Do Democrats feel they've created a monster with Bernie Sanders?

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Do Democrats feel they've created a monster with Bernie Sanders?

Reaction from Trump 2020 campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp and Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," February 24, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" from Washington tonight.

Democratic voters are feeling, mm-hmm, sunburn. Well the Democratic establishment is getting burned. Will the party leaders resort to dirty tricks? It won't happen. No.

Also tonight, Joe Biden is banking his entire campaign on the African- American vote in South Carolina. Is the former VP, like many Democrats before him, taking these voters for granted? Candace Owens has answers.

Plus, President Trump is finally approving a purge of the Intel Community Deep Staters. Congressman Devin Nunes is here to tell us why it's happening now and why the Deep State, of course, is freaking out.

And in an "Ingram Angle" exclusive, Author Benjamin Weingarten previews his new book on Ilhan Omar, why he says she's leading an effort to dismantle our core institutions.

But first, Dr. Frankenstein, meet your monster. That's the focus of tonight's Angle.

All right, watching the Democrat meltdown over the weekend, I have to confess, it was about as much fun as watching the last Democrat debate. You know, you all know, by now, that Sanders handily won the Nevada caucuses.

And to watch the reaction, you would have thought that Donald Trump had just won re-election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC CO-HOST, "MORNING JOE": Democratic candidates really are not vetting Bernie Sanders.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST, AM JOY: Democrats need to sober up and figure out what the hell they're going to do about that.

LINDA CHAVEZ, FORMER REAGAN ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The real winner last night, I believe, was Putin.

JON MEACHAM, WRITER, REVIEWER, PRESIDENTIAL BIOGRAPHER: We are living in the - a kind of political equivalent of climate change, its extreme weather.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST, "HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS": Reading last night about the fall of France, in the summer of 1940, and the General, Reynaud, calls up Churchill, and says, "It's over."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The thrill is definitely not running up that leg tonight. And what did they think though was going to happen?

Did they really believe that stoking radicalism on college campuses and fueling this general mindset, you've all felt it, seen it, heard it, of victimization, and they thought all that was going to lead to good outcomes for their Party, for our society?

Did they really believe that celebrating a deeply dark and cynical view of America and our pop culture was going to end well?

And what do they think was going to happen when they stood by and nodded, approvingly, as our young people were pummeled with a message that our country is racist, sexist, xenophobic, and just plain rotten?

Well guess what? Over time, and in the absence of actual facts, maybe parents that teach the truth, the poisonous plant of radicalism will take root.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The truth is, that a nation which in many ways was created, and I'm sorry to have to say this, from way back on racist principles.

When I talk about creating an America that works for all people, it means doing away with the - the systematic, the - the systemic racism that exists from coast-to-coast.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Is America great?

SANDERS: In many ways, we are. In some ways, very significant ways, we're not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So, why would like, for instance, new citizens, unaware of the Left's ongoing indoctrination in our culture, in our school, sometimes even churches, why would they think socialism was all that bad?

The Democrats couldn't even stand, let alone applaud, I almost forgot this, when at last year's State of the Union speech, the President said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: America will never be a socialist country.

(AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well one of the Democrats in that audience did not stand.

Now, most schools today don't tell them the truth, the students, the truth about life under socialism that it always leads to less power for the individual, less prosperity for the individual, less freedom for the average citizen.

The bottom line is Democrats have no one to blame but themselves for the Bernie juggernaut. And even though so many claim that Obama was such a moderate, he bears some of the responsibility too.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: If you've got a business, that - you didn't build that.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism, and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: We'll just all agree to be exceptional together. Now, this is exactly what Sanders, of course, a dirty millionaire himself believes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: You know what, Mr. Bloomberg? It wasn't you who made all that money. Maybe your workers played some role in that as well.

(AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: It is important that those workers are able to share the benefits also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He didn't build that.

Well with Biden faltering, we, at The Angle, knew that Democrats would hurdle toward this radical alternative because if they were going to go for like an old White guy, these new revolutionaries weren't about to throw it in with old boring old Biden.

They aren't going to do that. Why? Go for the incremental stuff? No way. They want free stuff, and they want it now, and they don't want to hear anything about compromise or how you used to work with the Republicans.

Just about a year ago, and so many were laughing off Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and her gang, I was actually taking them very seriously as a political force.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: While others have laughed at AOC and her sister-in-socialism, Rashida Tlaib, I think they are the legitimate thought leaders of the Democrat Party.

The new socialists may be inexperienced, but they're bold, they're energetic and they're determined to shake up their Establishment. Now, I take them at their word.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sorry to say it, but see, I told you so.

And, by the way, didn't take long, did it, for Speaker Pelosi to start catering to The Squad?

Let's remember, the entire impeachment fiasco was spurred really by their demands to remove President Trump from Office. They promised their constituents impeachment and they delivered.

And who's more exciting, by the way, on the Democrats, seen today? Buttigieg? Mr. Perfect! Klobuchar? The late-comer billionaire Bloomberg? Not a chance! Come on, we all know this.

