Ebola creates communications crisis for Obama administration

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Ebola creates communications crisis for Obama administration

Lawmakers slam response to health crisis

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," October 16, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Dana Perino along with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld, it's 5 o'clock New York City and this is "The Five."

Ebola is not an epidemic in the United States but there is a crisis communications for the administration in charge of handling the preparation, treatment and response to the problem. Today, the head of the CDC faced concerned lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

TIM MURPHY, HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIR: Trust and credibility of the administration and government are waiting as the American public loses confidence each day with demonstrated failures of the current strategy.

DIANA DEGETTE, HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: It would be an understatement to say that the response to the first U.S.-based patient with Ebola has been mismanaged causing risks to scores of additional people.

FRED UPTON, HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE FULL COMMITTEE CHAIR: We can no longer be reacting to each day's crisis. We need to be aggressive and finally get ahead of this terrible outbreak.

HENRY WAXMAN, HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE FULL COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: We need to hold public health systems accountable to standards of preparedness. Based on what we know, it appears that Texas Presbyterian would have not met those standards.

(END OF VIDEO CLIPS)

PERINO: Thomas Frieden tried to assure them that the CDC can handle the job of keeping Americans safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR.TOM FRIEDEN, CDC DIRECTOR: CDC works 24/7 to protect the Americans. We're there to support, we're there with world-class expertise, and we're there to respond to threats so that we can help protect the Americans.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: All right, Greg, you watched the hearing. Anything catch you in the hearings that was a little off, you were talking about something in the green room?

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Well, you know, I realize the panic isn't about the disease. The panic is about the leadership, you get the sense that they aren't competent adults but, vacant-eyed camp counselors. How the moment in this, I didn't watch the whole thing because frankly, it was pretty boring. But I caught a moment in the hearing where Thomas Frieden said, "We're open to ideas." That does not instill confidence when the disease expert, you're looking at for hope is looking at politicians and saying, "We're open to ideas." That's like asking me for advice on being tall. You're not going to get it, if there's a real parallel between Ebola and ISIS, the more aloof or dismissive the leadership is, the worse things get. As long as you think a threat is JV, it's always gonna graduate to varsity, because your priorities are always elsewhere.

PERINO: That the problem of credibility worsens last night when it was revealed, that the CDC was called by the second nurse and before she flew and she said, she had a fever. It was at 99.5 and their standard said 100.4 so, at 99.5 she was told she was allowed to fly. And now Frieden is saying that she should not have been allowed -- or she shouldn't been told not to fly. Listen to this part.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURPHY: A second nurse affected with Ebola took a flight to Cleveland after she registered a fever. We have a report says she contacted the CDC and was told she could fly. Did she in fact call the CDC and ask for guidance on boarding a commercial flight as far as you know?

FRIEDEN: My understanding is that she did contact the CDC and we discussed with her, her reported symptoms as well as their evaluation.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Kimberly, yes, by this morning, Ron Fournier of National Journal he wrote, this I would like you to react to. He said, "If we don't hold our leaders accountable especially, those who share our ideology," what he means by that if you're Republicans, challenge Republicans, Democrats challenge Democrats and vice versa.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: How refreshing.

PERINO: That we get irresponsible and unresponsive leadership. So, I think that the leadership class, I call them bureaucratic elites. Dr. Frieden, two weeks ago -- two or three weeks ago, when he came to the podium to talk about how we had everything under control, he sounded so confident. And today, to me he seemed measured, humbled and a little cowed, which I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, if he's supposed to be in charge of the response.

GUILFOYLE: Right. Because, everybody is sort of hanging on his every word, because this is the guy that we were looking up to for some guidance, for some confidence to say they have this well in hand. But unfortunately, the fact pattern doesn't support that premise. Now Americans are even more worried about it because they feel that we don't have a grasp on it. Especially, the way it's a sort of been haphazard, it's just like ping ponging back and forth. At this hospital now we're going to move one to NIH, one to Emory, where's the disconnect, that she called into the CDC and they told -- she told them she had what she considered to be a low-grade temp. But yes, by medical standards anything 100.4 and above is considered a fever.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: It seemed yesterday that the president wasn't actually -- it seems that Frieden actually didn't know that the CDC was called. Before President Obama held an Ebola task force meeting that he held in a cabinet meeting yesterday, one of the ideas that I had last night was that, if I were the White House, I would maybe try to send two people, a communications person and maybe just a good government manager, to be with them at the CDC to try to deal with the communications problem in addition to all the other things that they have to be worried about in terms of the potential for more cases.

BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Yeah. I think we've -- I think it's a good idea. But look, this is not a guy that's used to being caught up in something like this and this guy runs the CDC and they don't usually get this kind of attention so, I think most people who go under this barrage of questioning are probably not going to be the best communicators. Having said that, I'm gonna keep everybody in mind here, there's only two cases here and it's been several weeks, well two, one is dead right so? But it's not -- I think what's happened here is the fear is being spread by us, more than it is by the Ebola and that's the problem I've got.

