Former TSA official on security, traveling with weapons

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," January 6, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I am Eric Bolling. And this is a Fox News alert. We're following two breaking news stories. Five dead and eight injured in Florida after a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport. Plus, just in this hour, U.S. intelligence agencies have released an unclassified version of the Russia hack report. We'll have all the details on that in a moment.

But first, back to the tragic story out of Florida. A shooting suspect is in custody after a lone gunman opened fire in a baggage claim area in Florida's Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport, shooting some people in the head without saying a word, investigators say. A witness described seeing the gunman opened fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN SCHLICHER, WITNESS TO SHOOTING: I got my first bag off when I heard the first shot. And as I did, the person right next to me fell to the ground. And I wasn't sure, it was very surreal. I turned and looked and he was holding a handgun. And he was firing into the crowd. Everyone from that flight standing there waiting for their luggage, and he just started shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said he reloaded and began shooting a second time?

SCHLICHER: Yes, he did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you get a good look at him? How would you describe them? Short, tall, anything?

SCHLICHER: He was probably close to 5'10", 6', a slender man, dark hair, and probably what I saw most was the gun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Young, old?

SCHLICHER: Pardon?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Young, old? What age would you guess?

SCHLICHER: He was probably in his 30s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he appear to be with anyone? Did he say anything?

SCHLICHER: He did not say a word and he was not with anyone that I saw. My wife took something for my mother-in-law bought and applied pressure to the gentleman who was right next to us. He had been shot in the head, and all the people who had been shot in the head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: And moments later, the witness described the panic as a second scare unfolded live in the air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There have been reports there are some shots fired in the garage. And they are locking us down again. They said that somebody is in the garage. Right now, they just said that seconds ago.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They told everybody to get on the floor. Michelle, get down. They told everyone to get down. Oh, oh, God, everyone lie down on the floor between the carousel. We are down the ground. We're down on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said that there is something going on outside in the garage. People are crying now, people are scared to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Phil Keating is on the scene. Now, Phil, a lot breaking, a lot happening in the last half hour or so, bring us up to speed.

PHIL KEATING, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, the reported name of the alleged gunman, the lone gunman, according to the sheriff of Broward County, a man who acted alone here at the Fort Lauderdale airport on the deck below me here at terminal 2 baggage claim, the shooting happening, you just heard that eyewitness described the carnage and the absolute terror, and that was about two hours of panic here, especially after they were then reports of gunshots heard in one of the parking garages. And then, there were reports of gunshots inside terminal 1, adjacent to terminal 2 on my right shoulder, and that sort of one over there. And that led to everybody fleeing. The people who were already inside the airport at their gates awaiting for their departures, they then pouring out of the jet way's down the stairs onto the tarmac, and eventually all the way across the major east-west runway here at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport, to the furthest part of the airport property, furthest away from the terminals, as you can possibly get. And for two hours, there was absolutely a sense of terror and panic and people that were frightened and scared. No one knew exactly what was going on. Heavily armed law enforcement were running all over the place.

The state of the airport operations right now is this. It remains closed. As you can see, the runways are motionless. The only thing moving down there are some ambulances and some airport vehicles. There is a helicopter flying around, we see a black hawk helicopter doing circles around the airport property up there. That is law enforcement. It is not international guard here in the state of Florida. So no planes taking off, no planes departing. It has been this way since at least about 2 o'clock. There was a short period after the initial 1:00 p.m. shooting and killing of five people and wounding of eight others where planes began taking off and landing again. And then there was that a second wave panic and uncertainty. And so, the airport has been shutdown every sense.

Terminal 1 remains evacuated. There are hundreds of suitcases strewn all over the terminal, as everyone ran full sprint out here out to the curbside, and they remain out there outside terminal 1. Terminal 2 over here, there still remains some people, probably hundreds if not thousands of people in there who have not been allowed to leave. What is happening at the airport right now is, I believe, we have a second camera broadcasting live back to New York on the activity inside one of the parking garages here. You can see that the law enforcement, Broward sheriff's department, assisted by ATF as well as Fort Lauderdale police and FBI going car to car to car. It like I'm looking right now at a soldier up there or a law enforcement officer. You want to pan up there, Mike?

Yeah, you can see what they are doing. They're going through every square inch of this airport right now. They are checking every car, they're checking every crevice inside the terminals, and there are four terminals here. This is a very busy airport. Not nearly as busy as Miami international, but part of the three south Florida airports, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, there is a lot of air traffic every single day. It is now the heavy winter tourist season. And so, there are a lot of people backed up here. But the airport is not yet reopened. Go ahead, Eric.

BOLLING: Phil, I want to bring you around. But very quickly, earlier, it was reported that this gunman checked his gun in a bag, picked the bag up, pulled the gun out of the bag, loaded it, and started firing. Is that still accurate?