And, in a way, Sanders is just a lot more honest than Obama, and his crowd. And I love how they pretend that Bernie's somehow not a logical outgrowth of what came before.

Have we not forgotten who Obama's spiritual mentor was?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMIAH WRIGHT, PASTOR EMERITUS, TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, CHICAGO: The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three- strike law, and then wants us to sing "God Bless America." No, no, no. Not "God bless America." "God damn America."

God damn America as long as she treated - tries to act like she is God and she is supreme.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: For the past 24 hours, mainline Democrats, desperate to derail the Bernie Express, have been circulating his most recent comments about Cuba.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba. But you know, you got - it's unfair to simply say everything is bad.

When Fidel Castro came into Office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well wait a minute. Where have I heard something like that before?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Cuba has an extraordinary resource, a system of education which values every boy and every girl.

And in recent years, the Cuban government has begun to open up to the world and to open up more space for that talent to thrive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So today's supposedly more moderate Democrats, they don't want you to know this, but they're a heck of a lot closer ideologically to Sanders than they want you to let on.

They love calling themselves, all of them global citizens, since they believe America really isn't any better than any other country, certainly not our Constitution, not our flag, not our Declaration of Independence, not even our patriotic music, that's kind of passe, isn't it, and a lot of our monuments, tear those down.

How can a nation that elected Donald Trump claim to be exceptional after all? The Democrats had a chance to put down the Bernie Rebellion years ago, frankly decades ago, but they decided to ride the socialist wave. Even Hillary never really attacked his ideas as dangerous and wrong.

Democrats this time around have basically played "Pattycake!" with him as well. He's only gotten stronger. You see it, and he's gotten more dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY FRANKENSTEIN, FICTIONAL CHARACTER, "FRANKENSTEIN": It's alive! It's alive! It's moving. It's alive! It's alive! It's alive! It's alive! It's alive!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Very much so! Dr. Frankenstein, you created this monster, good luck controlling him, and that's The Angle.

All right, here with me now, Mercedes Schlapp, Trump 2020 Campaign Senior Adviser, Jennifer Holdsworth, Democrat Strategist and former Campaign Manager for Pete Buttigieg's bid for the DNC Chair.

Jennifer, do Democrats really not realize they created Bernie?

JENNIFER HOLDSWORTH, DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST: I don't think that they think that they created a monster. But I do think that a lot of Democrats are very concerned, not about a lot of Bernie Sanders' policies, but the fact that he'll have trouble winning.

Now, ideologically, I think that all of the Democrats on the stage believe in universal healthcare. It's about how to get there. They believe in a woman's right to choose. It's about how to get there. And on and - and--

MERCEDES SCHLAPP, TRUMP 2020 SENIOR ADVISER: Or how extreme they want to be on, from--

INGRAHAM: But they've been saying this for years, right?

SCHLAPP: --on - on - on--

(CROSSTALK)

HOLDSWORTH: Well - well I think, ideologically, it's the same.

SCHLAPP: --third trimester--

INGRAHAM: Yes, but - but Bernie--

HOLDSWORTH: But - but I think that--

INGRAHAM: But you guys are acting. I'm sorry, you guys, are representing.

SCHLAPP: To - to--

HOLDSWORTH: Right.

INGRAHAM: But acting like this is something new. "He's never been vetted." I almost spit out my coffee when I heard that story.

HOLDSWORTH: Oh no, that's true.

INGRAHAM: He's been around for decades like--

HOLDSWORTH: Well that's the point.

INGRAHAM: --"Finally, Bloomberg's going to vet him because he has a billion dollars."

HOLDSWORTH: That's the - that's the point. I think that a lot of candidates--

INGRAHAM: It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

HOLDSWORTH: --are afraid of his online army. Therefore, they don't challenge him very often. I think he's being challenged now for one of the first times.

SCHLAPP: Well and I think the debate's going to be an interesting place to see that they're going to turn their attention from poor Michael Bloomberg, who failed miserably in his performance last week, and then, now going after Bernie Sanders, they know they got to take Bernie Sanders down.

Buttigieg has been doing that. He's been attacking Bernie Sanders.

Will they be successful? I doubt it because I think it energizes his base. And, quite frankly, I think the Democrat Establishment is just simply dead.

INGRAHAM: Well here--

SCHLAPP: And the media elites are freaking out. They're the ones saying "All the other candidates,"--

INGRAHAM: You know, but I was just laughing.

SCHLAPP: --"exit the room."

INGRAHAM: I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying every minute of it.

HOLDSWORTH: I think--

INGRAHAM: I hate to say I predicted. It's so boring to me because I predicted. I knew this would happen. This is where the - if Joe faltered, if Joe was strong, he would have been able to vanquish. But he wasn't.

HOLDSWORTH: I think he is strong. I think that everybody's got to take a breath right now. We have awarded less than 100 delegates out of 4,000. And that's without the super-delegates. So, I think that--

INGRAHAM: It could - yes, it could change.

