unprecedented. Five months after he moved in she moved in. And then of course the fact that they have separate bedrooms.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

INGRAHAM: Oh, my God. My next guest believes Melania Trump, get this, actually despises her husband. That's what Sarah Beauchamp wrote in an article on the website called Nylon. She wrote that the day. She joins us now from Philly. OK, Sarah, you look like a very young woman, very accomplished. You are a writer, you've written all sorts of stuff out there for various publications. How is it being a feminist for you to question another woman's lifestyle choices, whatever they are, whatever she decides to be. Why are you passing judgment on them and questioning them?

SARAH BEAUCHAMP, WRITER, NYLON MAGAZINE: I don't think I'm judging her life choices. To be fair, I guess I would judge a woman who would choose to marry Donald Trump. He is truly a disgusting human being. I think that's like a nonpartisan issue.

INGRAHAM: Yes, that's not judging at all.

BEAUCHAMP: That Donald Trump is disgusting? I think it's pretty much fact at this point.

INGRAHAM: Look at our camera, so our listeners get the full Sarah here. Go ahead.

BEAUCHAMP: I think Donald Trump is disgusting. I would say that is a fact. But yes, my story was more about how it wouldn't be surprising if a person married to Donald Trump was disgusted by him. I personally can't imagine a worse person being married to the Donald Trump.

INGRAHAM: Right, but let me get this straight, you are a reporter and you are writing about Melania Trump as if she's a political actor here, and you said that that's a fact, that you said Donald Trump is disgusting, that's a fact. You're a writer, so you know when you use the word "disgusting," that's a subjective statement, is it not. It is not a fact. It is a fact that he's president of United States. It is not a fact that he is disgusting. You and your liberal friends could sit around talking about how awful the country is under Donald Trump. I grant you that, you think that.

But how are you to judge another woman's choice about her relationship, and did you do the same, for instance, when Hillary Clinton stood by her man, when Hillary Clinton decided to fire or not fire someone who had sexually harassed or reportedly sexually harassed someone on her campaign staff. Were you making judgments about that or you reserve it for Melania because you think her husband is disgusting?

BEAUCHAMP: I wasn't covering the Clintons, I was too young for that. The most recent thing with Hillary, of course I would criticize her for doing that.

INGRAHAM: Was her husband disgusting?

BEAUCHAMP: Who, Bill Clinton? First of all, you just continuing to be like, what about these Democrats is not really an argument. You should be able to speak critically about the Trump administration. Your whole segment has just been talking about Democrats and what they are covering.

INGRAHAM: What I'm trying to do, Sarah -- it's fine, you are a liberal and you don't like Trump. That's fine. But to write something about a woman's decision to travel to Davos or not travel to Davos, you make this wild leap of logic without any factual underpinning that I know of, and you carry yourself, it's a fact. What's the fact? With the evidence?

BEAUCHAMP: It's my opinion that he's gross and I can't imagine being married to him.

INGRAHAM: I don't think anyone cares whether you want to marry him or not. He didn't ask you to marry him.

BEAUCHAMP: You clearly care about my opinion of him because I'm on your show right now.

INGRAHAM: I'm trying to understand how a woman like you who carries herself off as a feminist tries to get in the mind of another woman. Maybe that's her decision. It's her decision to believe what she wants to believe and live the life that she wants to live. Maybe she thinks it's the best thing for the country. Maybe she is wildly in love with her husband but like all of us are disappointed with people at various times. Maybe you have the whole thing wrong. But as a woman, and as a feminist, why are you questioning other women's choices? Aren't you pro-choice?

BEAUCHAMP: Good one. Being a feminist does not mean that you are not critical of women. You know that that's not what it means. You know it means equality for all genders. That's exactly what feminist means. It does not mean that I have to be nice to every woman that I meet. Melania is complicit in an administration that has been abhorrent as of now. Racism has gone up, anti-Semitism has gone up. Anti-LGBT sentiments have gone up in this country. She is complicit in a pretty gross administration. My article is about my opinion. I think he is disgusting. I can't imagine being married to him. And all the pictures we see and her swatting his hand away are not evidence to the contrary. It kind of looks like she's disgusted by him. That's what my story was about.

INGRAHAM: Right, that's fascinating.

BEAUCHAMP: If they are happy, good, I hope she is happy.

INGRAHAM: I'm sure you do. I'm sure you hope she's happy.

BEAUCHAMP: Of course. I don't wish --

BEAUCHAMP: Sarah, did you comment at all about Michelle Obama spending an extra three weeks in Hawaii in 2014 after that unfortunate deal with the selfie at the Mandela funeral? Did you write about that or think about that? She spent I guess two and a half weeks, something like that after that little episode. You don't member that?

BEAUCHAMP: I don't remember --

(CROSSTALK)

BEAUCHAMP: -- the $130,000 in hush money to a former porn star.

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: I think you remember -- I guess that might pass as logic for your generation. But you want to remember what you want to remember.

BEAUCHAMP: Michelle would have avoided him for a couple of days, you never know. We will never know because --

INGRAHAM: Sarah, I have one question, are you going to give back the tax cut that you get because of this abhorrent, horrible president? Are you going to give it back to the treasury to fund some liberal program?

BEAUCHAMP: I don't think it's too much for America to ask a decent man for president and someone who gives a tax cut. I'm not greedy for wanting both. We can want a decent person leading the free world in addition to being good at business. That's not too much to ask.

