This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 22, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Andrea Tantaros, along with Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino, and Greg Gutfeld.
It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."
(MUSIC)
TANTAROS: Well, you all know what day it is today, right? It's Earth Day. The political media and cultural elite have been trying to scare us about the environment now for 44 years starting with Walter Cronkite in 1970.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: CBS News special, "Earth Day: A Question of Survival."
WALTER CRONKITE, CBS ANCHOR: Good evening. A unique day in American history is ending, a day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival. Earth Day, a day dedicated to enlisting all the citizens of a bountiful country in a common cause of saving life from the deadly byproducts of that bounty -- the fouled skies, the filthy waters, the littered earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANTAROS: Well, not much has changed since 1970. The politicians are still spreading fear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The debate is settled.
Climate change is a fact.
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: Climate change is a catastrophe that is unfolding before our very eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because we deny this reality, many people will suffer.
SEN. HARRY REID (D), NEVADA: This is not a question of morality or ethics, but a question of our own survival.
OBAMA: And when our children's children look us in the eye and ask and if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world with new sources of energy, I want to be able to say yes, we did.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
TANTAROS: So are Hollywood celebrities.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
ROBERT REDFORD, ACTOR: Hello, I'm Robert Redford. Climate change is happening fast. We've got to stop making the problem worse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We face a crisis, all of which are a concern for life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no more fire season. We have wildfires all year-round.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is unbelievable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Climate disruption is not a political issue.
It's a moral issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A thermometer is not Republican, it's not Democrat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I've seen it in the last ten years in my life, what am I going to see in the next 50 years?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's going to be more storms and they are going to be worse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What have you done?
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
TANTAROS: But should we believe them?
Four decades ago, we were warned by scientists if we didn't do something, civilization would end within 15 or 20 years, up to 200 million people per year would starve to death and people living in urban area would have to wear gas masks to survive.
Greg, I do not wear a gas mask during the day here in New York.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Only when you're at my apartment.
TANTAROS: Which is --
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Yikes!
TANTAROS: -- weird. None of these warnings have come true.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: Has credibility been hurt on the enviro side?
GUTFELD: Yes, I think so. The problem with this issue, depending on what team you are on, you get -- I'll call it a bucket debate, where, Bob, you'll get your bucket, you'll fill it your data and I get my bucket and I fill it with my data then we spend the next 12 minutes exchanging this data, and then the next day we forget completely about it.
The only problem with this is that the hysteria is actually worse than the calamity, because we are drawing attention to something that is less dangerous than other things. For example, we're condemning coal when billions of people around the world would die for coal. They would love to have a carbon footprint. Instead, they are burning dung and they're burning twigs inside their houses, killing 4 million people.
The big story here is really how anti-poor the green movement is.
There are 3 billion people who need heat. They need coal and instead, we're lecturing them on fossil fuels and the evil of coal. And that's just ridiculous.
The other part I think is really weird is the silencing of the debate. If you have facts on your side, you should always welcome the debate. I like to talk about climate change. I like to be proven wrong.
I moved a little bit to become a lukewarmer.
TANTAROS: You stuck your toe in Bob's bucket, so to speak.
GUTFELD: Exactly. But what's going to happen is if you silence the skeptics and if you are attacking free thought, what happens is people will revolt. That's what happens. When people feel that they don't have a place to express themselves, it gets ugly. That's why campus speech codes are so dangers and why threatening to jail skeptics is so wrong, is because you're driving people into a scarier place where there's violence and this happens whenever speech is silent.
TANTAROS: Uh-huh.
Dana, you saw from that montage, President Obama said the debate is settled. But they often don't refer to what debate they are talking about, and even though they say the debate is settled, it doesn't seem like a solution to any of this, if it's happening has been settled either.
PERINO: Right. So the policy prescription is -- leaves less than they would like because it is a global problem, and America, we actually have a great American success story to tell.
When Walter Cronkite describes what was going on in 1970, it's almost unrecognizable to what we live in today. The water is measurably cleaner, the air is measurably cleaner. What environmentalists tend to talk about now, what President Obama is focused on is on climate change. That has become the all-encompassing issue.
There's so much good work that has been done in a bipartisan way, in cooperative conservation. The thing that really gets to me is when Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about the forest fires, a lot of the problems of forest fires, the major raging one that happen in the west, is because of bad policy that was put in place by environmentalists to not clear out the forest.
We've learned a lot more and I think that America, in particular some Republicans, should -- to just own it and embrace it and say we've done a great job.