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Well, tonight can I add -- what's generating the fear? What generates -- this hearing generated, I'll bet you generated more fear than calm nerves. There were a lot of things that came out that we didn't even know about. One of them, the fact that nurse two was allowed to board a plane, wasn't quarantined after treating the guy who died from Ebola means the CDC wasn't on it from the very get-go, that means they didn't know, now maybe they are on it, but they weren't. I believe.

GUILFOYLE: Did she tell them all the symptoms she was having?

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: If you're treating an Ebola patient, how was this, you better be quarantined.

PERINO: So he's saying that they've admitted they should've.

BOLLING: Right, OK, fair enough. But then there was questioning Frieden said, he was asked about, "What about the medical waste? Are you prepared, do you have protocol to dispose of the medical waste?" He said, "Well, yeah, we typically we burn medical waste." "Well, is the Ebola medical waste that are more dangerous or harmful than normal medical waste?" He literally said, "Probably, but I'm not really sure." Really? He's not really sure how you're handling the medical waste? One more thought. Ohio - - three schools in Ohio closed because they came in -- some of the people came in contact, either the kids or the parents of the kids, came in contact with nurse two. Seven Ohioans are quarantined. These things scare people, now when you look at this -- you have this hearing and it feels like they're making it up as they go along, they're trying to calm nerves, but they didn't have it ready to go when they had plenty ample opportunity to do that.

BECKEL: The answer silly questions here. I wish the questions here, he could actually know people asking questions.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: There so many Ebola specialists now in this country.

BOLLING: No, no, there were four of them there and they were truly Ebola specialists. How about this? These five airports are going to stop 94 percent of the people coming into this country from the three affected countries, 94 percent. That means 6 percent at 150 a day comes to about 2,000 to 3,000 people over the course of the year, could be coming here through the other airports.

PERINO: I'm not ready to let him off the hook for not being a good communicator. Because, he was appointed by President Obama, chosen to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and part of being that director means, that you have to be able to communicate effectively to the public.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

PERINO: Whether they should be -- should be concerned or not. And then his overconfidence led to problems with them, now having to backtrack several different story that put in to the Ron Fournier piece on that. And Greg, so Eric's point of this, schools closing and people increasingly worried or even panicking, what do you think the reaction to all of this in terms of how do people process it and decide -- you make big decisions about whether to keep the kids home from school or not?

GUTFELD: I think the reaction.

PERINO: It seems a little overdone.

GUTFELD: Yeah, but the thing is, it's something that I've learned in the last couple of weeks. People with kids react differently than people without kids.

BOLLING: Absolutely.

GUTFELD: So I'm like -- I'm saying and I agree with Bob. I think that it's not just the CDC's lack of leadership. It's also a combination of creating dread by the media that helps encourage this. However, I think that that public dread is more pronounced among parents than there are people like me, who hang out all night and get drunk. But there's also an interesting contrast of reaction to danger, there's been research that shows that conservatives react more strongly to negative challenges, like disease and terror than liberals do, and you can see this in a way in the administration and in places like Fox. This suggests to me, and I think Bob will disagree, that liberal leadership can only exist in times of calm, because they are slow to react to deadlier threats. So this is why, when America is screaming for more serious people and more serious response, it's because, they sense that the administration doesn't take their threats seriously. Instead, they think about childhood obesity and think about climate change as the real threats when in fact, the urgent threats, whether it's ISIS or whether it is Ebola, is ignored. And I think that's a real -- I mean, this is actual science, people see this, they see that conservatives react more strongly to big challenges more so than liberals.

BECKEL: Let's remember the two liberals took us through two world wars.

GUTFELD: True.

BECKEL: So I think that's a little.

GUTFELD: But those were different liberals back then, Bob.

BECKEL: Well, they probably.

GUTFELD: These were Democrats.

BECKEL: Let me just say something, you've mentioned this in the green room, but I'm gonna say that, what come together cold and flu season.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

BECKEL: People are going to start thinking that these symptoms instead of being the flu, that they may have Ebola. If you watched that hearing and you watched us talking today, there is gonna be a heighten anxiety, I can understand that. But that's why we have a responsibility, all of us who talk about this, to back it off a little bit and stay with the facts.

BOLLING: Can I just point one other thing out? K.G. I'm sorry if I cut you off here. But the nurse two, they asked the doctor in Dallas who was still in Dallas via Skype I think, whatever the technology was, they asked him how did nurse two contract Ebola and he didn't know. They've been through it top to bottom, they can't figure out how she did. Nurse one, apparently touched some vomit and that's probably how she got it. But, if nurse two, they don't think she touched it and she may just touched something that he touched, if it's that contagious and these many people are coming over with a 21-day incubation period, they might not even know they have it. Don't you think that we should prepare for, not three -- look at the outcry we have for three cases, can you imagine if we have 3,000?

