Digging into Trump's tough talk on North Korea
Digging into Trump's tough talk on North Korea
Gen. Anthony Tata, regional experts Harry Kazianis and Dennis Wilderand debate on 'The Story'
This is a rush transcript from "The Story," August 10, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Breaking tonight, President Trump doubling down on his threat to North Korea, noting there's a new commander-in-chief in the oval office.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He's disrespected our country greatly. He has said a thing that horrific. And with me, he's not getting away with it. He got away with it for a long time between him and his family; he's not getting away with this. It's a whole new ball game.
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PERINO: That's THE STORY tonight. I'm Dana Perino in for Martha MacCallum. President Trump's directly addressing Kim Jong-un on two occasions today, even leaving the door open for possible preemptive strikes if the threat intensifies. The president's new warning comes just days away from a reported North Korean plan to fire missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam. And the upcoming U.S-South Korean war games could further inflame the rogue nation.
Fears in the region continue to grow with the Wall Street Journal's Seoul bureau chief, offering this grim but perhaps honest assessment. History says, Pyongyang will back down, but experts worry this time is different. Neither side has any incentive to make the first concession. More on that in a moment, but we begin tonight with Trace Gallagher live in our West Coast Newsroom. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: And Dana, not only do you have a stalemate that could last for weeks, if you look at the chess board in that region there are some upcoming moves that could serve as flash points. For example, in two weeks, the U.S. and South Korea will begin their annual joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula. These are military drills that in the past have infuriated North Korea. Kim Jong-un believes they're preparations for an invasion. And China has called on the U.S. and South Korea to cancel the drills to lower the tension.
On top of that, in the coming days, the general in charge of North Korea's missiles is scheduled to present Kim Jong-un a plan to simultaneously launch four missiles toward Guam. Experts say, missiles landing anywhere near Guam, which is considered American soil, would be an act of war. Today, the governor of Guam said there is some concern among the public living on the island, but no panic. The governor himself dismissed the threats saying, they come from a position of fear. But a short time ago, President Trump made it clear, he wasn't dismissing anything. Watch.
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TRUMP: I read about were in Guam by August 15th, let's see what he does with Guam. He does something in Guam; it will be an event the likes of which nobody has seen before what will happen in North Korea.
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GALLAGHER: Separately, Japan says it's ready to shoot down any ballistic missile fired towards Guam, and South Korea's military says it is prepared to immediately and sternly punish any kind of provocation by North Korea.
Though, a spokesperson for the South Korean president later said the door for dialogue is still open. And while it is not believed that North Korea has a missile that could reach the shores of Hawaii, authorities on the chain of islands are working on a plan to warn its 1.4 million residents and the hundreds of thousands of visitors that go there on a weekly basis. Dana?
PERINO: Thank you, Trace. Here now: retired Brigadier General, Anthony Tata; Harry Kazianis, Director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest; and Dennis Wilder, Professor of Asia Studies at Georgetown University and former Special Assistant for Asian Affairs to President George W. Bush. General, if I can start with you because you say that the administration is actually speaking with one voice and it makes perfect sense to you. I tend to agree, but let's let the people hear it from you.
ANTHONY TATA, RETIRED BRIGADIER GENERAL: Well, Dana, what I see is an administration that understands the application of the elements of national power with information being one of those elements. You have the president being very clear about what he's saying and what will happen if North Korea fires missiles at Guam or some other territory of the United States. You have Secretary Tillerson being diplomatic, as he should be, and you have Secretary Mattis being very direct. I mean, you know, Mattis was about as direct as you could be.
They're all saying the same thing in a different way. And this is something that the Obama administration was particularly incompetent at. They were not good at application and synchronizing the elements of national power to work in tandem with one another. For example, political power has been applied to get a unanimous vote out of the U.N. to leverage sanctions. That's economic power. You've got information power. We're doing flexible deterrent options across the Korean Peninsula. So, all of that is synchronization of power and national power.
PERINO: Dennis, you just returned from Beijing. And I'm curious if you think when the president is making comments like he has the past couple days, it looks like he's speaking directly to the North Koreans, but he also, I imagine, is hoping that the Chinese are paying attention. What is he trying to tell the Chinese?