And the only way to keep making it better, including on climate change if you care about that, is through economic growth because it's through economic growth that you can fund the new technologies that can get us through a cleaner environment, a better environment, not just for us but for the people around the world that Greg is talking about.
TANTAROS: Eric, there have been some policy prescriptions that the president has moderated on but his words haven't really followed with action. So, if you look at what he said about nuclear power, if you look at what he said about natural gas, he's given lip service to these policy prescriptions where I think Republicans would be more than willing to meet him halfway but he hasn't done them from pressure from the left. So, any hope for any consensus at all.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: I just want to point out, I am so darn proud of our president today. I am -- remember, yesterday, I said I was going to roll my windows down and turn the heat on and turn up my barbecue, President Obama just blew me out of the water You know what he's doing today?
PERINO: Flying (ph).
BOLLING: He's taking a chopper from D.C. to Andrews Air Force Base.
Then he's going to Air Force One. He's flying Air Force One to Washington state, and then he's going to take Air Force One to Tokyo on Earth Day.
He's got to send 35,000 gallons of jet fuel, he's going to emit 375 tons of CO2. Way to go, President Obama.
And guess what else? The EPA director is on a week-long tour flying around the country talking about carbon footprint. Isn't that fantastic?
I am so proud of that administration.
(CROSSTALK)
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Is that a president who hasn't flown to Asia for Asia --
BOLLING: On Earth Day? He's going to fly around the country dumping CO2?
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: I might just vote -- can I vote for him one more time?
BECKEL: If I were, I would just be honest about it and say that all presidents do this stuff. Listen -- there are a couple of things we ought to keep in mind. We have incredibly -- as Dana pointed out -- incredibly cleaner rivers, incredibly cleaner air because of the Clean Water Act and clean -- you know, it was in 1970 that the river outside of Cleveland was on fire, and you couldn't fish in the Potomac River. The entire estuary of the -- what is the big bay in Washington?
PERINO: Chesapeake Bay?
BECKEL: Chesapeake Bay, you couldn't fish it, and we've made some incredible progress and I think we ought to give ourselves credit for that, more the United States than There's been rules and regulations that have been helpful all the way around and we now have the cleanest water that we've had in decades and decades.
Now, on the question of global warming, you can argue as Greg said, everybody has got their buckets they can put it in. I'm not going with the U.N. climate change people, I'm not going to go with the professors. I'm only going to go only with this, and that is NASA, which is probably the greatest single scientific institution in the United States, took a man to the moon, NASA has one very specific issue.
If I couldn't get this up on the screen, let me -- if you come in here just for a second, you will see that CO2 emissions for 650,000 years have not --
(LAUGHTER)
BECKEL: You find that funny?
BOLLING: Yes, I --
BECKEL: You want to laugh at NASA? Go ahead and laugh at NASA.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: I want to hear the end of it.
BECKEL: OK. NASA says for 650,000 years, there has been -- that was the CO2 level was here. And since 1950, it has jumped way above that.
Now, I would prefer to take NASA's word for this than anybody that Eric come up with or anybody else -- you know, he keeps coming up, he laughs about it. Don't laugh at NASA scientists. These people have done remarkably good jobs.
TANTAROS: Greg --
GUTFELD: But there are two points to this. One, why hasn't it gotten any warmer in the last 16 years if you follow by that?
BECKEL: No, CO2.
GUTFELD: Yes, I'm just saying it would correspond to higher temperatures.
The other point, too, is I wouldn't mind having a little bit of global warming since that reduces the numbers of death. More people die from cold Ice Age --
BECKEL: I would just try to make one point about CO2.
GUTFELD: I know, but the CO2 didn't correlate to heat in the last, what is it, 16 to 18 years.
TANTAROS: Even "The New York Times" has conceded that the environmentalists --
BECKEL: If you laughed at that thing, you are a total, complete jerk. You are a total, complete jerk.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: Forty thousand years ago, it was really high.
TANTAROS: Bob, in fairness to you, I actually think you made some really good points.
BECKEL: Thank you.
TANTAROS: We do have cleaner air. We don't litter any more. We don't have things like the Love Canal where people are building housing developments on toxic waste dumps. So, we should give ourselves a lot of credit.
But do you think maybe even the environmentalists, even "The New York Times" said, maybe they are a victim, Dana, of their own good work because what's happened is they have eliminated a lot of pollution, the sunlight is coming, maybe that's cause for a uptick in temperature, and now because the Chinese is still polluting, maybe that's caused the plateau. Even "The New York Times" --
BECKEL: We're not quite sure yet what CO2 does and I think we can explore that. But we know this, that since 1950, the amount of CO2 has gone up dramatically over 650,000 years. That's proof.