HOLDSWORTH: I think that we just need to take a breath.

INGRAHAM: Oh, I'll grant you that.

HOLDSWORTH: I think that - that VP Biden's in a very strong spot. He--

SCHLAPP: He must--

HOLDSWORTH: --he blew expectations out of the water in Nevada. Everybody thought he was going down.

SCHLAPP: Out of four, second (ph).

INGRAHAM: Wait a second. Put that up. Put the screen up.

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: Put the screen up.

HOLDSWORTH: It's premature. It's premature.

INGRAHAM: Let's look at how he did in Nevada.

HOLDSWORTH: Headed into South Carolina, he's doing very well.

INGRAHAM: Yes, let's - let's - well the screen - and I think to look at what he really did, and we'll put that up in a second, but I want to go back to what the 2016 Establishment Democrats said about Bernie Sanders, back in 2016. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bernie is speaking to a yearning that is deep and real and he has credibility on it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Who's the leader of the Democratic Party right now?

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: I think, you know, Senator Sanders is out there talking about things that - has big ideas like Medicare-for-All.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: And Bernie, you know, he's - he's fabulous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: What did they tell? So, this is they've been building him up, building up.

Tonight, on the other network on CNN, he's like "Free healthcare, free housing, free preschool for - triple the funding for schools," I'm thinking, "OK, the money must grow on trees," because literally Bernie's going to freebie it all to everybody, and it's very enticing to young people.

SCHLAPP: Yes.

INGRAHAM: Who frankly--

SCHLAPP: Don't know any better.

INGRAHAM: They are - never been (ph) gone to schools.

SCHLAPP: They don't know it's going to affect their bottom line. And, at the end of the day, they don't realize that this is going to be a huge expense that we can't pay for from our government.

There's a way to have common-sense policies to help make sure that we have economic growth like what President Trump has done in having this vision of economic prosperity for all Americans, and uplifting all Americans.

For Bernie, it's moving so far to the Left, where it's a government takeover of healthcare, where it's removing your freedoms, where it's trying to figure out how you're going to eliminate the fossil fuel industry, and that means destroying jobs.

INGRAHAM: How are you going to win? I'm going to ask Jennifer this. How do you win?

SCHLAPP: It doesn't work.

INGRAHAM: This is a real honest question.

HOLDSWORTH: Mm-hmm.

INGRAHAM: How do you win Pennsylvania when you lead with "I'm getting rid of fracking?" How do you win in Pennsylvania--

HOLDSWORTH: You don't.

INGRAHAM: --with that message?

HOLDSWORTH: You don't. That's all there is to it. And I think that--

INGRAHAM: That's Bernie, right? So, he loses Pennsylvania right off the top.

SCHLAPP: I think it goes beyond Bernie. They're so--

HOLDSWORTH: And I think he already lost Florida today. But I think that parties--

INGRAHAM: So, you're saying tonight that you think Bernie Sanders has lost Florida because of the Castro comments?

HOLDSWORTH: I think unless he walks that back, we're going to have major problems.

INGRAHAM: He just doubled down on it on CNN.

HOLDSWORTH: I heard that.

SCHLAPP: Right.

INGRAHAM: Doubled down.

HOLDSWORTH: But, look, I think that you're actually right. But I think that Senator Sanders is tapping into something that is real in terms of people hurting.

SCHLAPP: Absolutely, yes.

HOLDSWORTH: The economy overall in terms of macro factors is doing really well. But the kitchen table issues, there's still people suffering in this country that I think a lot of elected officials right now are not talking to. And Bernie Sanders is.

SCHLAPP: I think Donald Trump taps into those people. I think you're seeing that impact. We're seeing more support coming from the Black community, there's no question, and from the Latino community. They're seeing their economic opportunities grow. Wages are growing. They are seeing impact.

Today I was talking to my Uber driver. And he said "I'm making more money today under the Trump economy," Hispanic, "than I did under the Obama economy."

The - the economic message will - will take President Trump.

INGRAHAM: Trump's going to drive that home day in and day out.

I want to play something from, because we love playing Chris Matthews, because he is entertaining. It's a Monday, so we got to start off with humor. This is what he said he's really distraught about Sanders. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: I'm wondering whether the Democratic moderates want Bernie Sanders to be President. I mean, that's maybe too exciting a question to raise. They don't like Trump at all. Do they want Bernie Sanders to take over the Democratic Party in perpetuity?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well--

MATTHEWS: I mean, he takes it over, he sets the direction of the future of the Party, may be they'd rather wait four years and put in a Democrat that they like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Jennifer, do you have any doubt that if Bernie gets the nomination that Obama will come out, everything they thought about Bernie Sanders yesterday, maybe he's a little too extreme, doesn't follow the rules, the nice people rules, that they're going to support him?

HOLDSWORTH: I think so. I think it's going to be very similar to the Republicans in 2016, who were saying all kinds of things about President Trump, and now, some of them are his biggest supporters. So, at the end of the day, like I said, I think a lot of the--

INGRAHAM: No. But Trump's policies work.