KEATING: That is still the prevailing theory that is widely being reported out there. Several officials with government agencies are saying that appears to be what happened. Initially, the report was that the man, the gunman, who has been named Esteban Santiago, the alleged gunman, flew on an Air Canada flight, landed here at terminal 2, which serves Air Canada as well as Delta, and then had checked his weapon with a military ID. So you are allowed to check a weapon and fly, but you have it, check the bag. Then he lands here in Fort Lauderdale, goes to baggage claim, down here below me and terminal 2, he raised his gun, goes into the bathroom, apparently loads the gun. And according to the witness that was interviewed by Shepard Smith, he then comes back out into the baggage claim area and just starts shooting people at point blank in the head and in their bodies, blood everywhere. And according to that witness, he emptied his gun, reloaded it, and then started shooting again. And then, when law enforcement here at the airport, which is primarily Broward County sheriff's department, when they responded and started yelling commands at the guy, he offered no more resistance, and then just sat down. He was arrested, handcuffed, taken off for questioning, in custody at the sheriffs department or perhaps an additional location right now because of the severity of the situation, as terror is still being investigated as a possible motive. The sheriff of Broward County said he still couldn't comment whether he thought it was terror related. But in general, people here today were in a great state of terror.

BOLLING: All right. Greg, next question.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Do we know for a fact that the suspect was on that flight and where were his victims on that flight or was it a specific flight in general?

KEATING: Yeah. It is still unclear. The initial reports that people were going with was he was on the Air Canada flight. Air Canada checks this guy's name. Then they put out a statement saying there was nobody on any of our flights today by this name, nor did any of our incoming flights to Fort Lauderdale have any passenger that checked a weapon when they checked into the original airport. And so, it is now believed that this alleged gunman, a lone gunman, acting alone, with the belief of the sheriff and the FBI boarded a plane to Alaska, then connected in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then continued on to Fort Lauderdale, landing shortly before 1:00 p.m., and then in the baggage claim area unleashing a wave of carnage. Eight people were wounded by the gunfire. They are still being treated at the local hospitals here in Broward County. And there should be an additional statement tonight, a news briefing update by the sheriff, we would expect, before the 10:00 and 11:00 local newscast here in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.

Any second now, Governor Rick Scott will be coming before the microphone. He flew down from Tallahassee today. He has been briefed at the airport, and he is just running a little late for his planned 4:45 news conference. Now, it is supposed to be 5 o'clock. And clearly, he is not quite yet onsite. But we are expecting that to happen sometime, any second now.

BOLLING: KG.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Hi, Phil. We are wondering then he has a background, but here we have some information regarding his criminal record. And he has something down four minor traffic incidents, an eviction. What is interesting to me, as a former prosecutor, is that in January of 2016, charged with two misdemeanors, one count of fourth degree assault and another for damage of property over $50. And apparently, the genesis of that was a domestic violence incident where then he entered a deferred prosecution program by completing certain requirements. The case was then dismissed by the state prosecutor. So that wasn't but a year ago. Do we know anything else about the background, the nature of that particular crime, about who victim might have been, because interesting that he has a weapon here?

KEATING: Yeah. Details are still hard to get regarding the past personal life of this alleged gunman here. The domestic we had heard about a couple of hours ago, and it appears that the domestic violence victim, who we would presume would be a girlfriend or a wife of this suspect, decided didn't want to participate with the continuation of pressing of charges, so the prosecutor dropped it. But that was a year ago. There are reports that he was in the army at some point. The big question now is what was the motive here? Is this a sympathizer to terror? Is this somebody who may have had some sort of personal beef with somebody or life in general, maybe PTSD. Everything is on the table. No one has gotten any better details on that from law enforcement, but they do have the shooter alive in custody, not wounded. Law enforcement did not fire a single shot here today. All of the bullets were fired by the suspect.

Again, 13 people shot, five of them have died create, a very sad day here at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport, which remains closed at this time. Everybody who was stranded here outside on the curbside check or as well as inside terminal 2, at least outside, I guess I can speak to that. No one has had any water or any food for several hours here. And people are starting to come up to us asking if we had any water. Unfortunately, we don't either. Everyone is hoping this airport gets cleared, secured, declared safe, and normal airport activities get back and operations up and running here sometime in the near future.

BOLLING: Dana Perino. DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Hi, Phil. Do they have any reason to believe they need to continue the search through the parking lot or is that a precaution? And my second question would be about the evacuation plans of the airports. Obviously, no one can plan for every single thing, but in terms of your experience of covering disasters and tragedies, how do you think that the airport fare?

KEATING: Well, it was absolutely a jam packed traffic jam bottleneck. We took a back route into the airport, from the south side on Griffin Boulevard. The main -- often the distance behind me, the main way to get into the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport is you take and I-95 and then you connect to the East-West 595. And that is the main three lanes, four lanes coming into the airport. That was an absolute parking lot, and it was eventually closed. And that was -- people were stuck in their cars and they couldn't go anywhere, because you're moving less than a-mile-an-hour. The people that were here at the airport had already been dropped off or had gotten out of ground transportation, taxicab or service to get on their flights, well, they are stuck here. There is nowhere to go. You can't get out of here. No one is allowed to move until this airport is checked, every square inch.

Let's take another look at some of these fatigue-wearing law enforcement officers. They are out there, like I said, checking every single truck, every single car, making sure -- look, they are looking in the bed of this pickup truck right now, making sure there are no explosive devices, anything that is a security flag. Nothing will be left uncovered here today. Every square inch is being pored over. So this is going to take a while. It is a large piece of property. But this airport has been on lockdown for quite some time, and you would think there they are at least more than halfway done going through everything. But they want to make sure no one is suspicious, and there is nothing suspicious to be found before they declare the airport can reopen.

BOLLING: We are going to stay with you. Governor Scott about three minutes away, we are hearing. We are going to stay with you until we hear from him. In the meantime, Juan has a question.

JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Hi, Phil. Very interested in the idea that he was seen wearing this blue Star Wars t-shirt, 26 years old, Esteban Santiago. The question I have is, are you allowed to transport the bullets with the gun?

KEATING: That is a very good question. I suppose you would be. To get the clearance by the airline to check your gun -- and hundreds will do this all the time. I don't believe they are required to pack their hunting gun or rifle or handgun for that matter then be required upon landing to have to go get ammunition to use the weapon. So I don't know that for a fact. The FBI and the ATF as well as the sheriff as well really would not get into absolute meticulous details of the investigation during the last briefing.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: No, but I was interested in, Phil -- I was interested understanding the law. It came as a surprise that you can transport a gun because it would open the door to this kind of incident where somebody then takes a gun inside the security perimeter, and even if they were met by an associate or a colleague, then the colleague could bring the ammunition, and maybe that is what they were worried about in terms of the garage, that there was someone who is going to meet Mr. Santiago and who would have exacerbated the circumstance with explosives, further ammunition.

KEATING: But the suspect did not go into the security area -- in other words, did not go through TSA with the weapon. The weapon was reportedly checked in his luggage, checked in at the front counter.

PERINO: Right.

KEATING: He then got his boarding pass and then went through security and then flew via Minneapolis from anchorage and then landed here in Fort Lauderdale, walks out -- goes down to baggage check, gets his bag from the carousel, then goes into the baggage, the guys goes to the bathroom and loads it up.

PERINO: Right.

KEATING: So presumably -- here comes the governor, by the way, coming up with his entourage here. But that is the prevailing theory of what exactly happened, Juan.

BOLLING: And, Phil, one thing we should point out, is at the baggage claim area, you left the security area of the airport already. I mean, so anyone technically can come and bring bullets, a gun, whatever at that point.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Let's just see here, the governor is coming. He is on his way to the podium. Let's take a listen to what he has to say, Phil.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SCOTT, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: All the right. The first thing I want to tell you is we will not tolerate acts of evil. You just can't imagine how this could ever happen in a state like ours. Think of the innocent lives that are lost. We still have -- according to the sheriff's department, we have five, as you know -- we have five individuals that have lost their lives. We still have people fighting for their lives in the hospitals. Whoever is responsible will be held accountable to the full extent of the law. Let me repeat this. The state of Florida, the citizens of Florida, law enforcement in this state will not tolerate evil acts. Whoever is responsible will be held accountable to the full extent of the law.

I heard about this when I was in Fort Myers. I made it became over here, got over here about 1:45. I stayed in contact with the sheriff's office, Sheriff Israel has done an outstanding job, the FBI. Everybody involved has done an outstanding job. There has been complete coordination between the sheriff's department, the airport security, all federal agencies, everybody has worked together. I reached out across the state, I acknowledge our National Guard to make sure they were ready, if there is any need for the National Guard. But also, everyone across the state, major airports, we will make sure whatever resources they need, the state was available to provide those resources.

My heart goes out to every family impacted, the families that lost their loved ones and the families and the individuals that have loved ones still in the hospital fighting for their lives. We can't imagine how this could happen to any family, anywhere in the world. And clearly, we don't want this to happen in our great state. I have reached out to president-elect Trump and spoken with him and vice president-elect Pence multiple times to keep them informed. And they told me whatever resources that we need, they would do anything in their power to make that happen. My number one priority right now in Florida is to keep everybody safe. Everybody that lives in our state, everybody that travels in our state, do everything we can to keep them safe.

As you know, this is an ongoing investigation. There is a lot of information that law enforcement will put out at the time they can put out, and they will do that as quickly as they can. But I tell you, everybody is working hard to find out exactly what happened and to hold whoever did this accountable. I don't ever want this to happen again to any family anywhere in the world, but clearly, never again in our great state. I'd be glad to answer any questions anybody has.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you get here?

SCOTT: How did I get here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

SCOTT: I flew into executive airport.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they need to provide security for you? (Inaudible).

SCOTT: I believe so. I came here as quickly as I could, stay informed, make sure that whatever resources the state needs, we provided. I made sure that the sheriff knew that, the airport knew that. But on top of that, I did that for airports and sheriff's departments across the state on top of talking to our National Guard to make sure they are ready.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What information do you have on the gunman?

SCOTT: This is an ongoing investigation. All that information will be released through the sheriff's department at the appropriate time.

(CROSSTALK)

SCOTT: Say again please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

SCOTT: We don't have details right now, but that will be released at the appropriate time. Right now, the biggest thing to do is to pray for them. We went through pulse. The biggest thing is to pray for those individuals that ended up in the hospital, pray that every one of them survived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you spoken with President Obama?

SCOTT: I have not spoken to President Obama.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has he reached out to you?

SCOTT: No, first of all, he has not reached to me. I talked to vice- president Pence -- president-elect Trump and vice-president-elect Pence quite a few times, just to keep them informed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you reach out to (inaudible)?

SCOTT: I have not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible)?

SCOTT: This is an ongoing investigation. The sheriff department will release information as quickly as they can.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has president-elect Trump (inaudible)?

SCOTT: I reached out to president-elect Trump and vice president-elect Pence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)? SCOTT: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) resources?

SCOTT: I have a personal relationship with vice-president Pence and president-elect Trump. And I reached out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any other questions?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible)?