That is not conjecture by Eric, or the great fossil fuel --
BOLLING: I'm reading your chart. It started to move up --
BECKEL: It's not my chart. It's a NASA chart. It's not a NASA chart.
BOLLING: It started to move up 50,000 years ago, Bob.
BECKEL: It's a NASA chart. It's not my chart.
PERINO: There was a period --
BOLLING: It was moving up before man was even on the planet.
GUTFELD: There was a period of warmth before there were SUVs as well. I guess I cant' remember the name in the middle ages where it was warmer.
But why is it so important that skeptics shut up? That's what I don't get. Like why are incorrect predictions always suppressed and why are people who disagree with this, why are their reputations always under fire?
It makes me think, Bob, that this is -- a lot of -- this is really about our paychecks. This is about a -- climate change hysteria disguising confiscation of our money. This is about taking money from us for a larger cause that can never, ever be proven or unproven.
You can justify any kind of increase if it's always going to be there.
BECKEL: If there are -- climate scientists on my side of this issue have exaggerated a lot. They have not done their research as well as they could have. There's a lot of things -- a lot of questions out there.
But there are people who will say that if we're not careful here, and if, for example, those skeptics are wrong, then we have some very serious things to face, that will be coming down the road. That's I think where we ought to discuss this issue.
It's not saying that climate change, this -- I've brought in a document here that Eric has made fun of it, but it's by NASA. And it is based on a lot research. Much more research than Eric has ever produced on this table.
TANTAROS: We've got to go.
BOLLING: Right, but I'm not a scientist.
TANTAROS: But I got to get --
(CROSSTAK)
BOLLING: But I can read that chart, and I can tell you that 50,000 years ago, your numbers were blowing off the chart and there were no humans. The reason why if you're skeptic, it's dangerous to them because there's so much money --
GUTFELD: Yes, exactly.
BOLLING: -- on refuting what they are selling. If you blow that out of the water, they know they are out tens of billions of dollars.
TANTAROS: Doesn't that put people off, too, Dana, the whole control thing? What they are saying is just trust me, believe me, like Al Gore, I want control over your life. I will fix this.
And people are going, why would I give you control?
PERINO: And global warming, climate change, this is the new iteration of what they've been talking about since 1970. On most every issue, although ones that you've mentioned at the beginning of the segment, they have been wrong on that, and yet when you have the occasional religious fanatic who comes out and says the end of the world is near and going to happen on this particular date, they say he's crazy.
Now, maybe that's true, but you can understand why when humans go through a period of understanding a lot more science and being able to look at it and looking at evidence over an 18 to 20-year period, they are skeptical about America changing its way of life, because there's not a global solution on the table at the moment.
But that maybe what President Obama should talk about --
BECKEL: That's right. There is a global solution.
But this, despite Eric talking about these bumps here, it's double what it was during those bumps and the fact of the matter is that we've got some evidence here that we ought need to deal with it.
GUTFELD: I propose that if there's an Earth Day, we also have a coal day. And coal day is a celebration of coal and we get coal to these billions of people who would live longer and better lives rather than burning animal dung in a hut.
PERINO: And we could all use our iPads officially.
GUTFELD: Exactly.
TANTAROS: Coal day here on "The Five."
Up next, crime has gotten so bad in Chicago, the feds are now stepping in to help. We'll tell you about it when "The Five" returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: In what's becoming an all too common occurrence, shots rang out across the city of Chicago this past weekend, killing eight and wounding another 36, including a handful of children. It was the second straight weekend. At least 36 people were shot in a city some have dubbed Chiraq, in an obvious nod to the violence in Iraq.
Here's how your reaction to the violence played out on the local news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It has been an especially violent weekend in Chicago, which includes the shooting of five children just last night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With all of those shootings, that one that really tugs on the heart strings of Chicagoans when they hear that children are hit by gunfire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, I was standing at the corner, I'm like, no, I'm not going to home. These are (INAUDIBLE) in a fight. As soon as I'm walking out the gate, you hear gunshots.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If one little girl is fighting or her brother or his cousin is gang affiliated, then it's that. Then (INAUDIBLE) shooting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Here's a visibly angry Rahm Emanuel reacting last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL (D), CHICAGO, IL: Every child deserves a childhood. Every child deserves to hear laughter. Any child where that laughter has been replaced (INAUDIBLE) gun violence, has had the childhood taken from them. And we as adults have not done our job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Now, Ands, he has children in the school system and I don't question his authenticity or his true feelings there. However, Chicago, a lot of crime, a lot of deaths, a lot of gun deaths, a lot of -- it's one of the hardest cities to get a handgun legally in the country.