HOLDSWORTH: --the overall ideas were the same.

SCHLAPP: Right. I'm going to say you're - you're basically saying that these Democrats are going to accept The Squad, and the extreme, the far Left of the Party. I mean, you really think--

HOLDSWORTH: Not all of them. I think in terms of the nomination--

SCHLAPP: --I think it's so different. This is capitalism versus socialism.

HOLDSWORTH: --that President Obama will support Senator Sanders.

SCHLAPP: You're saying that the Democrats are going to support socialist policy that will fundamentally change America. That - I just think that it puts the Democrat--

HOLDSWORTH: Well it's--

SCHLAPP: --in a bad--

HOLDSWORTH: --usually when somebody makes my own argument to me. I don't support Democratic socialism. But what I think that--

SCHLAPP: Well I'm saying that's by supporting Bernie that's where we're doing.

HOLDSWORTH: --what we're going to have to do is--

INGRAHAM: Got to go.

HOLDSWORTH: --we're going to have to make argument to the American people, unfortunately, that Democratic socialism is different than socialism.

INGRAHAM: Oh, Good Lord! Oh, I'm happy.

SCHLAPP: Oh, not going to happen (ph) no.

HOLDSWORTH: I think it's a losing argument. I think it's a losing argument.

INGRAHAM: I'm happy.

HOLDSWORTH: But it's what we have to make.

INGRAHAM: All right, we got to go, ladies.

SCHLAPP: It didn't work in--

INGRAHAM: We got - well did Bernie double down on socialism and Cuba tonight? So, I'm feeling the burn, definitely. It's great. Jennifer, it's great to have you on, always. You're a great guest. Mercedes, always fun.

HOLDSWORTH: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: And, as I said in tonight's Angle, Bernie's rise was, I think, almost inevitable, due to the decades of indoctrination at some of our schools and our universities. And there are a few who understand this.

And I don't think there's anyone I know understands the ideological rot in our education system better than my next guest. Joining me now, Conservative Author and Filmmaker, Dinesh D'Souza, and his new book, United States of Socialism is out, in just a few months.

Dinesh, it's ironic, though not surprising, that decades of this infecting the schools. When we were back in college, we saw the rise of it, and it's only gotten worse since.

DINESH D'SOUZA, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think in my college days, and subsequently, I thought that these ideas were a kind of distinctive feature of academia. You know, academia is somewhat insulated from the larger society, all kinds of strange people walking around, their heads are bigger than their bodies, and so on.

And I thought this is a subculture, and all this craziness of socialism, identity politics, the extremes of political correctness, this is a subset of American life. But I contrasted it with mainstream America.

But I think what's happened, really, in the last couple of decades is that these academic nostrums, and the craziest of them, have, in a sense, exploded virus-like into the larger culture. The media has been the transmitter of this. And the Democratic Party has embraced it.

So, I think Bernie is, in that sense, a product of obscure philosophies, concocted by people like John Rawls who would say, you know, years and years ago, that essentially whether you are hardworking, or whether you're smart, you're just lucky, you just got those brains by chance.

INGRAHAM: Right. I want to--

D'SOUZA: Even your hard work is the result of--

INGRAHAM: Yes.

D'SOUZA: --what your parents taught you. So you--

INGRAHAM: Yes. I--

D'SOUZA: --you don't deserve the fruits of your labor.

INGRAHAM: Yes. You didn't build that. I mean it's going back to Obama and all the negativity from Reverend Wright and long before.

It's - it's negative, negative - well America has never done anything good in the world because all the original sins of America they never can be forgiven unless the Left redistributes all the wealth the way the Left wants to do. Then we'll be we can have expiation for our sins. That's how that's going.

Dinesh, Bernie Sanders on "60 Minutes" said something else that's not getting quite as much play. We're going to play the longer version of it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Is America great?

SANDERS: In many ways, we are. In some ways, very significant ways, we're not. We're not great when half of our people today are living paycheck to paycheck, when 500,000 people tonight are going to be sleeping out on the streets, including 30,000 veterans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: My question to that is well we had - we had two terms of Obama, two terms of Clinton, two terms of a Bush, and had one term of another Bush, and it's kind of - things have kind of gone along the same way, maybe a little worse, and those states where it's gotten really bad is your old home state of California and a couple of others.

D'SOUZA: Yes. I think what Bernie's doing is he's engaging in this old idea of moral equivalence, which is basically yes, they torture people in the gulags, but on the other hand, we don't have enough people who have free healthcare. And this kind of moral equivalence is it's again something that comes out of academia.

Now, for many, many years, the Democrats were too smart to take these academic ideas hook, line, and sinker, they would moderate them. So, in politics, we had creeping socialism. Even Obama was very careful to sound like a centrist while acting like a socialist.

I think the difference with Bernie is he - it's almost like he's the comic guy who didn't get the joke. He doesn't know that he's supposed to do a wink-wink kind of approach to socialism. He goes the whole hog. He says exactly what they say--

INGRAHAM: Yes.