DENNIS WILDER, PROFESSOR OF ASIA STUDIES AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY AND FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR ASIAN AFFAIRS TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Oh, he's absolutely speaking to the Chinese as well. What he's telling them is that they have responsibilities for dealing with this situation. China hasn't been good at putting the sanctions on after they voted for them at the United Nations. What the president wants to see now is China stepping up, putting these sanctions in place, cutting off some of that trade with North Korea, making it clear to the North Korean leader he can't keep doing these things. After all, Beijing put pressure on the North Korean leader this spring and we didn't see a sixth nuclear test. China has the ability to influence the North Koreans and this is the moment to do it.
PERINO: Harry, what about the rest of the region? Since you look at it across the board and especially what we heard from Trace Gallagher that Japan and South Korean, that they are ready. How dangerous is the situation right now that people are on edge and on alert that there might be, you know, an accidental shooting down of missiles that cause harm to civilians and then escalates this rather rapidly?
HARRY KAZIANIS, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE STUDIES AT THE CENTER FOR THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Well, Dana, I mean, it's a very dangerous situation. My greatest fear, to be honest with you, if you're looking at the region as I don't think Kim Jong-un is going to fire missiles at Guam. I think he would be very concerned if those missiles failed. And he'd have egg on his face. So, I don't think he's going to that. What I do think he's going to do is I think he's going to test another nuclear weapon maybe in the next week to ten days. He's been prepping that for a long time. There have been reports for months about that. I also think what he might do is potentially test another ICBM. He wants to prove to the United States and the world that he's a nuclear power as if The Washington Post report didn't prove that already. That is what he's trying to do. So, I think that's his move here.
PERINO: But Dennis, I know that you disagree with that, right? You think that there will be an attempt to strike Guam.
WILDER: I think that --
KAZIANIS: In my --
PERINO: Go ahead, Dennis.
KAZIANIS: Go ahead.
WILDER: I think what has been happening here is that the North Korean leader has been very specific for the first time about what he plans to do. So he's trying to back the administration away from a nuclear -- I'm sorry, from the military exercises. He wants the exercises to stop, and this is his way to try and put pressure on us.
PERINO: General, if I could ask you something. Susan Rice, the former National Security Adviser to President Obama had an op-ed in New York Times today. Let me just read you a section from it. She says, "History shows that we can if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea -- the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the cold war." This is getting a lot of attention. And I wonder from your perspective what you think of her comments.
TATA: I think she has no idea what she's talking about. She was utterly incompetent as the NSA. She led us down a path with Iran that modeled a nuclear deal after what President Bill Clinton did with Korea in 1994 that resulted in what we've got today. And I think Susan Rice has all the credibility of -- that has no credibility. And so, for her to say that you know, strategic patience, they ignored it for eight years. And then on the way out, you know, President Obama said to President, incoming, then, elect Trump, you know, here's something that you're going to have to deal with. And finally, you know, the president's dealing with it as he should and he's not going to kick this can down the road.
PERINO: Harry, do you think that Kim Jong-un is making a calculus that he believes that if he can get enough time, then he will be able to be a nuclear power and try to basically realize the dreams of his grandfather?
KAZIANIS: Well, Dana, I have to actually take point with your comment. Kim Jong-un already is a nuclear power. I mean, I don't know what else that he has to prove here. The fact of the matter is this: the first nuclear weapon was detonated in 1945 by the United States. The first ICBM was tested by the United States in 1957. So, we need to step away from this trope that Kim Jong-un doesn't have the ability to build nuclear weapons. I know it's difficult for even myself to think about that, but he's already shown that capability. He's tested nuclear weapons. He's tested ICBMs.
WILDER: I disagree.
PERINO: Dennis, you want to disagree with that? Go ahead.
KAZIANIS: Let me just prove it.
PERINO: Dennis, go ahead.
WILDER: I think the danger of deciding that he's a nuclear power is now we're going to have an arms race in Northeast Asia. The Japanese will have to go nuclear for good reasons; the South Koreans, Taiwan. I think that's a very dangerous road to go down. I think the president is doing the right thing.
KAZIANIS: It's not dangerous at all.
WILDER: It's very dangerous.
KAZIANIS: It's not dangerous at all. If you put missile defenses in the area -- we have the playbook from the cold war. It's called containment. We contained the Soviet Union. We have 20,000 plus nuclear weapons; we can do that.
PERINO: Let me give (INAUDIBLE) up against the break. But General, let me give you the last word in that. Do you think containment is an option here?
TATA: I don't like containment as an option. I think we need to have a nonnuclear North Korea, and I think we need to take steps to do that. They're too unpredictable. They're one of the last totalitarian regimes. And they want to do is burn the world down. There's no option here, but to have a nonnuclear North Korea.