SCOTT: It is horrible what happened here. It is not a time to be political. It is time to mourn for those who lost their lives, finish the investigation, and pray for everybody that is still fighting for their life.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned pulse, now another incident that (inaudible)?

SCOTT: Just remember, this is a simple act of evil. We are going to hold whoever did this accountable. Not time to do politics. It is a time to -- remember, we have an active investigation. Finish the investigation, mourn for those who lost their lives, and pray for those who are still fighting for their lives. Thank you, everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: OK. So that was Governor Scott. I did notice, KG, that he mentioned he has spoken to Donald Trump today and he have not spoken to the president of the United States yet.

GUILFOYLE: I'm not sure what's going on with that. But it is important to be communicating with both of them to make sure that they are fully apprised of the circumstances and the details. You see that he is really reluctant to kind of, you know, go any further until they have the rest of the information regarding the shooter, the background, regarding motivation, and intention here, if there was anything else associated with this. And so, we are probably waiting for those developing facts.

WILLIAMS: I am surprised like Eric. I mean, you want the military -- you want to check this guy's background. You want to find out what the government knows about him, so it would seem you want to go to the man who is the president and you want to go to homeland security as well as to the U.S. military offices. I see in my notes it says that his name has been put through all of the military databases. So, you know, Rick Scott, the governor, says he doesn't want to play politics. This is such a thing, it is almost like you know there are two presidents. It is weird.

BOLLING: Well, do you think President Obama will contact Rick Scott?

WILLIAMS: I think Rick Scott said he reached out only to president-elect Trump.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: He said Trump reached out to him. Trump said he left his briefing.

GUTFELD: Yes.

BOLLING: Intel briefing. And he reached out to Governor Scott. They said --

WILLIAMS: That's what I heard.

BOLLING: So your thoughts and what we heard from Governor Scott?

GUTFELD: Well, I'm just curious about whether this is terror or not, a terrorist's life always goes down with the ship, and this guy didn't go down with the ship, he gave up.

GUILFOYLE: He sat down.

GUTFELD: He sat down. At the same time, there is some fishy stuff. It is all speculation. So what can you say, you know?

BOLLING: Dana, your thoughts on the response so far?

PERINO: Well, I think in regard to having communication to with the federal government, whether he talked to the president or the president- elect, if the governor were asking for federal resources, of course, he would need to talk to the president of the United States. As he said, he has a personal relationship with Trump and Pence. Until he needs federal assistance, I don't think that matters.

BOLLING: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: We agree. I think you've got to go right now or you have resources, Dana, the resources with United States government.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: But they are being checked.

WILLIAMS: Like Greg said, if this is a terrorist incident.

GUTFELD: I didn't say that.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: No, what you said committee suggested that it could be. We all lived in fear in this country of terrorist-inspire or terrorist-led activity of this kind of sort. If that is the case, let's get the government involved.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: No doubt. Phil, can you weigh in a little bit? Juan points out that -- first of all, the Navy came out first and said, we don't have anyone by that name in our database.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Army, National Guard.

BOLLING: And so, the other armed forces are weighing in. If he does have that military ID, do we know which branch of the military he claimed to be a part of?

KEATING: It appears to be army, because -- whether he served active duty in the army, that is unknown or at least unconfirmed. Thanks to my colleague, our colleague, Jen Griffin. She said that the director of public affairs for the Alaska National Guard confirms that the alleged shooter here at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport, Esteban Santiago, was a member of the Alaska army national guard until August of this past year, 2016, when he was given a quote, general discharge. Nothing beyond that at this point, but there could be a more detailed lengthy statement coming soon as well.

PERINO: Can I talk?

BOLLING: Go ahead, Dana.

PERINO: I'm just saying that we have a message here that says the brother of the man who has been tentatively named as the suspect says the suspect was receiving psychological treatment while living in Alaska. This is Brian Santiago, a report out of Alaska.

BOLLING: Phil.

KEATING: Possibly this shooter just completely snapped when he got here. Everything is on the table at this point. And the sheriff, the FBI, the Miami chief -- the division chief, they are standing with the governor there. Basically only the governor spoke, didn't provide any new information regarding what he might be divulging during his interrogation, which you can only imagine is continuing at this hour. And he has been in custody since basically 10 minutes after 1:00 p.m. this afternoon.

GUILFOYLE: I just think that we also have to get more information regarding the general discharge and especially this report that Dana just mentioned about having some psychological problems. All right. Well, joining us more with airport security is former deputy TSA administrator Tom Blank. Thank you for joining us, Tom. So developing situation here with information coming out as they were able to pull some forensics, do some database searches, determine the background of this individual and what his intent might be. How do you see this going?

TOM BLANK, FORMER DEPUTY TSA ADMINISTRATOR: I think in some ways that it is a validation of the way that airport security has been developed over the period since 9/11. Every airport has an airport security program. It is administered by TSA, but it defines the roles and responsibilities of everybody who is in law enforcement, who has first responder capabilities in the area. It would be different for every airport. And what we saw this afternoon was that the airport security program unfolded with the ceiling of the perimeter. That is a good thing. Then they isolated terminal 2 where the threat was, the shooter was. It wasn't long until they had him in custody, and then they began to evaluate and secure what threats might be present in other parts of the airport. Obviously, it is a tragedy because of the loss of life, but this appears to have been well coordinated, which is what Governor Scott just said.