GUILFOYLE: There's some question about the 21-day incubation.

BOLLING: We're not prepared for, not necessarily an outbreak or pandemic. We're not prepared for this instant spreading.

BECKEL: I think we've got a lot more prepared in the last week that we heard before. I agree with it, they didn't start off well in the communication side, but listen.

GUILFOYLE: It's not the communication side of it. They didn't do it well handling it physically in day in and day out. Look what happened.

BECKEL: Let me see if I could answer these, one at a time here.

GUILFOYLE: Well, I heard you were good.

(LAUGHTER)

BECKEL: I think when Eric says, it can be 2,000 or 3,000 people coming through this. I mean, this is the kind of thing that people -- they say, "Well, I wonder 2,000 or 3,000" or this nurse two, how did she get to sick (ph) How they gone (ph) know? I mean, she was in that room, maybe she doesn't -- you're saying if it's that contagious. Well, she was in a room with an active Ebola case, I mean, I think that's probably the best thing you could say about the answer to it. She was in that room.

BOLLING: And she was allowed to fly.

GUTFELD: The allowed to fly part is idiotic. But, I think what Bob's getting at, that despite -- there is some good news here. I will tell you, despite the horrible mistakes, it has not spread to the community. We have two health care workers, who are being treated after they treated a dying man who thought -- they were in contact with them. The good news is it has not spread to anybody else that was in the community, and that should be encouraging. I think that's what the CDC keeps trying to say in a clumsy way.

GUILFOYLE: Well, I that -- thanks be to God and maybe not to the CDC. But hopefully, they aspire to do better.

BOLLING: May I? If we weren't, I don't know. Alarmists or fear mongers, whatever it is and we just kind of said all right so there's a guy and some people died, would we run the risk of more happening? Of more lax -- clearly they were lax at the very beginning, right? Because two more people have it and my point is by highlighting it, by talking about it a lot, do we actually help the CDC along the way fixing the protocol?

GUTFELD: I hope so.

GUILFOYLE: I think to call on Dana.

PERINO: OK. That would be great. I think that the other thing this has proved, and once again is that, government is not foolproof. Government cannot solve all of our problems and lo and behold we're all still human. And humans make mistakes, and the nurses maybe made a mistake, the CDC made a mistake, may the president made a mistake, and maybe we've made a mistake in terms of how we reported it, so that is I'm going to end on that.

Ahead on The Five, Democrats and Republicans are both trying to spread the blame over the Ebola scare. But with the administration in charge of the response, the Democratic charges have not been held up to scrutiny. We'll tell you what fact checkers found next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: With the mid-term elections coming up, some Democrats have been playing politics with the Ebola scare, blaming Republicans for the outbreak.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, CONGRESSWOMAN: The Center for Disease Control suffers from the continued gridlock in Washington. And Republicans not funding fully, even though the fight against Ebola is bipartisan.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The roles to play that the CDC plays in preventing the outbreak of disease is critically important, and it certainly is disappointing that Republicans, at least to this point, haven't shared that commitment to investing in those kinds of critically important programs.

(UNKNOWN): The CDC says its discretionary funding has been cut by 585 million since 2010.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Drama. All right, but there's one problem, it's not true. Yeah. The Washington Post gave the attacks four Pinocchio's calling them absurd, citing there was never even a specific vote on funding to prevent Ebola. Now what are you gonna do when the facts get in the way of a good spin, Mr. Bolling?

BOLLING: So here's the real number, by the numbers the NIH budget is $38.4 billion this year and that up from $17 billion in 2000. So is it off the high? Yeah, it's off the high. President Obama bumped it up by $9 billion a year of the stimulus, and that pushed it up and it's trailed off a little bit, but it's still substantially more increase -- it's almost up 100 percent in 15 years -- 14 years. So they can't really go there on that one. But, if the NIH is complaining and the director of NIH did complain about funding, if there -- so concerned about funding, I have a couple of things that they spend money on, if you want to hear him. New condom designs, new condom designs 2.4 million are chimps --right or left-handed 592,000 and to male fruit flies prefer younger female companions, 939,000 I have.

GUILFOYLE: What was the answer?

BECKEL: I think you're right.

BOLLING: I think it was yes, by the way. I've two more pages of these. There are literally, probably billions of dollars that they spend annually on things, on this study like this? And if they're really worried about funding about Ebola, maybe they should move some money away from those and said.

BECKEL: It's really distressing about the condoms too, I could relate.

GUILFOYLE: All right, Bob.

BECKEL: What?