D'SOUZA: --in the sociology classroom, and the other Democrats can't stop him.

INGRAHAM: Well they are saying, "Shh, no, we - we can agree on that behind closed doors, but please don't say it in public."

Dinesh, thanks so much, great seeing you tonight.

And coming up, are Black voters in South Carolina being used? That's kind of an inflammatory claim. Well the Democrat Establishment is practically begging them to save the Party from Bernie Sanders.

Candace Owens reacts, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Oh, the Democrat Establishment is cooking up one final plan to try to save Uncle Joe's candidacy, ahead of the South Carolina primary. Now, what is it? An endorsement from Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black lawmaker in the House.

Politico is reporting "Panicked Democrats, including one with direct knowledge of the planned endorsement, said they see it as a last-ditch effort to blunt Bernie Sanders' momentum before he runs away with the nomination."

Joining me now is Jamila Bey, radio talk show host and Democrat Strategist, and Candace Owens, Founder of the Blexit movement.

All right, Candace, what does it feel like that the Democrat Establishment is taking advantage of these voters? Is that what's happening here?

CANDACE OWENS, BLEXIT MOVEMENT FOUNDER: You know, I think they've always kind of taken advantage of their voters. And, right now, they're sort of paying for it.

And what I see in terms of what's happening with Bernie, and them, and they're trying to make Black America not look at him, I mean Bernie is sort of the natural conclusion, and you mentioned this in your opening, of all - of all the rhetoric, all of - all of the hyperbole.

You know, for four years, you've been saying to Black Democrat voters that they've victims, never going to get ahead, that the Society, America is rot and it's evil, there's nothing good about the Society.

The candidate that they're going to be drawn to then is the one that wants to uproot America, the one that's talking about Marxism, and a proletariat war against the elite class. That is Bernie Sanders, and they have to contend with that now.

And, as a conservative, it's beautiful to watch. It really is. It's beautiful to watch because we've been saying this for years, this is absolute insanity. And at long last, they're realizing we have a problem because people are now siding with insanity.

INGRAHAM: Jamila?

JAMILA BEY, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Respectfully, I think you - you come to the problem at the right place. But I - I disagree with the conclusion. The Democrats don't know who they are. The Democrats are at least two different parties.

INGRAHAM: Well they're anti-Trump.

BEY: Yes. But, you know--

INGRAHAM: What?

BEY: Well what you're against is very important. But what - and - and they've - they're united on that. But what are they for? What is it that a real Democrat is going to stand up, and proclaim, and get voters to come out for? What is the message that mobilizes? What is the vote?

Now, if we go back to Obama's Presidency, his verb was "Hope." You know, "Hope. Come out. Hope."

What's the verb now? And - and the fact of the matter is that you've got this disparate spate of candidates that are for a number of different things, and you've got various factions of Democrats who want to be--

INGRAHAM: But that's the primary process, right, figuring it out.

BEY: Well that is the primary process. But it - it strikes at the heart of what is the Democratic candidate going to do to unite the Party right now. And I don't think it - it's still--

OWENS: It can't be united. I mean it's still work--

INGRAHAM: Well here's what - here's what Joe Biden--

BEY: Yes. We'll see.

INGRAHAM: --here's what Joe Biden said in specific terms, trying to go back to the old Obama days. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC HOST, KASIE DC: You are relying on African-Americans. Do you think they're going to stick with you even through what's been a pretty rough season for you?

BIDEN: Yes, because they know me.

They know I've had Barack's back. They know that Bernie wanted to primary Barack in 2012.

He thought from the very beginning that Barack wasn't - was too cautious, didn't do what he wanted to do. He saved the economy. I thought Barack Obama was one hell of a President. I thought he was a great President. I really do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's startling that he thinks the guy who was President when he was Vice President was one hell of - I mean, it's sad.

OWENS: Yes.

INGRAHAM: I mean it's - it's just that Obama has not endorsed it - in fact, told him "You don't have to do this Joe," which is like a polite way of telling an elder you - you need to move out of your house. We need to put you--

OWENS: Right.

INGRAHAM: You know we need to talk about the next steps. I mean it was--

OWENS: Yes.

INGRAHAM: It's sad.

OWENS: It is sad. And I - and I'll say this. Riding on the coattails of a former President who's not endorsing you, is just not a good political strategy.

But I think what Biden also suffers from is that he's - there's nothing novel about him. He's very forgettable. And - and he's not just forgetting on stage. He's a forgettable candidate.

Doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Doesn't seem to know what his vision is, is other than the fact that he's been with Obama for eight years, right, like "Oh, I'm friends with Obama."

That is not a platform to stand upon. And that's why you're seeing him sink, because people realize that he's not a leader. He's a follower.