GUILFOYLE: We have a couple of questions for you, take it around the table. Juan.

WILLIAMS: Mr. Blank, I'm very interested, I see you're described as one of the founding fathers of the TSA. I, as a frequent traveler, am surprised that really, counters, ticket counters, baggage claim areas are not secured. That doesn't make sense to me.

BLANK: Well, it's a matter of finding the right balance between being able to process and have some degree of convenience in the air travel system and also the proper degree of security.

The logical implication of your question is that we would conduct screening before individuals ever got to the ticket counter, which would cause very serious logistical problems in terms of slowing things down if we did it on the perimeter of airports as vehicles, taxis and so forth, entered the airport.

So there are ways to evaluate the threats that might be present from observations, through cameras and that sort of thing. So the risk is reduced, but we still are able to have some degree of freedom of movement and not wind up in a situation where going to the airport requires a four- hour advance -- advance arrival.

WILLIAMS: One follow-up on that is what about the gun, that people are allowed to transport guns and apparently ammunition and then load in the bathroom. Again, to me, this seems like, boy, that's a big hole.

BLANK: Well, it's -- it's actually a pretty solid system where you declare your weapon. It has to be contained in a locked case approved by TSA. The baggage screeners are aware of it. They look for it as the baggage is being screened. Sometimes they will double check it.

And I think, Juan, the question becomes, is, if you didn't allow people to travel with weapons, and you remove those weapons from the baggage claim area, how much more secure is the baggage claim area? And that's a good debate to have. But obviously, the baggage claim area, as open as it is, would be subject to someone simply walking in the front door with a gun.

BOLLING: Sir, we talked about this exact thing happening in Turkey, when the terrorist walked into the front of the airport and before they got to the secure area started firing away, killing people, mowing them down. I mean, we're just talking about money now, aren't we? Aren't we just talking about having every airport in the country secure, as Juan points out, the ticket area and the baggage area? It seems like we have to be willing, at this point, to spend the money versus having more incidences like this.

BLANK: This is -- this would be a good debate to have as to whether or not we do need more security on what I'll term the public areas of the airport.

But I think the real question is, when you have 450 commercial airports in the country, you're seeing 2 million passengers a day, 18 million pieces of checked baggage. How much inconvenience, additional security, additional screening will the American people tolerate before they begin to just say, "Look, my freedom of movement is so hampered that I'm just not going to fly anymore"?

GUILFOYLE: Interesting. Dana, you have a question for Mr. Blank?

PERINO: Yes, sir. A question for you about, I guess it's a state prerogative, but I wonder if the federal government and the TSA had ever taken a position on it, either when -- from when you are serving there or later. And that is, apparently, Florida was going to take up a question in their statehouse next week, asking the question, should guns be allowed in the airport? So as they -- as you're coming in to pick somebody up, et cetera.

Has the TSA has ever taken a position on that, or do they leave it to the states?

BLANK: Well, the TSA would not take a position on a state firearms measure. But some states do put additional restrictions on weapons that are carried into the airport in terms of declaration, in terms of being able to inspect them, in terms of being able to find out whether or not they're an illegal weapon or a properly registered weapon.

TSA would not interfere with -- with any states that wanted to put these additional restrictions on carrying a firearm into an airport.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Greg, you have a question?

GUTFELD: To me anyway, Mr. Blank, this seems like another example of when you -- once you harden other targets, the soft targets become visible. We harden all these entrances at large airports, but we forget about the exits of smaller airports.

What would you do? What would suggest? You know, if you have family and relatives going to these airports, what would you like to see changed?

BLANK: Well, I would like to see overall additional capability to do intelligence-based risk assessments. We have some of that now with secure flight, where we do background checks, a certain amount of background checks against the no-fly list, against phony Social Security numbers and things -- and things like this. Maybe more enhancement of identifying a phony I.D. at the checkpoint would help.

I would definitely close down the -- what I call the side entrances to airports. I don't think we look hard enough at airport and airline employees who come to work, access the secure areas but don't go through the -- don't go through the checkpoints.

So I think there are definitely things that we can do to make the envelope tighter, and those are some of the things I'd start with.

GUILFOYLE: So let's just take it a step further here, because you talked about this. It was an interesting debate about the public areas of the airport. I mean, to your knowledge, when was the last time there was a comprehensive, you know, study done or some kind of meeting or consensus on what measures we can take? And I am certain there will be some hearings after what has transpired here, because this seems to be -- you know, a gaping hole.

BLANK: Well, I think that's -- I think you're probably right. You know, the studies that are done are probably -- come in the form of checks and attempts to penetrate the system from the General Accounting Office, from the various inspectors general and from TSA itself, to see where the -- where there are gaps that you can possibly get weapons, prohibited items through. So that's going on, on a constant basis, reported to Congress and elsewhere on a regular basis. And but it's obviously kept secret so the bad guys don't find out.

It is very likely that most airport lobbies in this day and age by this time are under camera surveillance, and you probably have people in command centers who are doing some observation for what might be defined as suspicious movements through the airport or suspicious behaviors, so that there could be that kind of a response from visual surveillance.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Excellent. And Tom Blank, thank you for joining us here on "The Five" today. Former deputy TSA administrator, referred to as founding father of the TSA.

All right. So Juan, we want to discuss this a little bit further. We can talk about it at the table.