GUILFOYLE: Don't be yourself. Save it for 6 o'clock.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: And the other point about this -- Kim.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah.

BOLLING: Go ahead.

PERINO: But they -- how much money do they need to have common sense enough to tell a nurse that she shouldn't fly if she has a fever after treating the sick man with Ebola?

GUILFOYLE: Right.

PERINO: OK. That I don't understand, how much money could we throw at that problem, that it would have been solved. And that is something that they will never be able to answer. The Bureaucratic Elite will never be able to answer that, but they'll always ask for more money and always complain that the Republican cut their money even if, it's not true and the media falls for it every single time. And here's the other thing, there are no consequences in the Democrats. When they lie like this and put up an ad, there's four Pinocchio's they're will be a talk about it and here but, every other Democrat just shut up and moves on as if it didn't happen.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: We got caught whatever.

BECKEL: You use what you've got in front of you. I agree this is probably a pretty, nasty ad, but if you're in a tight race and you're gonna put that out, there a lot of people don't go with the facts and inform you (ph) That's politics and it's been done on both side, not on this one but the Democrats have jumped on this. But, look the democrats are behind and they're gonna use what they've got and I don't particularly blame them for doing it.

GUILFOYLE: And that was a message from our sponsor. Anything goes, Bob, as long as you win. OK, Greg?

GUTFELD: Ebola is a human issue. It is not a political issue, but unfortunately, we live in a time and we work in an atmosphere where politics is sport. The politics really, in my opinion, makes anything better, it really makes anything better. It tends to clog up your common sense, it clouds the truth. We know that it's not about cuts, it's about spending. If you increase spending, you still have no faith that that money is that ever gonna go to where it's gonna go. Eric's pointed out the idiocy. In Frieden of course, he spent so much time going after smokers and people are smoking now more in New York than ever. I think, I don't know. I blame, I blame Dr. Keith Ablow.

BOLLING: Just for the hell of it?

GUTFELD: Yeah. You can't spell Keith Ablow without Ebola.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Just try it, try it.

GUILFOYLE: Try it.

GUTFELD: But you know what? Is the consequences of political ideology are everywhere. When you have the White House, you have the media your politicians focusing on say a single fatality in Ferguson, for two solid months, which by the way, was a very important story. But, the writing obsession sapped the country of its focus on other issues and this happens. It's a very unprotect (ph) of what happened in Ferguson was very important, but what happened over those two months were other things that occurred. But the media wasn't interested in it, because we were focused on what we believed was the biggest story of the year.

GUILFOYLE: All right. I don't mean to be like a wet blanket but, Ablow doesn't have an e on the end of it in Ebola. It's like, buy a vowel?

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: OK. I'm gonna -- buy a vowel. Bang gate (ph) of the governor's debate in Florida, things got heated after one candidate wanted to cool off. That's next, on The Five.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLLING: Welcome back. Time for, the Fastest 7, it's on television. Three sublime stories, seven snapping minutes ones, smitten host. First up, they play doctors on TV and in the movies, so I guess that's why we should listen to celebrities offering Ebola advice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IDRIS ELBA, ACTOR: The world is facing the largest Ebola outbreak in history.

ALICIA KEYS, MUSICIAN: There's good news and reason to be hopeful.

FOREST WHITEAKER, ACTOR: If treated early, many affected with Ebola have survived.

JEFFREY WRIGHT, ACTOR: Not only in the United States and Europe.

NAOMI CAMPBELL, MODEL: But also in Guinea.

LEYMAH GBOWEE, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE: Liberia.

ISHMAEL BEAH, WRITER: Sierra Leone.

DR. PAUL FARMER, PARTNERS IN HEALTH FOUNDER: With early robust medical attention, Ebola is not a death sentence.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, ACTOR: Ebola is not a death sentence.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Well. Thank you, Whoopi, for clearing that up for us, K.G., celebrities on Ebola your thoughts?

GUILFOYLE: 70 percent fatality rate. Scary, dangerous since you have to be identified right away, it has to be contained and controlled. You have that proper treatment for it. Might just I wish we had larger world supplies and I wish we could help the poor people in West Africa.

GUTFELD: That's I think -- that ad is not for us. That ad is for developing worlds. That's why they said, "Ebola is not a death sentence." They're trying to tell people not to panic, not to be scared of doctors. I think it's a very strong ad and a very necessary one for a bunch of countries that are scared.

GUILFOYLE: That don't have televisions.

PERINO: I think it's smart and useful.

GUILFOYLE: I don't know, how are they going to get the message? I love it, but the problem is, how can we get that to them? This ad when we can't even get the medicine there?

PERINO: I think it is smart and useful. I would have tweet the message in a little bit to say how difficult it is to get it. I think that it is not a death sentence. Kimberly's point yes, if you do get it it's 70 percent but.