INGRAHAM: OK. Jamila, hold on. Want to play this for you. This was Al Sharpton this morning on MSNBC, and he sounded a bit concerned as well. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL SHARPTON, AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, BAPTIST MINISTER, TALK SHOW HOST, POLITICIAN: If I'm Bernie, I want to take all the shots now, because when if he is the nominee, he will get it all from Donald Trump. And if you don't train well, in boxing, if you don't do it in the gym, you're going to get knocked out in the ring. So, his followers need to quit getting sensitive--

SCARBOROUGH: Right.

SHARPTON: --or overly sensitive and get him ready if he's going to be the nominee, or get another fight in the ring that can take some punching and training.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well he went on to say it's not done. He - we don't have that in the clip. But he said Donald Trump's going to be President. We - that's stuff not done. Donald - I mean, it was a little fatalistic like you got to come on.

BEY: Well, you know, twice a day a broken clock is right.

And the truth of the matter is if it's not - if the messaging isn't there, if you don't mobilize those voters to go out and vote for the Democratic candidate, well of course Donald Trump's going to be President. It's realitic.

INGRAHAM: Haven't African-American voters done so much better in the last three years? Everybody has pretty had some higher level of success economically. If you want to work, you can get --

BEY: I would argue that there are a lot of people who are absolutely hurting.

INGRAHAM: They were for eight years under Obama.

BEY: Yes, yes, yes. However, what we see now with this gig economy, and I am not going to try to argue economics without having brushed up on specifics, but we have a lot of people who want to wear who aren't getting the jobs that they want. They're concerned about educating their kids. They're concerned about their health care.

INGRAHAM: We are all concerned. We are all concerned about everything.

CANDACE OWENS, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TURNING POINTS USA: They're not getting the jobs they want, though, is a sign that they are getting opportunities, and that's exactly why Trump is going to win in a landslide at the end of this year. They're getting opportunities. The left is not offering opportunities.

INGRAHAM: What are you predicting for increase in African-American vote.

OWENS: They will increase by 10 percent.

INGRAHAM: It's 10 percent easily. Do you think it's going to increase?

BEY: I think it's going to be flat. I don't see --

INGRAHAM: Flat. All right, we're going to have a conversation after the election. We're going to see. Ladies, great to have you on tonight.

And coming up, new reports of a Trump effort to purge more deep staters, but why now? Next. Congressman Devin Nunes has the intel, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It almost reminds me of North Korea where everybody has got to wear a Kim family button to publicly display their loyalty and fealty to the great leader. Loyalty and fealty to the administration and to the president, personally takes higher precedence over competence, experience, or expertise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That was former CIA Director James Clapper's completely measured reaction to the House cleaning at intel agencies following the naming of Ric Grenell as the acting Director of National Intelligence. level reaction. Grenell's scouring of these unaccountable bureaucracies reportedly has some senior officials looking to leave, looking for the exit. How sad. And we are supposed to think that that's a bad thing. Why? The deeps state is long overdue for a good scrubbing down, and it also makes it easier for Trump to actually implement this. According to "Axios" The Trump White House and his allies over the past 18 months assembled detailed lists of disloyal government officials to oust and trusted pro- Trump people to replace them.

Joining me now is Brian Dean Wright, former CIA officer, and Congressman Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Intel Committee. Congressman, why is all of this happening now? And why the freak out among the never- Trumpers and the left?

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-CALIF., HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: I can tell you when it was supposed to start. It was supposed to start when General Flynn came in as national security advisor. I know from my discussions with him, I served on the transition team, that he thought that the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., across all the intel agencies was way too big, and he thought it should be shrunk down.

And the DNI, where Ambassador Grenell is going, that is a bureaucracy that was supposed to be as strategic planning arm. One of its only goals was to try to fix the process by which you get security clearances. And here we are, nearly two decades later, that's the one thing they haven't fixed. And all they have done is got larger and larger and larger.

So Republicans actually believe that the DNI does need to be downsized. But I do have to say, Laura, just so I'm perfectly clear. I am not aware of any blacklists that have been created in Washington. That sounds like a fake news story of some kind. But I think the overall objective of reducing the size of these agencies is a good one. The more people we have out in the field, the much better we are.

INGRAHAM: I just love this idea that the president should actively, what, recruit people who work against his agenda and have them populate his administration? This is crazy town stuff. The idea that you would have people who are burrowed in to work against your administration's priorities is lunacy. No one would come up with that.

Brian, remember that big media bombshell in the alleged Russia collusion last week? Now even CNN is reporting it was bogus. The senior DNI official Shelby Pierson told lawmakers on the House Intel Committee that Russia's interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping Trump. "The intelligence doesn't say that, though, one senior national security official told CNN. A more reasonable interpretation of the intel is not that that they have a preference. It's a step short of that. It's more that they understand that the president to someone they can work with, that he is a dealmaker." So Brian, how would an intel briefer who is described as someone who has a reputation of being injudicious with her words get to do a briefing such as this that set off this chain reaction?

BRIAN DEAN WRIGHT, FORMER CIA OFFICER: When the Intelligence Committee sends a staffer to the Hill, apparently they're not sending us their best. So we have one of two problems here with this person. We have got somebody who is either incompetent, which isn't really reassuring, or we have somebody who has a bipartisan hack, which is also deeply alarming. Or perhaps both.