PERINO: It's a very serious situation. And gentlemen, I appreciate your expertise, thanks so much.
TATA: Thank you.
PERINO: Coming up a brazen attack on American diplomats in Cuba comes after years of President Obama's policies of appeasement toward the communist nation. Could the two be linked? That debate ahead. Plus, a tense call and a public rebuke, President Trump seems to have a new target tonight: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But despite that, find out why Karl Rove says it's really the Democrats in disarray. He's next in his column that's getting a lot of attention tonight.
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TRUMP: I'm very disappointed in Mitch. If he gets the bills passed, I'll be happy with him and the first to admit it.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican struck you a firing squad is giving new hope to Democrats in next year's Congressional election.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They do not feel that they have to tow the party line. They do not feel that the president is leading the party in a particular direction.
CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: We're just talking about -- I said, jeez, we've got McCain versus Ron Johnson, we've McConnell versus Trump, and he goes. And on Monday, we led with Republican infighting and it's gotten worse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It hasn't exactly been smooth sailing, right? What are the words dysfunction and chaos?
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PERINO: The media reveling in what they see as disarray within the Republican Party. But Karl Rove argues in a new piece, that it's actually the Democrats who are in trouble as progressive intolerance, as he sees it, is preventing the party from staging any sort of comeback. Well, another Wall Street piece sees the same issues and suggests some radical solutions. F.H. Buckley writing, "It's hard to see how they can moderate their maximalist positions on abortion, black lives matter, and transgender issues. The entire current leadership of the Democratic Party would need to be replaced."
Here now: Karl Rove, former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Adviser to President George W. Bush. It's interesting, Karl, to watch -- I mean, the Democrats have a point. The Republicans do have some infighting, and they had a big legislative loss before they went on recess. But I feel like the bigger story here, and it's masking their problems, is that the Democrats have not recovered in any way from the loss of last November. And I think that what you argued this morning is: they're not on the road to actually repairing that at all.
KARL ROVE, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF AND SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: No, they aren't. They're in the weakest condition they've been in a century in terms of numbers in state legislatures, numbers of -- there are 15 democratic governors out of 50 states, 34 Republicans, and one independent. And the Republicans before last week were 33; they got their 34th when the governor of West Virginia who's elected last November.
Trump is winning the state by 42 points, Jim Justice, the Democratic nominee wins it by seven, and yet less than seven months after taking office, he switches party saying, in essence, Democratic legislators don't support me. I can't get anything done in Washington by being democratic, and he stood proudly beside Donald Trump in huge voices rallying in Huntington. West Virginians switched parties. And it's just a sign of the weakness of the Democrats. They can't hold their coalition together.
PERINO: Is it partly because they don't really have a leader? President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party now. And there's some infighting about that, but I think it's actually mild compared to the problems that the Democrats have, which is: who is their leader? Clinton is not. Obama is basically off the scene, for now. Biden is not necessarily it. Pelosi is really the most visible leader and her unpopularity is sky high.
ROVE: Yes. Look, they have two unpopular leaders in Congress, Schumer, and Pelosi. You're right. Obama is off vacationing. Hillary Clinton is discredited. The problem for them is that they have the ascendant wing of the Democratic Party; it's the Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren. These are the intolerance. These are the resistance. These are the people that have nothing going for them, except just fervent opposition to anything that Donald Trump does whether it's right or wrong.
PERINO: Well, speaking of that, can I show you this t-shirt that's for sale at Net Roots Nation? This was tweeted today from (INAUDIBLE) on Twitter. It's "impeach Trump." OK. Can you see that with, you know, the hammer and sickle? Do you think that the Democrats are so blinded by their-- I don't want to say hatred but their dislike of President Trump that they can't pull themselves together and realize that you can't actually elections based on the narrow issues that they're using to pull them further and further to the left?
ROVE: Right. I think that's right. I think there are two things going on here. You touched on one of them, which is anger at Trump is not sufficient enough to convince swing voters to come your way. And to the degree that they have a plan, it's things like, you know, the hard progressive left to the Democratic Party now says you have to be for single payer or our revolution -- the group that's spun off of Sander's campaign says if you're not a Democratic candidate for single payer health care, we'll primary you.
And they've already chosen a candidate in Nevada who's running against Harry Reid's favorite. And so, the Democrats are pulling themselves apart because you have the Warren/Sanders wing in the parties, and we've got to go hard to the left and a lot of Democrats saying that stuff doesn't sell unless you're living in Marin County, California or the upper west side of Manhattan.