WILLIAMS: You know, I'm so interested. I don't know that this happens very often in our country, thank God. But I read that the last time we had such an incident was 2013 in Los Angeles, and there, a TSA officer was killed.

But in general, this is an exceptional event, given all of our hardening of our targets and, of course, the airports. You know, maybe we should stop for a second and say this might be just an outlier.

BOLLING: We got lucky this time, I mean, believe it or not. One of the -- Fort Lauderdale Airport, it looks crowded there, but not a big, major hub, not a big airport. If this guy wanted to -- you know, I don't know if he just lost his mind. You know, because if you wanted to create a lot more mortality, wanted to kill more people, you could go to any one of the airports.

GUILFOYLE: But this is still the 22nd busiest.

BOLLING: But here's the point. Here's the point. They're just Every baggage claim -- next time you fly, pick up your bag, look at the people who are walking in and out. You don't know if they are crazy, packing heat. Listen, I am saying -- when you're in the airport, wants to talk about creating terror, that is the place to do it. Think about your emotions when you're going through the airport. You want to get to your place. You want to get to your flight. You're stressed out. I mean, that's...

WILLIAMS: By the way, I think it is a major airport.

GUILFOYLE: It is a -- it's 22nd busiest.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I think that's a big -- and I attempted once going through there, and boy, it is packed with folks going on cruises, because a lot of the cruises go out of there.

BOLLING: But it's not at La Guardia. It's not, I mean, we're talking, you know ...

WILLIAMS: You're right.

BOLLING: ... big airports.

PERINO: OK, well, we have a FOX News alert. Just moments ago -- just moments ago a declassified report on Russia hacking our election was released. The report states that Vladimir Putin ordered a, quote, "influence campaign" aimed at undermining the 2016 election, specifically towards Hillary Clinton.

Catherine Herridge has spent the last hour digging through the new finding, and she joins us now.

Catherine, can you get us up to speed on this other breaking news story today?

CATHERINE HERITAGE, FOX CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: So I've been through the report. BOLLIt's about 25 pages, Dana. And in my 15 years of covering this beat, I have never read a report that is so strongly worded and is so definitive.

The report has a series of key judgments. These are the major findings of the investigation, and it says that they are at the level of high confidence. And if you are grading the intelligence, that would mean they're giving it an "A" or an "A+." That means that there is high-quality intelligence; there are multiple sources of intelligence that lead them to their conclusions.

And their main conclusion is that this was a operation that was ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to influence the American election, to undermine our democracy, to hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of winning; and then over time, they came to want to root, if you will, for Donald Trump. That became their favored candidate.

So those are the main headlines, and they say the intelligence is at the level of high confidence. So this is like an "A+" in the intelligence world.

PERINO: All right. We're going to take it around the table here.

HERRIDGE: Sure.

PERINO: Greg, you had a question?

GUTFELD: Yes, I was looking at, on page 11 of the report, and -- and what -- the reasons why Putin directed this. A lot of it had to do with -- it always feels like they're slighted. In this case, it was over the Olympic doping scandal and the Panama papers.

HERRIDGE: Right.

GUTFELD: It's like -- I don't know Putin or Russia understands that we were not responsible for those things that happened. Yet, is that really true that that is what drives Vladimir Putin to do these things, is that because of the doping scandal shamed them, we're going to come back and undermine their electoral system, their election system?

HERRIDGE: Well, a big piece is pride for the Russians, like with a lot of these leaders. And also buried in the report, you probably saw, too, Greg, is that it was kind of payback against then-Secretary Clinton for 2011 and 2012, when he publicly blamed her for instigating demonstrations in his country against him after these parliamentary elections that were deemed to be not democratic.

But if you also look deep in the report, I want to emphasize to people that there's a very interesting finding, and it basically says that they wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton, but at a certain point they realized they felt she would win. And at that point they decided to change the focus of their operation to gather information that would hurt her future presidency.

And it reads in part -- just one second here -- "When it appeared to Moscow that Secretary Clinton was likely to win the election, the Russian influence campaign began to focus more on undermining her future presidency."

So the Russians didn't feel their campaign had been successful in damaging her chances of winning, and at a certain point, they decided to take the information they had and try and leverage it against her in the future.

PERINO: Catherine, I want to take it around. I'm going to ask you a quick one, since I didn't get a chance. This -- you're reading from an unclassified report that was released. And Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, has said she wishes that the American people could get more of the details. Do you have any insight as to what is in the classified document that would be different from the information you have now?

HERRIDGE: OK. So this unclassified report really has absolutely no backup data about sources and methods. And critics will use this as a way to say that the intelligence community politicized this report, and they're hiding behind protecting sources and methods by not releasing the information.

The other side of the argument is that this is the kind of information that, if it becomes public, they can't afford to burn or destroy those sources.

But reading the unclassified report, you've got to take a lot on faith, I have to say, because there really is no data that's declassified or source beyond a lot of reporting about the Russian-backed TV network, RT, but this hardly seems like strong intelligence for someone who's looking at these conclusions.

PERINO: All right. Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: Yes. Hi, Catherine.

HERRIDGE: Hi.

GUILFOYLE: So a couple things catch my -- well, a lot of them. But two that I'd just like to mention real quickly here, when three agencies agreeing with the report, CIA and FBI, with high confidence, but it specifies that the NSA attributed with moderate confidence, so that's one.