So let's look at those two pieces. She was a career satellite imagery specialist. Why then did DNI Coats selected her for this role in the depths of political analysis, the nuance necessary for that, I don't know. It's shocking. But yet we can't also say, can we, that she didn't have any particular political bias, because we know that the whistle-blower, of course, had a political bias, multiple of them, actually. We also know that James Comey was leaking to achieve his partisan goals.

So we can't say to the American people, that is the intelligence commander, that there was nothing nefarious there. And to me, as a former intelligence officer, that's actually the most alarming and sad part of the story. Yes, it's bad what happened. But it's the fact that you or I can't have faith in the intelligence committee and that we have so many problems, so many enemies that we have to tackle and find and neutralized. And how do we do that, how does the president do that if he can't have faith that his intelligence community is on his side and on the side of the American people, instead doing what they want to do for their own personal partisan agenda.

INGRAHAM: Apparently he's supposed to hire more people like Shelby Pierson to give really bad briefings to set off this chain reaction. That's what he supposed to do, Congressman Nunes.

Congressman, breaking tonight, this is about you. House Republicans considering criminal referrals against Mueller prosecutors. You are looking into those 302s, those infamous 302s, how this whole deal started. What can you tell us tonight, because people want accountability here?

NUNES: So slowly but surely, some of those reports are being declassified. So about a few weeks ago I actually mentioned this on a couple of the shows, that we were going through those reports and then beginning to match them up to the Mueller indictments and the Mueller recommendations for prosecutions.

And one of the things that we found, and Lee Smith has done some great reporting on this, and he has a story out today on it, is that -- remember the whole story that Papadopoulos needed to be really treated badly and sentenced to some time because he really stopped the FBI from being able to find Joseph Mifsud, remember all that? it ends up that's not true. That's not what the 302s say. The 302s actually say that Papadopoulos was actually trying to help the FBI and they're the ones who said that Mifsud was going to be in the United States.

And so if the lawyers that wrote that to the court, the recommendation to the court, they need to be held accountable. So we are scrubbing through all of these 302s, and we will be making some type of criminal referral, perhaps. Attorney General Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney out Missouri. We will see exactly what that U.S. attorney is looking at. But it's not OK to lie to a federal judge, especially about something so serious as somebody who is going to be indicted to serve prison time.

INGRAHAM: As Brian said, as you've said so many times, and you've both written and spoken about this, we need to be able to trust our intel. It should not be political. And our FBI, the way it proceeds, has to be fair across the board without regard to party politics. That's all the president is asking for. He's not asking for special treatment.

Gentlemen, you are both fantastic. We really appreciate you tonight. Thanks so much.

And in minutes, my exclusive with the author of an explosive new book detailing Ilhan Omar's takeover of the Democrat Party with AOC and the move to diminish America's core institutions. You don't want to miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: When Supreme Court justices take that life tenured gig, it's a pretty good one, we expect them to leave politics and partisan bickering, sniping, behind. But that proved too high a bar for liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor. She issued a dissenting opinion Friday, attacking, in part, her conservative colleagues. She said "This court is partly to blame for the breakdown in the appellate process. That is because the court has been all too quick to grant the government's reflexive requests. But make no mistake, such a shift in them court's own behavior comes at a cost. I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decision- making process that this court must strive to protect."

What does this me? Joining me now, Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Carrie, explain for our audience how much of a departure this is in a opinion, dissent or majority, to attack the motives of your colleagues? Have you ever seen anything like that?

CARRIE SEVERINO, JUDICIAL CRISIS NETWORK PRESIDENT: That was a very poor move, I think, on Justice Sotomayor's part. And I think it's also really strange because her argument that the conservative justices here are being biased somehow by continually having to grant stays of these injunctions ignores the real problem, which is that there has been an explosion of nationwide injunctions.

INGRAHAM: Explain this for our audience, for the nonlegal person.

SEVERINO: Normally, a person's sues, and then the court has jurisdiction over their claim. These are people bringing a case and saying, well, I want to sue here, but I want you to have an injunction so they can't enforce this law in the entire country. This is something that never even happened in American history until 1963. It happened very rarely in previous ministrations, so 1.5 per year under Reagan and Bush, Clinton.

INGRAHAM: So now this is immigration? The immigration law has changed.

SEVERINO: Almost 14 a year. They are doing this all the time. Every -- these liberal activist judges just have these kneejerk reactions to Trump policy, saying we've got to stop this. They are the ones who are fair and balanced. They are not applying the same laws they've applied to every single presidential administration before. Of course the Supreme Court --

INGRAHAM: They are vetoing Trump's policies.

SEVERINO: -- has to step in and set the record straight. And they are just saying, hey, look, litigate these cases first. Maybe he will lose, but you have to litigate.

INGRAHAM: Let it go through the appellate process before one district judge in the northern district of California changes the law for the whole country. It's not fair.