GUTFELD: There it is easy to get, because your loved ones are getting it.

PERINO: Right. So I would say smart and useful and I think it's a better use of their time than other things that they do.

BECKEL: I just don't understand why we criticize it at all. I mean, look at all of us, we talk about it. I mean, you know, we're no more experts on it than they are.

BOLLING: Fair enough and absolutely true. I think when we -- you're 100 percent right, talk to the producers and say, "Why are we are talking about -- listening to celebrities about Ebola, in fact, why are they listening to us?" About Ebola, good point Bob. All right, OK. Ready for the one of the strangest moments of the 2014 election cycle, here's party flip-flopper Charlie Crist, throwing a curveball to Florida Governor Rick Scott, at the debate last night. Crist, put a fan under his podium. Governor Scott refused to come out, if Crist got the fan, grown men acting like a little middle school kids. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE CRIST, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: The rules of the debate that I was shown by the Scott campaign say that there should be no fan for that reason, ladies and gentlemen. I am being told that Governor Scott will not join us for this debate. That we really think to have a debate about a fan or are we gonna talk about education and the environment and the future of our state?

(APPLAUSE)

(UNKNOWN): That has to be the most unique beginning to any debate.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So Dana, I thought it was petty. But you make a very good reason.

PERINO: There's in a history that Democrats cheat a lot, OK? Bob, you admit it. You are proud of it. You say I've done that all my life, you say, that's how you built your political career.

BECKEL: It's only Democrats.

PERINO: Just remember, four years ago, when Rick Scott was a nominee -- he was a candidate, the Republican candidate, he went to debate Alex Sink, she was the Democratic candidate in Florida. One of the rules was, you cannot have anybody come up to you in the commercial breaks except to your make-up artists, OK? because, that way you can't pass messages. What do they do? The makeup artist brings her phone and shows, while she's doing the makeup, a text message from the campaign manager. Ruins Alex Sink's campaign. She fired her campaign manager the next day. But to me that comes from the top. This type of little cheating stuff. Plus I think it is very weird. Why does he need a fan everywhere he goes? That is just -- I think that is creepy to me.

Like he can't just -- Marco Rubio was ridiculed for drinking water in a speech. This guy needs a fan everywhere he goes. Is he having hot flashes? What is the problem?

BOLLING: Let me get to the left, a rebuttal to that and we'll pass it on.

BECKEL: I think that this reaction of the audience will tell you what the political consequences of this are. Scott looked petty. He wouldn't come out because of fan? I mean, yes, did Crist break the rules? Yes, he did. But the reality is the politics of this are going to be like that audience. They're going to boo and laugh, and that's where Scott is going to cost himself in this.

BOLLING: Some people booed when Rick Scott wouldn't come out. Other people were yelling, "Rules, rules."

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: It's weird. So Crist put a fan under his podium? I thought only Bill Clinton did that. Zing! That's all I got, people.

BOLLING: Twelve-year-old.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh. You can retire at halftime. You get to leave and go eat snacks. Look, I mean, you've got to follow the rules. You've got to play it fair. I think the fan thing is very, very strange, but nonetheless I would have come out and said, "Fan or no fan, you can fill the room with fans. I'm going to whoop you something right now."

BECKEL: That's -- why not just come out and say, when you're having a back and forth on some issues, say, "This is a serious issue. And it means we've got to follow the rules. And you've got a fan under there."

BOLLING: Right. I mean, that's what...

PERINO: That is what he did in the first -- that is what he did in the Alex Sink debate. He actually pointed it out on camera doing the debate that she had cheated. And that's what ended her campaign.

BOLLING: And it worked.

GUILFOYLE: That was better.

BOLLING: Take your own advice.

All right. "House of Cards," "Tyrant," "Homeland," "Walking Dead," some of my favorites. None, however, are on HBO where they're rolling out a brand- new way of watching your favorite TV shows, direct to your laptops. Soon you'll be able to watch your favorite HBO series when you want, but you're going to have to pay for that privilege. Here's a few.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES DANCE, ACTOR: Have you nothing to say in your defense?

PETER DINKLAGE, ACTOR: Nothing but this. I did not do it. I did not kill Joffrey. But I wish that I had! I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So, Greg, changing the way we watch TV?

GUTFELD: Absolutely. Have you ever asked yourself why you have never bought yourself a box of assorted chocolates? They're only given to you. Because when you go and buy chocolate, you buy the kind you have want. You buy rocky road or almond roca, but you never go buy a box of assorted chocolates. Somebody gives it to you because you're sick or it's Valentine's Day. That's called a la carte.

I mean, you want a la carte television, which means you want to watch your "Scandal." You want to watch your "Justified," but you don't want to watch "Californication," because it's terrible. So that's old TV. Old TV is a box of assorted chocolates. You want to have your choice. It's a good thing.