PERINO: Now, to turn in over to the Republicans, let's take a listen to what President Trump said today about Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell.
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TRUMP: I said, Mitch, get to work and let's get it done. They lost by one vote. For a thing like that to happen is a disgrace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should Senate McConnell consider stepping down as Majority Leader?
TRUMP: If he doesn't get repeal and replace done, and if he doesn't get taxes done meaning cuts and reform, and if he doesn't get a very easier one to get done infrastructure, if he doesn't get them done, then you can ask me that question.
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PERINO: OK. So, Karl, do you think that this is much ado about nothing, a little bit of bluster maybe from both sides or just some frustration or is there a real breakdown in communication here that will prevent them from getting those things that the president wants to be passed?
ROVE: I hope it's a little kerfuffle. I hope it's bluster. I hope it's not a real serious breakdown. Because look, if there's not a strong working relationship between the Republican in the House and the Senate and the White House, if we're going to be conducting Twitter wars and insulting each other, then nothing much is going to get done. I, frankly, think that Senator McConnell -- maybe it wasn't good for him to make the comment in front of the rotary club or whatever it was in Kentucky, but he had a point, which is: the president should lower the expectations of the American people.
Take the remark that he just made: I want a big infrastructure program, he said. We are seven months, nearly seven months into the Trump administration. This week, they're appointing members of an infrastructure committee, and they have yet to send up a bill to the Congress of what they want in an infrastructure bill. They've talked about it endlessly for seven months, but they haven't sent forward a bill. Lower the expectations. Tell the American people this is tough to do and it's going to take some time. And then, when you get it done, they'll be happily -- you know, they'll be happily surprised.
But there's no good -- yes, if Trump goes out and says bad things about the Republicans in Congress, it's not going to hurt him in 2018; it's going to hurt the Republicans in Congress. But if that gets him the Democrat House or Democrat Senate, he's not going to like that for the last two years of his first term. And when he gets to run for re-election, people are not going to say, hey, it's somebody else's fault that you didn't get things done. They'll hold him responsible. He ought to be focused on cultivating the relationships necessary to move his agenda forward and get it done. His success is bound up in that, just as the success of the Republicans in Congress is.
PERINO: OK. Karl Rove, thank you so much.
ROVE: Thanks, Dana.
PERINO: Still ahead, the Google engineer fired for speaking out against today's P.C. culture is fighting back tonight. What he's saying about his former employer in a brand new interview. We've got the tape from Ben Shapiro, coming up. Plus, is the Cuban government targeting U.S. diplomats working inside the country? The shocking story of two Americans reportedly targeted, kicking off a new debate over the Obama administration's years long effort to reopen diplomatic ties with the communist nation. Marc Thiessen and Isaac Wright, take up that debate next.
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TRUMP: It's hard to think of a policy that makes less sense than the prior administration's terrible and misguided deal with the Castro regime. We now hold the cards. The previous administration's easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people. They only enrich the Cuban regime.
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PERINO: President Trump in June railing against the policies of the Obama administration which undertook a years-long effort of appeasement towards Cuba. And tonight, a new question about the impact of his open arms attitude as a bizarre story is developing involving a reported direct attack on our diplomats in Havana. Fox News Chief National Correspondent, Ed Henry. You've got a long title, and you deserve every word of it. You're joining us live with reaction from the White House.
ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dana, that's right. This story keeps getting more and more bizarre about American diplomats in Havana losing their hearing because of some sort of attacks. Breaking tonight, officials in Canada now telling us at least one of their diplomats in Havana also suffered some sort of hearing loss. So, this is now expanding. It all started in the fall of 2016 at the new U.S. Embassy in Cuba when several American diplomats started inexplicably suffering losses of their hearing and had symptoms so nasty -- they had to come home to America early.
The Trump administration has now expelled two Cubans diplomats from their embassy here in Washington as retaliation. Because after months of investigation, the U.S. government has concluded: our diplomats were attacked with advanced sonic weapons that were operating outside of their ability to detect or hear it; placed either inside or right outside their residences in Havana. These attacks happened after then-President Barack Obama decided in 2015 to re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba, followed by this March 2016 trip where he attended a baseball game and other events with Dictator Raul Castro.