TANTAROS: And we just played a montage in the last segment of politicians outraged, sounding the alarm bells about global warming. I wish you would see them with the same emphasis and the same level of outrage and anger, that in issues like this, talk about the city of Chicago. It seems like every time there's a school shooting, the president will take to the podium, Eric, and I'll talk about how take guns away, on some level, of people who are law abiding citizens, instead of people in Chicago who are now outnumbering the rest of Chicagoans who aren't allowed to have guns.
You are from Chicago. So, you get the ground game. It's not, of course, all Rahm Emanuel's fault. But the cops are scared, they're petrified to go on and answer these calls, because the civil rights groups in Chicago go after them a lot of times, in defense of a lot of these -- in a lot of issues.
Bob, it's a reality. They are very nervous. They are outnumbered.
And as you said earlier, it is a war zone and something needs to be done because giving speeches at a podium and keeping guns out of the hands of rest of Chicagoans who should have them isn't working.
BOLLING: So, Bob, at one point, you said, you know, it's gangs shooting up gangs in Chicago. There are a lot of examples just this past weekend, of the young kids, I believe in --
BECKEL: Yes, who are caught in the crossfire of gangs, if you look at the picture --
BOLLING: Well, it wasn't crossfire, Bob. It was someone going after two kids on Facebook.
BECKEL: Well, the -- for the most part, the children who are getting killed there are getting killed in gang violence. It's probably safe to say that 90 percent of the murders that take place here is a result of drugs.
Chicago has become the cross part of the United States where drugs are centered. It used to be Detroit. And now, I guess the question is, I see the Justice Department has now put 22 new prosecutors in there to deal with this. Los Angeles dealt with the gangs pretty well.
This is not a reason I don't think to deal with gangs. But this is not about legal guns or illegal guns. This is about three or four warring factions that are no different than they are in Beirut.
BOLLING: Do you buy this, that's it's simple as that?
GUTFELD: I think that there are libs, not Bob, but they got to get over this notion that is bigoted to be hard on crime. That if you're going after a criminal, you are actually targeting minorities.
The fact is, in communities where there's heavy (INAUDIBLE), minority communities are grateful that you're there and that you're preventing bloodshed. And I always go back to the NYPD. It's probably -- I mean, they saved thousands of young minority lives over the last two decades of effective policing and they've been tainted as being -- they're called so many names because they're profiling.
But the people that they're saving are minorities in the communities are grateful. So, I think Chicago is learning. It's interesting, though, they do blame the weather and it's funny, it is true, when there's warm weather, there tends to be more crime. So, whenever you watch episodes of "Cops," the criminal is always running around with his shirt off.
BOLLING: Yes, Dana, Fourth of July last year, 74 people shot, 12 killed. June 14th to 16th week, 47 people shot, eight (ph) killed.
Isn't it time though to maybe relax some of their concealed carry rules in Chicago?
PERINO: Possibly. I hear the sincerity from Rahm Emanuel, but I always wonder, what is the practical solution, because there's not a way to wave a magic wand and all the guns will go away. But also, there's some sort of deeper problem of a lack of concern about another human being at the base of it. And so, that's the really difficult one to try to tackle.
BECKEL: Can I just make one more point here? I think that the people -- you say -- make the restrictions on guns less onerous on people.
These deaths are not happening in middle class black neighborhoods or white neighborhoods. It is happening among blacks against blacks.
And you made a very good point here. The police are afraid to go in there. I think there's an answer to this and it's gotten so bad, although last year, they had the lowest violence in 50 years. I think it's time to get the national guard and go in and do what they used to do which was clean it all out. Just take out whole blocks and start to arrest these guys.
There's no love lost with liberals on that. I say you do, weed and seed, they call it. They go in there and they take the bad seeds out and they throw them in jail.
PERINO: It's also called, clear, hold and build, which is why they had --
BECKEL: Yes, that's right, clear, hold and build, right.
PERINO: -- the Iraq ref (ph).
TANTAROS: If you look at the police blotter from last year and you look at the number of crimes, they're actually not even pursuing them. So, they are arresting them, but they're not prosecuting and going after these crimes as well.
So, these kids aren't learning their lessons?
(CROSSTALK)
TANTAROS: I wouldn't, no way.