INGRAHAM: OK. All right, Sarah, well, you have a lovely evening.

And Hillary Clinton's embarrassing cameo at the Grammys and their award- winning hypocrisy when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: You just knew that last night's Grammys would have more anti- Trump politics and #MeToo moment. Then of course music, at least that's the way it seemed. And the public responded by tuning out in record numbers. Yet somehow it did not strike organizers as hypocritical to feature a cameo by Hillary Clinton, arguably the worst enabler of a sexual abuser that we've ever seen in public life. Of course, she targeted the president doing a mock audition for narrator of the recent anti-Trump book.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, GRAMMY AWARDS)

CLINTON: He had a longtime fear of being poisoned. One reason why he liked to eat at McDonald's. Nobody knew what was coming and the food was safely premade.

JAMES CORDEN, GRAMMYS HOST: That's it, we've got it. That's the one.

CLINTON: You think so?

CORDEN: Oh, yes.

CLINTON: The Grammy is in the bag?

CORDEN: In the bag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: She looked great there. This is a woman, by the way, that the Grammys lionized. Just like week we learned that Hillary protected a senior campaign aide, her faith consultant of all things, in 2008 who was accused of sexually harassing a female staffer. This despite the fact that some on her senior staff wanted him fired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTI SOLIS DOYLE, FORMER CLINTON CAMPAIGN MANAGER: There was sexual harassment involved, the young woman was very credible. And my recommendation to the senator was to fire him. And I was overruled.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She overruled you personally?

DOYLE: I was overruled, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Let's examine this breathtaking double standard with Monica Crowley in New York, senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, and here in studio with me is Michele Jawando of the Center for American Progress. Michele, take it away. It's the #MeToo moment at the Grammys and Hillary Clinton wouldn't cede to firing a sexual harassment.

MICHELE JAWANDO, VICE PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I think without question Hillary has been an advocate for women and girls her entire career. And I actually thought that the Grammys in that moment was a moment of levity. I thought it was funny. I thought she looked great, and I think she had a great time. And I think if we sometimes take it out of always the crazy political, that's actually really good for us as a community, as a nation.

INGRAHAM: Does it bother you that she wouldn't fire the guy who was sexually harassing someone else? Patti Solis Doyle is not a conservative right wing person.

JAWANDO: No, not at all. But what I am concerned about is what we do right now to move forward to protect all women and girls?

INGRAHAM: But don't we have better examples than Hillary? Why is Hillary someone you want to have anyone near that movement? That's my point.

Monica, let's get you in on this. After this news breaks and they showcase her as some heroine of the women's rights movement. Go ahead, take it away.

MONICA CROWLEY, LONDON CENTER FOR POLICY RESEARCH: I found it amazing but not at all surprising, Laura that they would highlight Hillary Clinton at the height of this cultural moment of awareness on sexual abuse, sexual misconduct. This is a woman who defended and protected a sexual predator for decades, a man also known as her husband. And then of course we find out that she protected a campaign aide in '08 after she was warned, and she refused to dismiss him. And not only that, his bad behavior continued after that and she continued make excuses for him.

So in this moment when you have all of these musicians on stage and they are all making political statements, whether it's Bono on immigration or the female artists on the #MeToo movement, the ideas that they would take her and hold her up as some sort of symbol, that is self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Laura, these are the least self-aware people on the planet.

JAWANDO: Laura, you have to really -- let's just step back. Are we really saying that we are going to continue in 2018 to blame women for the sins of their husbands? That seems, in some ways, way antiquated and outdated. If you look at what Hillary Clinton has done, not who she is married to, but what she's done whether as a senator or at the State Department, she spent years and years of her time working on behalf of women and girls in this country and around the world. That is a record you cannot --

CROWLEY: Laura, can I just jump in here? When she raises the idea of what Mrs. Clinton has done for women and girls. What did she do to Juanita Broaddrick, Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey? Mrs. Clinton was right at the center of trying to smear and discredit these women, nuts and sluts and a narcissistic looney toon. That's what Mrs. Clinton did for specific women.

JAWANDO: And we can talk about Maxine Outerbridge, who has done tons of work with Hillary Clinton on CHIP. We can talk about the mothers of the movement on gun violence prevention. We can go back and forth with names.

INGRAHAM: Michele, she can do a lot of good liberal things that you like and at the same time not be the best person to come out for the #MeToo movement. If I were a liberal, I would be like, OK, Hillary, thanks for your service, but we are moving on. It's time to turn the page from the Clintons, done. The scandal, it's not helping Democrats. It seems like most Democrats I know want to be done with the Clintons.

JAWANDO: I do think that the #MeToo movement is bigger than any one person. I do agree with you on that, and I think it's a powerful moment for everybody in the country.

INGRAHAM: Guys, thank you so much, and we will be right back. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Before we go, I want to let you know that a very dear friend who was an amazing person, Julie Reyes Taubman passed away a few days ago. She was a wonderful person, great patron of the arts. She was the founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit, did a phenomenal book on photography, helped me through a really difficult time with my own cancer. There is a picture of her with my daughter Maria back in 2008. And just welcomed us into her home at a very difficult time for me, and she will be so missed by her husband Bobby, her twin sons Teho and Seb and Gogo and Alex. And we just wish her family the best. A great person who will be missed very much by everyone who loved her, including her six brothers.


Content and Programming Copyright 2018 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.