Now, after President Trump went to Little Havana there, where you mentioned in Miami, this past June to reverse pieces of that policy; new restrictions on U.S. travel to and business with Cuba. Long-time Obama Aide, Ben Rhodes, rushed to defend the legacy item by charging President Trump was on the wrong side of history tweeting, "The few people in Miami enabling Trump and carrying out this charade should be embarrassed and held accountable. He could care less about Cubans". Well, that tweet didn't necessarily age well. When you examine how the two presidents approached trusting the Cuban government over the last year and a half.
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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people because in many ways, the United States and Cuba are like two brothers who've been estranged for many years.
TRUMP: To this day, Cuba is ruled by the same people who killed tens of thousands of their own citizens. My administration will not hide from it, excuse it, or glamorize it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Now, Heather Nauert at the State Department today said, they're in regular contact with the Cubans to try to resolve this, and our embassy in Havana is now fully operational. As for the victims, we're told there's about five of them. We don't have a lot of details about their conditions. But Cuban officials, you know, for the record, are denying any responsibility for these attacks. But U.S. Federal Law Enforcement officials tonight are investigating it, we're told, and there's a twist on the story. They're looking at the possibility that a third party, maybe the Russians, for example, were behind these attacks and not the Cubans, Dana.
PERINO: All right. Ed, thank you so much. So, will this lead to a quicker effort by President Trump at stripping President Obama's Cuba legacy? Here to talk about that: Marc Thiessen, former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush and American Enterprise Institute Scholar, he's also a Fox News contributor; and Democratic strategist Isaac Wright. It's a bizarre story but very troubling. This is irreversible damage -- I would imagine that these people are dealing with tonight. And Marc, you feel pretty strongly about what we have ended up doing by reaching out to the Cubans and trying to, you know, make nice.
MARC THIESSEN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR AND FORMER CHIEF SPEECHWRITER FOR PRESIDENT BUSH: Absolutely. Look, one of the things that Barack Obama did when he normalized relations is he took Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terror. Well, guess what, this was a terrorist attack against U.S. diplomats and their families in Cuba. They used a sonic weapon, which is not just -- could do a lot worse than cause hearing loss. It could cause organ damage, it could cause brain damage. It could hurt the respiration.
These people could have died as a result of this. And the idea that the Cuban government is saying we don't know anything about this, it's blatantly absurd. Next to North Korea, this is the most repressive regime, totalitarian regime on the face of the earth. These people were lived in Cuban government-owned housing. They were under constant surveillance by Cuban state police. And the idea that the Cuban regime that Barack Obama was coddling for the last couple of years, knew nothing about this, is even not involved, or had no knowledge of it is just simply absurd.
PERINO: Isaac, I understand what President Obama thought, you know, this personal outreach would maybe speed up the ability for normal relations, but do you think this will actually set us back?
ISAAC WRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, first and foremost, our nation has to do everything we can to protect our diplomats and, obviously, our prayers are tremendously with those who are affected. I think that we need to get the rest of the facts. The details are still emerging. It's not clear yet if this was something done by the Cubans, or this was something done as was mention earlier by third party like Russia, Paul Manafort's dear friends, as an attempt to.
PERINO: I don't know if we can accuse Paul Manafort.
(LAUGHTER)
THIESSEN: That's amazing.
WRIGHT: No, and by no means we are -- is anyone tagging him with this. But the point is that the Russians who obviously have connections to the current administration, or at least, certainly, evidence thereof may have been responsible as well.
PERINO: But even if that's true.
WRIGHT: But we don't know these details, so to say that we're going to end the Obama policy after a couple of years and return to the policy that clearly worked so well in its first -- 60 years to bring us to this point seems a little bit ridiculous.
PERINO: But President Trump, Marc, talks about leverage and that you need that in deal making, and that we gave it up. Is there a way for us to get some of it back?
THIESSEN: Well, yes. I mean the fact that Barack Obama gave the Cuban government everything they wanted and got nothing in return. I mean, he gave them -- he lifted restrictions on travel and trade that have poured hundreds of millions of dollars in the coffers of the Cuban government that were virtually empty. He gave them diplomat recognition. He sat there. We saw pictures of, you know, eating popcorn and doing the wave with Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana, which was a huge P.R. and financial coup for the Castro regime. So what did we get in return for that? Well, according to MSC International, repression in Cuban has dramatically increased since the opening of the Barack Obama undertook.