BOLLING: Can we do this very quickly? I want to get to this. The Department of Justice is looking to let some people take petitions for people who want to get out of jail for drug offenses.
Take a listen to Eric Holder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The White House has indicated it wants to consider additional clemency applications to restore a degree of justice, fairness and proportionality for deserving individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: All right. Bobby, start with you. Ring in. Quick thoughts?
BECKEL: My quick thoughts are these are not dealers. These are users. A lot of these get caught up in three strikes, you're out.
What you're going to do if you leave them in prison is you're going to turn them from users to dealers or hardcore criminals. It is time to get these people out of jail.
BOLLING: Thoughts?
PERINO: Well, I think that Andrew McCarthy, who was on Megyn Kelly show last night, he writes for "National Review," it does a lot on national security issues, it makes a good point that, in our system, there is a Congress and the Congress has passed laws. And the president I think might have a persuasive case, but he should at least try to make it to the Congress and let them try to pass a bill before they make a big decision.
I also wonder what the plan is for the transition out because if you're -- are they just going to up open up the doors and are going to walk out, then what are you do with them then? With job market and all those things.
BECKEL: Let's get credit to corporate America, a number of them have signed up to hire some of them.
GUTFELD: I think that's the key, the point. It was mine.
PERINO: Oh.
GUTFELD: By the way, far worst people have received clemency than a guy smoking a joint by a lot of precedence. When you cut them loose, where do they go? And it has to be businesses that are willing to hire them.
But I don't know the rules of clemency. When you get clemency, is that off your record? Do people no longer know? Is that right?
BECKEL: No, you're still -- there's a clemency list, I don't know who is -- but you are absolved of anything you've done.
BOLLING: And some of the risk, Ands, is that --
GUTFELD: Can I have that for my own life? I've done some bad things.
BOLLING: Can you imagine spending a few years behind bars and then, all of a sudden, you are free and you weren't expecting this? It could be ugly open the streets?
TANTAROS: It could be.
PERINO: Or joyous.
TANTAROS: I would imagine if you are there in a long period of time, you are probably not a small drug user. You are probably in there for trafficking.
And so, I don't completely disagree with the administration on this decision. However, because it's 2014, my political mind starts to wonder, why are they talking about this now? Again, is this a national priority?
I can't help but think it's all to rally --
BOLLING: If clemency gets your vote back --
TANTAROS: It's another base rallying activity.
BECKEL: You're not talking about that many people. It's people who were in jail for three to five years on cases of multiple use of marijuana.
BOLLING: We're going to have to leave it right there.
Coming up, the Supreme Court handed down a major ruling today that involved the state's rights on affirmative action. Dana is going to tell you all about it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: OK, we don't have to talk about that song.
All right. Today, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Michigan voters to ban affirmative action from the admission process at the state's public universities. The decision was 6-2. Justice overturned a lower court's ruling that a 2006 referendum held in the state was unconstitutional because it stripped minorities of their rights by doing away with the policy.
So this is -- this is one of those legal decisions, Andrea that reads who's on first, because yes means no and no means yes. The bottom line is that it's probably not as controversial as the headlines like to suggest, which is the Supreme Court saying does the state have a right to vote to strip the universities of this right -- of affirmative action? The Supreme Court said yes.
TANTAROS: Right. So they are saying, and Kennedy took this point.
He said that it's not whether racial preferences should be resolved. It's who should resolve it, and the states have every right to do that.
What I think is interesting about this, Dana, is that it wasn't the typical 5-4 Supreme Court decision. It was a 6-2 decision. Kagan recused herself, because she'd worked on it as solicitor general. What I'm seeing, what I think is the trend of the court, is most interesting.
This court, through a variety of different precedences and judges, is weaning us all these extraordinary civil rights laws that were once very important and very necessary, arguably, and they're saying now, like they did today and like they did in that Texas case, as well, on affirmative action by 7-1, you know what, we might not need these laws anymore. They did the same thing with voting rights.
So I do think there's a theme happening with the court and it should be a good one, because this is the theme that Martin Luther wished for. He wanted this day to come. He wanted the law of the land to finally back off and say, "We don't need this, because there is equality. Everyone can get a fair shot." So I think it's a good thing.
PERINO: Bob, eight states have outlawed affirmative action in their schools. I don't have to liste them all here. Speaking of trends, do you think that this is a good thing? That maybe we can actually have achieved something that we were hoping for?
BECKEL: Well, sure, it's a good thing. The Voting Rights Act is an important point. They did absolve states, but they also kept certain counties that were -- that had a long history of discrimination. They were not allowed -- were not allowed to get out from underneath it.