Sotomayor's tirade reminds me of the fact that I don't recall her being upset with the politics of one of her colleagues, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when she said this about Trump. She said, in 2016, "He is a faker. He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. He really has an ego. The press seems to be very gentle with him on that." She's also said other things.

Carrie, Trump wasn't president at the time, but even so, boy, did Ruth Bader Ginsburg get a total pass on slamming a presidential candidate. Again, I don't recall ever seen anything like that.

SEVERINO: Yes, another one of those -- this is not normally done. That was a very strange thing that she would even give such an interview and then be that critical of him. And she has been, maybe some of her colleagues talked to her about that, because --

INGRAHAM: Where was Sotomayor there?

SEVERINO: She was not writing public dissents, saying this is improperly political. But like she says, these five-four decisions, so that you guys are being political, forgetting that the four liberal justices are voting in lockstep consistently, way more often than conservatives. It is not showing that they are being political?

INGRAHAM: By the way, if Trump wins reelection in November, he could get another, what, 200 judges on the court?

SEVERINO: He's at 200 now, and we are not even through four years.

INGRAHAM: So let's just say conservatively, 200 judges. Sorry liberals, I don't mean to give any heart attacks tonight, but it's a transformation of the court coming in a few months. Carrie, thanks so much, explained a lot for us tonight.

And an explosive new book lay out in stunning detail how the vicious anti- American ideology of Ilhan Omar, Congresswoman from Minnesota, is infecting the entire Democrat Party. Joining me now exclusively is Benjamin Weingarten, author of the new book "American Ingrate." He's also Claremont Institute Senior Fellow, senior contributor at "The Federalist." Benjamin, I have been warning people since last February, March, to take the Squad seriously when they were being laughed off, they didn't have any experience, they're just flash in the pan. But why is Congresswoman Omar particularly concerning to you?

BENJAMIN WEINGARTEN, AUTHOR, "AMERICAN INGRATE": Congresswoman Omar is the results you get when a party that represents basically half of this country embraces an ethos of national self-loathing. And while a lot of people have been focused on the alleged criminality concerning her bizarre family relations and her anti-Semitic rhetoric, it really provides a mask for the substantive danger that she poses.

And Ilhan Omar is no bit player anymore. Not only does she sit on the House Foreign Affairs Committee dealing with the most sensitive national security and foreign policy information that there is, she was recently named as the cochair in Minnesota, a pivotal 2020 state, for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. And last but not least, Ben Rhodes recently said that her battery of foreign policy bills represents the new progressive baseline.

So this is no bit player. And it is not just about her radicalism and her agenda of socialism at home and surrender abroad that the party has embraced. But first of all, a vote for Bernie Sanders is a vote for Ilhan Omar, and the Democratic Party has to grapple with that. And second of all, as I detail in my book, "America Ingrate," she has ties to Islamist radicals both foreign and domestic that have not been explored. And in this time of collusion why don't we talk a little bit about Ilhan Omar's collusion?

INGRAHAM: What about Linda Sarsour? I know you talk about that alliance. She has popped up recently with Ilhan Omar. They are ideological sisters. Obviously, the BDS movement, boycott, divest from Israel, and she says she is not anti-Semitic. I'm not anti-Semitic. I love all people. But I disagree with Zionism of the sort that you are seeing play out in the Middle East.

WEINGARTEN: Anti-Semitist masquerading as anti-Zionism I don't think fools anyone. When you side with the BDS movement and you look at the BDS movement's roots as I detail the book, what it shows is that it is a terror tied group of folks who believe in ultimately the destruction of the Jewish state. How can you believe in the destruction of the Jewish state and not hate Jewish people? But really, the more important thing that all Americans need to understand is that anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism is ultimately directed at Judeo-Christian western civilization, and that's, in the parlance that they would use and their allies would use, that's the little Satan and the great Satan. And so that is the significant of Ilhan Omar's Jew-hatred is that it's about hatred of all of us.

INGRAHAM: And by the way, when she is criticized, she invariably stoops to the old trope, as she did with Meghan McCain a few days ago, saying that she is trafficking in anti-Muslim smears and hate speech, Benjamin. So I assume you are going to get a lot of for your book. Thanks so much for coming on. We wish you the best of luck, "American Ingrate."

And coming up, there is something I really want you to hear from Michelle Obama. Yes, I am serious. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Oh, goody, it's time for the Last Bite. On the occasion of Harvey Weinstein's convictions earlier today, we thought we would apprise you of this 2013 Michelle Obama clip praising the disgraced movie mogul.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: I want to start by thanking Harvey Weinstein for organizing this amazing day.

(APPLAUSE)

MICHELLE OBAMA: This is possible because of Harvey. He is a wonderful human being, a good friend and just a powerhouse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, he'll be in the big house now for those of you saying, well, that was 2013. A documentary was made in 2018 calling Weinstein the worst kept secret in Hollywood.

That's all the time we have tonight. Shannon Bream, and the "Fox News @ Night" team, take it from here.

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