BOLLING: Yes. And that's why FOX News put together the new app, FOX News Go, so that you can put it on your phone. You can watch it, like, if you're on the train or if you're in the commuting line. Check the phone.

BECKEL: The business angle of this is significant. I mean, for the entertainment cable outlets particularly. I mean, there will be a drop-off of people who buy the basic cable and those extra.

PERINO: They're smart because it's your Internet service, too.

BECKEL: Yes. But I mean, slowly but surely, people are falling away from the television, aren't they? I mean, more and more. A decade from now, I suppose you're probably going to look at this somewhere -- the TV's going to be obsolete.

GUTFELD: It will be your eyeball. Eyeball.

BOLLING: There is a big debate about, you know, chunking several channels together and having to buy all of them, not just one -- the ones you want.

GUILFOYLE: I like this. I like the accessibility. I think it's keeping up with the times. I'm all for it. But I mean, I love my TV and my DVR. So it's all good.

BOLLING: Wrapping up. Straight ahead, what happens when a bunch of environmentalists try to use renewable energy to power an inflatable coal plant? Can't wait to see this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: Their power turned sour. Protesters in Wisconsin didn't like Madison Gas and Electric's new rates, saying it drove people away from renewable energy. They brought up a blow-up coal plant, meant to be inflated by renewables, a fan powered by a solar panel backed up by batteries charged with wind power. It was like an inflatable doll for Al Gore. It went great.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While chanting "Coal has got to go" and calling for the greater use of renewable energy, the blow-up coal plant unfortunately collapsed, because the batteries ran out of power; and the solar panel did not create enough energy to power it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: The should have stopped there. Poor things.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The same protesters that opposed MG&E for not using more renewable energy later admitted they would typically plug the fan into a gas-powered generator or an outlet that would likely be powered by a reliable electric source like MG&E.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the first time we've ever done it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They use generators or they hook it up to an electric outlet. Then you can keep it running continuously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: So they usually power their pathetic prop with nonrenewable energy like gas generators or by plugging it into the wall, courtesy of the company they're protesting against.

Yes, he company they target actually lets these sad sacks use the energy they hate.

I know: making fun of these people is like shooting fish in an inflatable coal plant, but we should and here's why. Do you think their failure will actually change their minds?

Clinging to ideology, they are incapable of absorbing facts culled from real experience. Worse, demonizing coal has consequences that go beyond failed inflatables. As I've said many times before, millions of poor people die each year for lack of coal. The burn impure crap that's literally crap, dung.

So if you're OK with making them live their lives in substandard conditions because you pretend to care, then your head is filled with more air than your stupid failed balloon. It's amazing you don't float away.

BECKEL: How many times are we going to listen to that dung story?

GUTFELD: Because it's important. Indoor air pollution is like the worst thing in the world, and we don't do anything.

Do you think they learned something there, Bob?

BECKEL: You know, it's always amazing to me. One of the cardinal rules of doing a political demonstration with a prop is to be sure the prop works...

GUTFELD: Yes.

BECKEL: ... before you take it out. If it doesn't work, you leave it in the car, right? You can still make your point.

This is -- I've seen this happen over and over again. And it's amazing to me people still do it.

First of all the idea of trying to blow up something. I don't know. It's amazing to me. I've seen it so many times. No, they won't learn from it.

GUTFELD: Eric, I will say this. Isn't it nice that the company helps them out?

BOLLING: you know what? Maybe the company sponsored that. Maybe they're pretending to be coal protesters. Let's do this. That would be genius.

GUILFOYLE: You conspiracy stuff actually is helping you out there.

BOLLING: Let me just make a quick point. Environmentalists love -- they love the electric-powered cars. They love them. But again, what do you do? You plug the car into the wall, and they burn coal-powered electricity. It's so insane.

Stop. It's not radio.

BECKEL: Electric cars, they're not spewing out exhaust, right?

PERINO: How do they get charged?

GUILFOYLE: When they're working.

BECKEL: I understand that. I understand your point. But nonetheless, it still is with electric cars you're putting less stuff in the air, right?

GUTFELD: Dana.

BOLLING: Probably not when you account for the coal production producing the -- anyway.

GUTFELD: But it makes them feel better.

PERINO: If I -- if I were in the vast academic media complex...

GUTFELD: Right.

PERINO: ... as we've talked about, I would make them watch this video, OK? And I would play it in some sort of basic class that everybody has to take. Because it's interesting.

Young people will say, "I really want to go into something that's going to make a difference in the world." But actually, the companies that are making a difference in the world or have the profits to do so are companies like Lockheed Martin, which announced yesterday that they think they have figured out how to do nuclear fusion, which would allow for power in a much cleaner way and with a much smaller footprint they could have been there.