I think Michigan has had -- you know, that state and a number of other states who don't have affirmative action, have had a long history of not using affirmative action as a barrier to get in. There are certain universities, and I'll name a couple of them, Alabama, Mississippi, I think in another 15, 20 years, they systemically denied blacks until the 1950s and 1960s to get into their schools. I think there's a long time yet for reparatations.
PERINO: There's a lot of controversy even in California, Eric, about whether or not they should reinstate affirmative action because some Asian communities are saying that they're being discriminated against because they are being too successful at getting into the universities.
BOLLING: I think Andrea is completely right on this. It's taken a long time. I would say we've arrived. I love the fact that the Supreme Court decided to kick it back to the states. That's what we want to be going on.
You know, I'm not sure about where you're headed with this with the southern universities.
BECKEL: What I'm saying, it's all going -- It's not just southern, but all schools are not equal in their histories of abusive of affirmative action.
PERINO: But the question was, can the state cdecide?
BOLLING: Can I add, this is how universities pick and choose who gets into their schools, this is supplied to other areas of the state.
PERINO: It's state universities. There could be precedence.
They could. There could be precedence.
And they're saying you can have diversity, it's a good thing, but if you are going to have this kind of selection process, it's going to come under very close scrutiny by the courts. It needs to be very narrowly tailored.
PERINO: Greg, would you want to be appointed to one of these boards to get to decide who gets accepted into the school or not?
GUTFELD: Yes. I would very very bad. I would be choosing them, basically, jut on looks. Are there ever a time where these policies will be necessary?
The hardcore proponents say no, which to me is a corrupt argument.
And that's the issue that I have with the left, is that the temporary, whether it's a program or anything, is always permanent.
PERINO: Sotomayor's dissent was 12 pages longer than the collective agreement by the other justices.
Buying her remedial, action against schools that have a long history of denying minorities rights, but there also are schools that promote minorities coming in at the expense of white students who are good, and I think it goes two ways here.
PERINO: That was a Texas case. That was the issue.
OK. Well, that was absolutely fascinating. We're going to pick it up here in the next block. Next, kids who play sports are losing their will to win. Greg has got an interesting take on why, when "The Five" returns.
You better.yes
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: According to a new study by a cricket charity -- the sport, not the insect -- kids don't mind if competition is removed from sport
. They prefer to play for fun. Which makes sense. I hated most sports. I preferred to play tag alone. That's what I called it, anyway.
Competition isn't something you can remove from a game. A game must have competition or it's not a game. Even hide and seek is a competition.
Without it, it's just hide. Musical chairs without the stress caused by the missing chair is no longer musical chairs; it's just sitting followed by standing. It's like being at the pharmacy.
It makes me wonder what made the greatest generation so great? They wanted to win. When they came home, they worked their butts off to give us everything we wanted so that now we have the luxury of thinking we can live in a world with no winners and no losers.
We now have a culture where giving up is cooler than winning, because there's no risk at all of losing. Winning is secondary to whining. Victim is superior to victor, and it's far better to end a war than win one. Even our own exceptionalism is viewed as running up the score.
And so no scoring means no sadness and it could be, if the rest of the world agreed, but they don't. There are people out there who still want to beat us to death, which is why beating them matters. It's the only way they'll know when to give up.
All right. I tried.
PERINO: I like it. Yes.
GUTFELD: Andrea, what do you make of the study?
TANTAROS: Well, I would like to say that I was just lectured during the commercial break about the entire energy level at this table. So I'm going to amp it up right now so we can win in the ratings.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: OK. I actually agree with the study in some ways. I do think there are some kids that don't like competive sports.
GUTFELD: Right.
TANTAROS: And so they might not want to compete. However, I have an anecdote. In 6th grade before men got bigger than girls, we had this thing called the mile run in Kilkearny (ph) Elementary School, and Ms. Beatty (ph), our gym teacher, pitted me and the other girls against the guys, and I would beat the fastest guy named Steve Jones.
Well, guess what, guys? I do have a point. People didn't like it when I won. Some people. Some people were happy for me. If you are going to win, you can't care about what other people think about you. You can't care if you want to be liked.
GUTFELD: That's true.
TANTAROS: These kids want to be liked more than they want to win, which is very dangerous, because they get out and everyone gets a trophy when they grow up.
BECKEL: It's the most obscene thought I've ever -- most of this is a reflection of parents by the way. I'll give you a story. I was asked to referee a T-ball game, and they said, "By the way, Bob, nobody wins."