And then secondly, per James Rosen, when he was reporting earlier that there was a major hole in the ODNI report, that there were Podesta -- nothing was mentioned about Podesta or his e-mail hacking. If you can just address those two things.

HERRIDGE: Sure. So generally speaking with the key judgments, they're at high confidence. There are some other assessments or conclusions that are at moderate confidence. And if you want to be a real intel geek about this, you can look at the table in the back to understand what that means. But like I said, I'd say high confidence is like an "A," "A+" for the underlying intelligence, and moderate would be like a "B," "B-," which of course I'm very familiar with from my days in school.

OK. OK, so on this other point, on the Podesta -- James is correct that there is not a reference to the Podesta emails. But I would argue that it's kind of a given in the way the report is written.

It says that WikiLeaks was the recipient of documents that came through the Russian intelligence services. WikiLeaks posted the DNC emails, as well as the Podesta emails. And the intelligence community assessed that the Russians chose WikiLeaks, because it has a track record for being very reliable and authoritative.

And they also said -- and I thought this was pretty important -- that there was no evidence that the emails were doctored in any way. And I think if you remember, in the weeks leading up to the election, the campaign said repeatedly that they had been doctored or altered in some way, but that was not the finding of the IC.

Final thing on this if I can...

GUILFOYLE: Interesting.

HERRIDGE: ... they talk about WikiLeaks getting the information from the Russian intelligence services. But there's no underlying data to help you understand what that -- that's based upon. That would be in the classified version.

And Julian Assange has been very, very direct and on the record with Sean Hannity about the source and that he does not believe it was the Russian government. So you're going to have to -- I really encourage people to read it for themselves and come to their own conclusions about the report.

PERINO: All right. Eric.

BOLLING: So Catherine, when -- remembering back from my high school days, you have a hypothesis, and then you go to the proof. And I'm looking for the proof here. I'm just going to read the lines. "We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016," and it goes through the things that you mentioned. There's your hypothesis. And I'm still, still looking for the proof. I don't see it.

HERRIDGE: I know.

BOLLING: You mentioned it, "A+" or "B-."

HERRIDGE: Yes.

BOLLING: So far I'm giving them a -- maybe a "D," maybe an "F." And let's say, give me some evidence. Am I wrong?

HERRIDGE: Well, the unclassified report is just not going to contain the underlying data about the sources. So for example, whether it came from human spying or whether it came from intercepted phone calls. That's kind of the jeopardy of putting out something that's unclassified.

And as I said earlier, you have to take a lot of it on faith, that the underlying data in the classified report really backs up these very sweeping -- and as I said at the beginning, very strongly-worded conclusions about what happened. But I would really encourage...

BOLLING: Can I...

HERRIDGE: Go ahead.

BOLLING: Can I just add that DNI Clapper is also the guy who testified under oath that Americans were not -- Americans were not being data mined and later had to walk that back after it was being proven that we were, in fact, and he did, in fact, know about it.

HERRIDGE: I know. And, you know, let's -- I sort of hesitate to mention Benghazi. But I mean, we reported a week after the attack it was not a demonstration, and it took about a month for everyone to come clean on that.

So people have to read it for themselves. I would suggest a couple of times, and they can reach their own conclusions about whether it's a politicized document or not.

One of the things that really jumps out at me is there was -- it want -- the document wants people to understand that it, in no way, measured how it influenced voters. And I go back to the quote I gave Dana. The report itself acknowledges that the Russians felt the campaign had failed and that she was going to win, so they decided to use the evidence sort of as leverage against a Clinton presidency, which never happened.

And I would also tell you, from my experience, because this is what the U.S. government does, too. We collect information as a way to hedge our bets. We try and understand as much as possible about what a future government, a future administration is going to look like. So that is not all that unusual. What's unusual here is that it was very targeted to, they say, hurt one candidate and help another in this case.

BOLLING: Thank you.

PERINO: All right. Juan.

WILLIAMS: So by the way, I take a different view, because I think there are now 16 agencies who agree with what you've called an "A" OR "A+" assessment. So even though we may not be able to identify, because this is spy craft, and not be told the sources or methods, I don't see that that's unusual. That's commonplace in terms of reports on intelligence to the American people. But we have to trust that, in fact, the people who are in our intelligence community are people of some integrity. I happen to trust that. I don't think it can be politicized across so many lines of authority.

HERRIDGE: Right.

WILLIAMS: Which brings me to today's meeting between Donald Trump and Jim Clapper, the director of national intelligence; Jim Comey, the FBI director; Mike Rogers. And I wonder, Catherine, if you know what happened there, because even earlier today, Donald Trump was telling The New York Times that he thinks this is nothing but a witch hunt, a witch hunt done by people who are unhappy with the election results.

HERRIDGE: I don't have good information about what happened inside that briefing, because I've been kind of working two stories this afternoon, the Florida thing and this thing. So I don't want to give you bad information.

But what I would say is that this is really a case that we have never seen before. What I mean by that is the -- an influence campaign targeting an election. But we have never seen an outgoing administration dump a report like this on an incoming administration, and it really has the effect of undermining the results. I don't know how you can really see it in any other way.

And, again, people have got to read it for themselves. They have to look at the conclusions. They have to decide whether they've got faith in the underlying data and whether this is a starting point to have a more active cyber policy that would prevent this in the future or whether it's kind of payback by an administration that didn't act fast enough and allowed this to happen.