BOLLING: I'm with you on nuclear.

GUTFELD: K.G., do you think they blew it?

GUILFOYLE: Totally. Let me tell you something. This is how much faith and confidence I have in solar.

What do I care about in life more than salami? Hot tub-controlled power. The only thing I power, OK, the house with, whatever, in the Hamptons is solar for the pool, because I don't go in it, and I have a back-up heater. The hot tub is like...

BECKEL: There ain't enough solar powers in the world to keep you warm. Believe me. You're right. I understand that. Just don't forget about it.

GUILFOYLE: No, but it's true. It's not to be perfected.

BECKEL: You could bring 5,000 in here, and you wouldn't -- it wouldn't help you.

GUILFOYLE: It's not perfected. So let's just get real. It's a good idea. But you have to have a backup.

GUTFELD: Exactly.

BECKEL: Most people have hot tubs.

GUTFELD: Next on "The Five," what the director of the CDC...

GUILFOYLE: Go away, Bob.

GUTFELD: ... told one congressman that he didn't tell us about the Ebola travel ban, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECKEL: Who picks the music?

GUTFELD: I have no idea.

BECKEL: Do you know what it is?

GUTFELD: No. You've got (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

With the Ebola scare, there's a lot of debate about whether the U.S. should ban travelers from some West African nations from coming to the United States. The Obama administration's still against it.

The CDC director has said it wouldn't be in our interests. Last night on "The O'Reilly Factor" the chair of today's hearings on the Hill said Tom Frieden told him something else.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: You talked to Dr. Frieden yourself, I understand, about the travel ban, did you not?

REP. TIM MURPHY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Yes, I did. And he explained to me that what the concern was that these are fledgling democracies. And if we put a travel ban, that that may affect their economy and harm them.

O'REILLY: Are you kidding me? This guy is telling you a theoretical thing, that their fledgling economies may be damaged? His job is to protect us.

MURPHY: Exactly. Health should be his concern.

O'REILLY: Not some theoretical thing about maybe an economy will be damaged. I mean, this is why this guy's got to go. He's got to go!

MURPHY: And I see it as, look, we can still move planes in and out of there with supplies. We can do a lot.

O'REILLY: Of course.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECKEL: He's got to stay! He's got to stay!

Eric, the -- what do you think about O'Reilly's point? The fact is that these countries are going to suffer terribly economically as a result of this, and maybe that's not in our best interests.

BOLLING: Our best interest is protecting Americans. I agree with Bill O'Reilly on this one. I'm for a travel ban. I've been for a travel ban for a long time. I don't -- I'm concerned about 10,000 new cases per week. Some of them are going to slip through. I think we're going to have our hands full. Maybe -- again, maybe not an epidemic or pandemic but -- or an outbreak, but I don't think we're prepared to handle it. It could cost us a lot of money.

Again, OK, so we're worried about the economic ramifications of a travel ban on three countries that literally maybe only 100 people come -- 150 people come and go from, I think, per day. I think that's what Tom Frieden said today. So I think the risks outweigh the reward of maybe having to spend a few more bucks to help them out financially.

BECKEL: Let me say, you've been in West Africa. And you know the medical problems there. And it does have an effect on their economy, doesn't it? I mean... PERINO: Well, I think that -- I think what the president is facing right now is two bad options. There are -- there are consequences for a travel ban. And there are consequences for not doing the travel ban.

So what leadership is, is making a decision not based on just what the American people are asking for. If that was the case, we never would have done the surge and had the success we had in Iraq at that time.

But on this case, I think that the president will have to choose the least bad option, and I think that consensus is forming around a travel ban is necessary. And I take that after having, for several days, tried to listen to the experts.

Uvala Van (ph), who writes for "National Review," is a health care expert. He writes this very smart piece today in "The National Review." I encourage people to take a look at it.

He said he talked to many people, reporters, medical people, travel people. And he said that he believes they will end up having to do a travel ban. But again, it's -- I think it's two really bad options.

People in Africa have the innate, inherent survival instincts that all of us do. And if they find out that they're being quarantined, like they're being shut down, they will try. And it's impossible. You can't shut down an entire country. The will try to leave. And then that's when you have multiplication of contagion.

BECKEL: That's a good point. These people, if they believe that they're being fenced in and their instinct is to survive, they're going to go over that fence survive, under it, or do something, right?

GUILFOYLE: Yes. That's possible, Bob. But the thing is, if we give them sufficient health to eradicate it there, which really should be the focus and the purpose for these hearings, is to talk about how we can get rid of this, how we can shut it down.

Help them there. Direct the money there. If we eradicate Ebola there, then we don't have to have these economic concerns that the head of the CDC does. He's not an economist. His job is to focus about spread and not to worry about, per se, the economy. That's another guy's job. He should say, "What can I do to help the American people?" Well, guess what? By helping the American people, you can also help the West Africans. Shut it down, get rid of it. Then we don't have to have a travel ban.