And I was like nobody wins? Are you out of your mind? Somebody has got to win. Somebody's got to -- they're going to have a question.
"No, no, it's got to be even."
I said, "So what am I supposed to do, if it's even and a guy is coming around -- I stop him? I mean, what are you talking about?" This is the worse thing -- if your kids don't want to compete, let them become bakers.
I don't care.
BOLLING: That's a very good point, Bob.
GUTFELD: You've got to compete at baking.
BOLLING: But that's a very good point. Don't make your kid play ball, but if the kid plays ball or whatever, make sure he wants to win, because if you think you're going to teach a five- or six- or seven- or an eight-year-old that it doesn't matter to win, and they're going to somehow decide they want to be very successful once they get out of school, you're out of your mind, because that -- what you're teaching them then will just build upon itself forever, and you'll get a whole society filled with, what was that guy, pajama boys.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BOLLING: Where everyone's created equal. They can stay on Mommy health care unti they're 36 years old.
GUTFELD: Dana, you told me a story, about banning ...
PERINO: When I lived in England, I got both of the papers and I would read them, because I had nothing else to do. It was raining all the time.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: And one of stories was about a school district in England that had ended musical chairs. No one was allowed to have musical chairs any more, because it upset the kids if they lost.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: I think sports is a metaphor for life later on. It teaches you teamwork. It teaches you to want to win, but it also teaches you to be a gracious loser.
GUTFELD: That's true. You need to lose. You need to learn to lose.
PERINO: Every day you wake up, you should want to win or contribute.
Maybe not every day.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: You can duke the guy out who took your chair and knock him on the floor and...
PERINO: The thing about competition, I just thought of an example.
In the space race...
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: ... we wanted to win, and that's -- we put all of our energy towards winning and we did.
GUTFELD: Yes, it's great.
BECKEL: Hear, hear.
TANTAROS: Well, think about that feeling, right, when you're left without a chair. It was such a terrible feeling that you were like, "I'm never going to let this happen again."
BECKEL: Yes. Just knock the guy out of the chair and take it.
TANTAROS: Which is a good game.
PERINO: We should play musical chairs right now.
GUTFELD: The best solution for musical chairs: Beano.
All right. Still ahead, do people get nicer with age? Apparently, that's one of the upsides to getting older.
PERINO: Bob, look up, Bob.
GUTFELD: And we'll find out the rest from our resident aging expert, Bob. You're on TV. There you are. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECKEL: Is getting old not so bad after all? A new study finds that people age when they became -- when they age they become more agreeable, dependable and emotionally stable.
Another recent study says people become happier when they get older, as well.
Let me give you my thoughts about that. It's like being a shipwreck on a sandbar, and the waves take pieces out little by little, but it's lovely.
Now, I will say this. This is to start the discussion. I think people who, when they put the small things behind them, the older they get, only big things matter, and I do think that they are saner. They are smarter in their own way. They've got a lot more to contribute, until they get to be about 80. Then they get to be a pain in the neck.
BOLLING: It's true.
GUTFELD: Go ahead.
BOLLING: Oh, you want me to go?
GUTFELD: Yes.
BOLLING: So here's the thing. I would agree with that, because I guess you mellow with age. You hear that. But it doesn't have to be with age. I mean, happiness truly is a choice. You can choose to be happy or unhappy or cranky at any age.
BECKEL: You could, but it's a lot easier when you get older. Because a lot of this extraneous stuff doesn't matter.
BOLLING: Maybe you have a few more bucks in your pockets...
BECKEL: Let's remember, I've got my saying (ph) -- there's no such thing as a bad day, and there isn't.
TANTAROS: That's your voicemail greeting.
BECKEL: I know.
PERINO: But it also in this study, it said that people as they get older also can become a little bit more introverted. Which I think that is happening to me, because I don't want to go out.
TANTAROS: You just said the other day that you think you might say no to live music because you don't want to got o concerts anymore.
BECKEL: And?
PERINO: Because people are getting too drunk. And I...
BECKEL: Let me give you a view from my perspective. You ain't getting old, baby.
Go ahead.
GUTFELD: All right. I drew something. Can you show this? This is Greg's arc. There's birth. There's death. So when you're up here, everything is cool because you can't see this. It's right when you get up here and all of a sudden you know that you know you've got more behind you than ahead of you, and that changes how you look at everything.
Once you're here, you can see you're going to die. That changes the mentality. That's a fact. And a lot of people who are here don't understand that, but once you git here, all of a sudden you start appreciating things and your neurosis gets more intense. You don't want to deal with crap?