Last year, there were according to MSC an average of 862 arrests and detentions, arbitrary arrest and detention, every single month in Cuba. This is the most repressive regime in the face of the Earth, and has gotten more repressive since Barack Obama's policies were in place. And by the way, we're looking at Venezuela right now, what's happening there with Castro's ally in Venezuela. They're using the money that they've gotten from the opening to help the Maduro regime repress the Venezuelan people who are trying to rise up and get democracy.
PERINO: Isaac, give me the last word. I do think, obviously, we have American citizens, diplomats, who didn't deserve what has happened to them. And I guess we'll get more information about them and, of course, the Canadian citizen as well. But there's a lot of innocent people living under these regimes that deserve better as well. I'll just give you the last word on however you want to close it out.
WRIGHT: Absolutely. The people who live under the repressive regime and the failed economic policies of the Castro's in Cuba need help. They need the American ideals exported there, unlike what Marc and President Trump had said we should do, which is to close off that door and not to give that opportunity, to give the people that information.
PERINO: All right, Isaac and Marc, thank you so much for being here tonight.
THIESSEN: Thank you.
PERINO: The Google employee that got fired for circulate a memo on diversity is now speaking out. We will play for you what he has to say about his former employer, and wait till you hear why Google cancelled an all hands on deck meeting just moments ago. It is unbelievable. Plus, his post calling out the safe space generation went viral when he told them college is not his day care. Now, Dr. Everett Piper is here with some tips we can all use, especially those parents who will sends their kids off to school in a couple weeks.
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PERINO: Breaking tonight, the Google engineer labelled a sexist and bigot, and ultimately fired when he questioned Googles attitude toward gender diversity is speaking out tonight in an interview on The Ben Shapiro Show. Just hours ago, James Damore had this to say about the national firestorm surrounding his comments.
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JAMES DAMORE, FORMER GOOGLE EMPLOYEE: Since I wrote it, there've been many people that privately messaged me and said yeah, I support you. I agree. This is a real problem. You can openly shame white people or all men and we do this in our companywide meeting. So there's definitely a bias towards a certain movements, like we had a whole TGIF that was for the Black Lives Matter movement.
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PERINO: Google, meanwhile, was scheduled to hold a companywide meeting on the controversy at this very hour, but just moments ago they cancelled it. CEO, Sundar Pichai, memo to employee reads, quote, Googlers are writing in concerned about their safety, and worried they may be outed publicly for asking a question in the town hall. In recognition of Google's concern, we need to step back and create a better set of conditions for us to have the discussion.
Right now, millions of young Americans are preparing to head to college, a place where free speech at times has become stifled. This change in culture prompted my next guest, a college educator, to write a post that went viral in 2015, writing in part, our culture has actually taught our kids to be the self-absorb and narcissistic. Any time their feelings are hurt, they are the victims. Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a safe place, but rather a place to learn, to learn that life isn't about you but about others. This is a place where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up. This is not a day care. This is a university. Dr. Everett Piper is the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University and author of the new book, "Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth." So, I'm so glad to have you here tonight. It's amazing that -- what you're talking about has gone from the university into corporate America. Are you seeing that?
EVERETT PIPER, OKLAHOMA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT: Absolutely. It's as predictable as the sunrise. Richard Weaver wrote a Seminole work in 1948. It was titled, Ideas have Consequences. And what was his point? Ideas have consequences, they matter. There's no such thing as a neutral idea. Good ideas lead to good culture, good community, good corporations, good government, good kids, and bad ideas lead to the opposite. Your grandmother said garbage in and garbage out, and she was right. Ideas have consequences. And we've been teaching this narcissism and self-absorption, we've been teaching victimization for decades. Why are we surprised to see self-absorbed, narcissistic students who are being vengeful and demonstrating vice rather than virtue in the public square?
PERINO: So when you wrote, not a day care, I think people really picked up on that. And I love the cover, which is basically -- you've got a safety pin as if they needed a diaper. When you wrote the op-ed, a lot of the people came to you, seeking you out. They wanted advice. And I wonder, was the problem worse than you even knew?
PIPER: You know, I'm an academic, this is my industry. And I would claim that my industry created this monster. We caused this problem. Again, by the lousy ideas we've been teaching for several decades. We're getting lousy results right now in the public square and on our colleges, and even on our corporations. I love this Google story. So, no, I'm not surprised to see the problem. But what I do think we need to recognize is the degree of the problem. What we have right now is ideological fascism in the academy, in the ivory tower, in the colleges and universities, rather than academic freedom.