But in the meantime, do everything you can, and don't always be last to do something. Why are we always behind? Why don't we be on the forefront of something with good ideas? And making courageous decisions that ultimately are going to benefit everybody?

BECKEL: You know, if you just slash the last two sentences off of that thing, I was about to say, that's a very good point. But until you started...

GUILFOYLE: And then it got better.

BECKEL: Yes, it did.

Greg, now, I think that -- say they want volunteers to go to West Africa to do some work. Would you go?

GUTFELD: No. I'm a coward. But I don't get the logic. If you keep people from leaving, that means no one can go in. That makes no sense to me at all.

And to keep talking about a blanket ban is ridiculous. No one is saying a blanket ban. They're saying, you can have special flights go in. Just maybe, you know, stop with the commercial flights.

But there's a big error in my mind in the world of media and politics. Combining a health crisis with the immigration issue. So if you want a travel ban, somehow you dislike foreigners; it's xenophobic if you want a travel ban . This idiocy is borne from the racial accusation theme that is often married to people who are against illegal immigration. So what happens is, if you say, like, I have a problem with travel from these countries, somehow that's racist.

BECKEL: That was too intelligent for me to follow. I don't know what xenophobic is.

GUILFOYLE: You followed the big (ph) part.

BECKEL: "One More Thing" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: It's time now for "One More Thing." And Bob gets to go first.

BECKEL: Well, you know, all this bad news that we've had. Let's put some good news in here. You know, they just reported that the unemployment benefit applications fell to a 14-year low. Two point six four million jobs created this year alone, best since 2006. Available jobs at a 13-year high, for all those people who say there's no work out there for people. And 248,000 jobs created last month alone. Congratulations to the recovery.

BOLLING: All part-time.

BECKEL: Oh, God, please.

PERINO: Yes.

BOLLING: Three-quarters of them were part-time.

PERINO: I thought we weren't doing that in "One More Thing" any more. OK, Eric.

BOLLING: Oh, yes. I'm sorry.

So last night, take a look at what happened last night, first time in 29 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fair ball. And 29 years of frustration has ended! The royals are going to the World Series!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So that's it. Kansas City Royals. Congratulations to Kansas City. First time in 29 years.

By the way, last time was 1985, Kimberly's year of birth. They swept the two winningest teams in baseball. They swept the -- the Orioles, and, yes, they swept the Angels. Yes.

PERINO: OK. Greg, you're next.

GUTFELD: Finally, Royals news I can handle.

GUILFOYLE: Funny.

BOLLING: Well done.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Greg's Sports Corner!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: All right. It's time for the 2014 International Feline Olympics. Let's take a look. We have Adam Whiskers over here, destroying records in the obstacle course. It was amazing. He almost had no competition, shattering all previous records by minutes.

The audience went crazy. He won. Didn't get a medal. He won a scratching post. And a $20 million sponsorship in kitty litter. But he was later arrested for drunk driving.

GUILFOYLE: Aw. That's awful when that happens.

GUTFELD: That's what happens. You go up, and you go down.

PERINO: Kimberly, can you lighten us up here. I'm going to try with a -- I'm so sorry, I'm really sorry. I'm still Bono, and I'm still cool. So this is a problem. Apparently now Bono saying he's very sorry for giving the free album on iTunes about a month ago on September 9. It wasn't really what he intended, the way it turned out. Listen to his words. You decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BONO, MUSICIAN: Oops. I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea. I got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing. There's a lot of noise out there. We get a little noisy ourselves to get through it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: His "I'm sorry."

BOLLING: What? Didn't they get $100 million for this?

GUILFOYLE: But -- no, but people were annoyed. It was right during the time when the iCloud thing was penetrated, right?

BOLLING: I'm sorry I made $100 million?

GUILFOYLE: People who allowed for an automatic download, they felt like it was an invasion of their privacy. People who had that setting, they automatically got the album. That's what's wrong with the system. Even when you give it to them for free...

BOLLING: If you donate. If you donate the proceeds.

GUILFOYLE: Fine.

PERINO: That was actually interesting. Thank you. Actually.

GUTFELD: Actually.

PERINO: I hate that word, actually. Don't say that, young ladies. Don't say "actually."

OK. I want to show you this. It's a drum battle between the Republic of Korea army band and United States Marines. First, the Koreans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Not so bad, right? But check out the United States Marines.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: So that's what -- what I love about that is that even the Koreans love the United States Marines.

OK. That's it for us.

GUILFOYLE: Who doesn't?

PERINO: U.S. That's it for us. U.S. I have a cold, I'm sorry. "Special Report" is next. And we'll be back here tomorrow.

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