PERINO: Really?
GUTFELD: You don't want people to waste your time.
TANTAROS: Who could we be talking about right now?
GUTFELD: We're talking about me, because I've seen it.
GUTFELD: You don't worry about what you're going to eat every night?
BECKEL: Go ahead, what do you think?
TANTAROS: I think it can go either way. For example, you have definitely improved in your mood. You probably don't believe it, but I've noticed the trend over the couple -- last couple of years we've known each other, eight years or something.
However, I've seen some really angry older folks.
BECKEL: Oh, man.
TANTAROS: That are really, really grumpy. And so I think it can go either way. But I would hope that I would become the former.
BECKEL: Did you ever drive into a shopping center for older people?
It takes them 15 minutes to cross the line before you get -- and I had one woman kick me because I got in front of her in the line.
GUTFELD: Well, she was 85 (ph).
BECKEL: Is that it?
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: I see. Well, anyway, I think there's a lot to be said about getting older. There's a lot of wisdom there, up until a point. "One More Thing" is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TANTAROS: It's time now for "One More Thing," and I just decided during the commercial break I'm going to be a really happy old woman. A real fun old lady.
OK. This is a great story. Yesterday was the Boston Marathon, and this father and son team, Dick and Rick Hoyt, ran their 32nd race together.
And why this was so special is because when Rick was young he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. And when he was able to finally speak to his dad at age 12, he said, "I want to start running races to benefit people."
Problem is, he couldn't run.
His dad was also not a be runner, but they've been training for 37 years. And they run, and they run this marathon, 32 times. This is their last time yesterday. And when Rick runs, he says, "I feel like my disability disappears." It's a really, really sweet story from the mayrathon yesterday.
BECKEL: That's nice. That is very nice.
TANTAROS: All right. Who's next?
BECKEL: Dana.
TANTAROS: Dana.
PERINO: I'm next. OK. In an update to a story we talked about a lot. Remember in Tennessee, the UAW had a big fight. They tried to get the union to be approved there. They lost that vote, and they said that they were going to appeal it, because they thought that it was wrong.
However, I think they've made a good strategic decision. They are walking away, and they are dropping that appeal, so they will not make another go for it in Tennessee.
GUTFELD: Great update.
PERINO: Thank you.
TANTAROS: Greg.
PERINO: Why not, "It's fabulous"?
GUTFELD: It's time for...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: I hate these people!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Hate people who want to meet for coffee. I don't meet for coffee. I drink coffee when I go to work or I have to stay awake. But I never go somewhere and meet anybody for coffee.
If you -- people who say, "I want to meet you for coffee," the translation is "I need a favor." Just ask -- ask for the favor, but don't say you want to meet me for coffee.
BOLLING: How about "I want to meet you for a drink"?
GUTFELD: That works. That always works.
PERINO: I agree with you.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BOLLING: What does that really mean?
GUTFELD: If they say, "I want to meet for a drink," I almost always say yes, because I would never turn down a free drink.
TANTAROS: Now you know the way to Greg's heart. Through his liver.
BOLLING: You know who else won't turn down a free drink? Ed Schultz?
Oddly enough. Never.
TANTAROS: Bob.
BECKEL: I want to wish a very happy 42nd birthday to a good friend of "The Five," Willie Robinson, who appeared here with us. And Willie has now turned 42 years old, and he's a wonderful guy. He's been a great supporter of this show, and I like him a whole lot. We all do. So happy birthday, Willie.
GUTFELD: His beard turned 40. And -- yes.
TANTAROS: Eric.
BOLLING: I have a bittersweet one here. This is the ten-year anniversary or whatever. Ten-year -- marks ten years ago today Pat Tillman lost his life in Afghanistan. You'll remember Arizona Cardinal walked away from literally millions of dollar to defend America post-9/11, a true American hero. Was killed in Afghanistan. They later found out it was
from friendly fire. Nonetheless, the man is a hero. Ten years ago.
TANTAROS: Very good story. Greg, you want to grab a drink after the show?
GUTFELD: I can't. I got to do "Red Eye."
PERINO: You want to get coffee tomorrow?
GUTFELD: I need to talk to you.
PERINO: You know what? I don't need a favor from you.
GUTFELD: All right.
PERINO: I need nothing from you.
GUTFELD: All right. Wow.
PERINO: How about that?
GUTFELD: Taking a dark turn.
TANTAROS: All right. Now that we have our energy level up, it's time to go. Don't forget to set your DVR so you never miss an episode of "The Five." We'll see you right back here tomorrow.
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