A fascist was a Roman bundle of sticks bound together so tightly it couldn't be broken. It's from that we get the word fascism. And today, if you don't comply, if you're not one of us, if you don't think like I think, and believe like I believe, if you're not going to say what I want you to say, you're revoked, you're expelled, we do not want you. And we do this all under the banner of tolerance. It's like saying I can't tolerate your intolerance, or I hate you hateful people. It's self-refuting in every turn.
PERINO: Are universities aware that they have a problem? I mean, you think that the industry helped cause the problem, but the universities thinks this is just a passing fad, or do they think this -- they've got to get a handle on?
PIPER: Well, it depends who you talk to, poster child. I received a hard copy letter from a university in the south, a well-known university, from a gentleman -- a full bright scholar who said this to me. I read your day care piece. I went to your website and read more about you. As an atheist, I dismiss your religion and I dismiss your politics. However, on this issue, thank you.
PERINO: You're right.
PIPER: Kudos, you're right. Please carry on. It needed to be said. Again, this man recognizes that even though he disagrees with some of my ideas, that academic freedom has been compromised because we've stopped teaching the objective standard of truth in the academy.
PERINO: So a lot of parents are getting ready to send their children off to colleges and university. They might be concerned that their kids are going to turn into melting snowflakes, any advice for them?
PIPER: Well, they should be concerned. Why in the world are they paying tens of thousands of dollars to send their kids off to institutions that teach this problem? They need to vote with their pocketbook and vote with their feet, and stop sending their children, their sons and daughters.
PERINO: Your enrollment went up after the op-ed piece.
PIPER: Well, it's tripled in the last 15 years.
PERINO: Amazing.
PIPER: Because we stand for something. I'm not going to sell you vanilla ice cream. We actually believe in the time-tested truths, the self-evident truths that are endowed to us by our creator. We believe there's a measuring rod outside of those things being measured, or you could do no measuring, to quote C.S. Lewis. We believe that truth judges of the debate, not you, not me, not politics, but truth gives us the freedom like Jesus said. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
PERINO: Well, in truth, we all need to hear more about that, given all the things what we're going through in the world. All right. Thank you so much. And good luck with the book.
PIPER: Thank you.
PERINO: All right. Tonight, lots of focus on the growing threat out of North Korea, and rightly so. But, is President Trump currently facing an unprecedented level of global turmoil? Up next, we'll take you around the world with the report on the threats from ISIS, the war in Afghanistan, the chilling in Russia, and chaos in Venezuela. That's next.
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TRUMP: I will tell you this, North Korea better get their act together or they're going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world. OK?
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TRUMP: If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love, or we represent, or our allies, or us, they can be very, very nervous. I'll tell you why. And they should be very nervous because things will happen to them like they never thought possible. OK? He's been pushing the world around for a long time.
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PERINO: President Trump just hours ago talking tough to North Korea. But Kim Jong-un is just one of multiple bullies on the world stage. Here at home, president sends a run on the strength of their domestic ideas for jobs, the economy and even healthcare. But all too often, international crises disrupt the best-laid plants and demand the attention of the commander-in-chief. Trace Gallagher takes us inside the world wide challenges facing President Trump, live from our west coast newsroom. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS: Hey, Dana. Even without North Korea, President Trump has a lot on his plate beginning with the plot by ISIS to take down a passenger jet in Australia, where federal police arrested two men who they say tried to sneak a roadside bomb on to a Etihad Airways flight from Sydney. The planned attack was foiled by authorities, but they're still calling it one of the most sophisticated plots ever attempted on Australian soil. Alerting President Trump and other world leaders that terrorism is alive and well.
Mr. Trump is also getting some foreign policy push-back from his own party. Today, Arizona Senator John McCain unveiled his on strategy for the U.S. in Afghanistan, a plan that includes adding more troops for counter terrorism missions. McCain says he's taking this step because the president isn't coming up with a plan. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster supports boosting troops in Afghanistan. Chief strategist Steve Bannon opposes adding more forces. Then, of course, there is Russian, after congress passed the new Russian sanctions package, Vladimir Putin kicked out 755 U.S. diplomats, and today, President Trump thanked him. Watch.
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TRUMP: I want to thank him because we're trying to cut down on payroll. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people, because now we have a smaller payroll. There's no real reason for them to go back.
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GALLAGHER: For the record, experts say it actually won't lower the payroll, and the president's comments reportedly didn't sit very well with the rank and file at the State Department. And finally, Thursday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on eight more individuals in Venezuela, including the brother of the late president Hugo Chavez. The penalties were issued against those that's trying to strengthen what the U.S. calls the dictatorship of President Nicholas Maduro. Dana?
PERINO: Trace, thank you. Here now with more, Olivier Knox, who is the chief Washington correspondent for Yahoo News. Olivier, you and I got to know each other travelling around the world when I was junior birdman, deputy press secretary, and then further. We saw all of the things that were happening at once for a president. This president is no stranger to that. And these are the issues that we know about. We didn't mention the humanitarian crisis growing in Africa, but there's also the things that you don't know about, for example, the 9/11 attacks, or Ed Snowden releasing all the documents. How do you think this president is setup to manage all of these things at once?
OLIVIER KNOX, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT YAHOO NEWS: Well, as Trace pointed out, it's a bewildering array of international challenges, and really you lose track of them when you chase headlines. Obviously, North Korea is the dominant story right now in the international stage, makes perfect sense. The Afghanistan review is in the headlines, makes perfect sense. The war on ISIS makes perfect sense. It's always a challenge. The problem right now with the Trump administration that there's a whole layer of policy makers, so the middle rung of officials at the defense department and the state department that are vacant. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis actually just referred recently -- I think it was today, he said, you know, there's an awful lot of empty parking spaces when you walk out of the Pentagon. What that does is it tends to focus an administration even more on sort of the fires that are burning, and it makes it a lot harder to focus on -- maybe the fire that's burning around the corner. So it's a bit of a challenge. The administration has been moving to fill some of the important posts, for example there's no American ambassador even nominated for South Korea.
PERINO: What other sort of fires that are around the corner then? We've mentioned a bunch of them tonight, but I know based on your expertise, you probably have other on your mind. What could they be?
KNOX: Well, one of the ones that I'm watching for is what happens in sort of the post battlefield phase of the campaign against the so-called Islamic state. You know we're watching the Iraqis and the Kurds and American allies on the ground in general, abetted by American airpower and special operators, roll back the Islamic state. Challenge them in their very capital, the city of Raqqa.
There's a challenge around the corner though of what happens after they've been defeated as a military force? The Kurds want an independent state. The government of Baghdad doesn't really want that to happen. Our NATO allies in Turkey really don't want that to happen. What happens to Assad? This is an enormously complicated political puzzle. And while the administration hasn't focusing a little bit on this, it's not really clear how they're going to handle it. When the Kurds say we want to hold a referendum on independence in September, for example, I realize these all seem a little bit remote, but there's very real ways in which the United States -- holed back in the Middle East, no matter how hard the White House tries to pulls us out.
PERINO: So you've covered the White House. How difficult is it -- for the reporters, but also for the White House to sort of do -- they want to do a lot of big things on the domestic side of things, but at any given day, you know, like for this entire week we've talked about North Korea and for good reasons, obviously, presidents can chew gum and walk at the same time, but the calendar gets compressed as you head into the fall.
KNOX: Yeah. And the expectation gets complicated too. You know, there's a lot to be done on the domestic front. The congress actually has to fund the government for another year. There's -- John McCain is going to be leading the annual authorization for military spending. There's going to be a lot going on. They have to debate whether or not and how to raise the debt limit. There's all these things that kind of imposed on the White House, on D.C., on the inside of the beltway political world. You have, of course, all of the regular international summits. The president will have to go to the annual Asia Pacific, the APAC meeting. So there are things that are imposed on the president just by the event of the schedule.
There's another challenge here you kind of alluded to, which is that -- presidents tend to like foreign policy because they have a freer hand from domestic pressure. They have more control over foreign policy. So what we're seeing now is, as in the case with John McCain, there's a bit more of a challenge now, more of a push-back against this president on foreign policy. I don't really know how it shakes out yet, but it's notable. The sanctions bill that he recently signed that imposes sanctions on Russia, North Korea and Iran, that was congress asserting its will over the White House. You're seeing that a little bit on Afghanistan, too. I'm not sure how it plays out yet, but it's going to be a tough autumn.
PERINO: It is. And, of course, you didn't even mention the U.N. General Assembly. Nikki Haley was on the show earlier this week, and said the president will give a very strong speech and cover all of these issues. Olivier Knox, thank you so much for being with us tonight.
KNOX: My pleasure, Dana.
PERINO: And we'll be right back.
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PERINO: That's "The Story" for tonight, and what a story it was. Tucker Carlson is up next. And I'll see you back here for "The Five" at 9:00. Have a great night.
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