PERINO: That's -- that is a very good question.

Also, last question for you, Catherine.

HERRIDGE: Sure.

PERINO: Do you have any information or background on the Jim Woolsey decision, the former CIA director, who was working with the Trump campaign and decided to effectively end that relationship yesterday?

HERRIDGE: I want -- I want to think about what I want to say here.

GUTFELD: Wait. This is cable news.

HERRIDGE: I think what I want to say...

GUTFELD: This is cable news. No thinking, just talking.

PERINO: No thinking allowed.

GUILFOYLE: This is "The Five." It's "The Five." Don't worry.

HERRIDGE: I guess what I would say is that I think there could have been better communication between the transition team and Mr. Woolsey about what the objectives were and what his role was and how much input he would have.

PERINO: Right. Often has.

HERRIDGE: That's the diplomatic way I would say it. And I will...

PERINO: Such a diplomat.

HERRIDGE: ... think before I speak next time.

PERINO: You're such a diplomat. Catherine, thank you very much.

HERRIDGE: You're welcome.

PERINO: We always appreciate your expertise.

GUILFOYLE: You're ready for "Special Report."

PERINO: Wasn't -- she got, like, straight "A's" all through...

GUILFOYLE: I mean, right?

PERINO: Through law school, I believe. I can't believe that.

GUTFELD: She got a "B-" in lying, because we knew she was lying there.

I think -- I have to say, this is -- this is an incredible victory for Putin. He's -- the whole point was to create a rift and to subvert the trust in our intel, because that's a very -- by having the president-elect marginalize your spy services, it's like your rival team is benching your smartest player or your QB. It's like that's what's happening. It's like even Putin -- Putin didn't have to do that much. He did it.

GUILFOYLE: Well, he was, like, the king of the KGB.

GUTFELD: He was, yes.

PERINO: Never forget.

GUILFOYLE: Sort of put it (ph)...

GUTFELD: That was the GRU.

BOLLING: But -- but there is that school of thought that says that the intel community has been politicized. And you look at the two examples, the one I mentioned with DNI Clapper, who had to walk back the comment in front of Senator Weyden (ph), a Democrat.

GUTFELD: And also the ISIS stuff.

BOLLING: And -- and the red line stuff, where remember, the 50 agents said, "You know what? We were not allowed -- we were trying to tell the top levels of intel that the red line has been crossed, but it would look bad for President Obama." And the top levels apparently sat on that information or hid it in some format.

So you really have to make a leap of faith saying, look, they're good; they're good at gathering. They're good -- I get it. But the analysis of it and...

GUILFOYLE: The same thing with the CIA and Brennan.

BOLLING: ... what they're determining with what they're doing, and how they deliver it to the public. You have to have a bit of a leap of faith to believe that it had -- influenced the election.

GUTFELD: You also need a leap of faith to trust Assange. You know? That's the weird thing. You have the right embracing Assange and badmouthing the NSA. Kind of weird for me. The Cold War has now turned into a hot romance.

WILLIAMS: Yes, Obama said -- Obama said...

GUILFOYLE: Kind of weird.

WILLIAMS: ... Ronald Reagan would be flipping over in his grave. I mean, you know, because it's kind of odd. But here's the thing, and I said this earlier.

PERINO: Like to have Democrats defending the intel community?

GUTFELD: Yes. That's the weirdest part.

WILLIAMS: That's not so odd.

GUTFELD: They spent four decades -- like, being fellow travelers.

WILLIAMS: No, no, no. No, in fact -- in fact, I think lots of people have legitimate criticism about the intelligence community in this country having -- we have too much, too many lines that are overlapped, and it's not clear where the authority lays and who has responsibility. And you get into situations where you can have good data, but then you have questionable analysis.

BOLLING: Analysis.

WILLIAMS: In this case, everybody agrees.

PERINO: I think it's pretty hard to get 16 people to have...

GUTFELD: I didn't even know there were 16. By the way, I think this is an opportunity...

GUILFOYLE: They know about you.

GUTFELD: I know. Well, it's not that hard.

But President-elect Trump has an opportunity to become a hawk on cyber terror. Like, you know, he could come out and go, "OK, this is baby games. All this hacking and phishing is baby games. We need to focus on marriage of terror and technology. What could happen if they go after our terror grid?" That's what he should focus on.

WILLIAMS: I love it.

GUTFELD: Enough of this stuff. We have to worry about people attacking and dismantling and destroying the country.

PERINO: Can you imagine if you were one of those sources, and your name or the data that's in the classified report. And you're one of those sources. And you know that you're sitting -- maybe you're sitting in Moscow looking over your shoulder tonight, because -- it's very serious.

GUILFOYLE: Or no longer looking over your shoulder.

GUTFELD: But Putin has a garage, though, because he's mad over the Olympics.

PERINO: Because he was embarrassed.

BOLLING: What was in that report that maybe I'm misinterpreting the report, but it seemed like the intel departments were saying that, yes, the Russians were doing this, but they were doing it through a third party. They were paying or setting up a third party to go ahead and hack. Then they were going to take the information, and they turned it over to Assange.

I mean, then the question is, was this third party actually part of the Russian government or not? Or just state-sponsored?

PERINO: Maybe.

WILLIAMS: No. They said, in fact, they identified the hackers.

PERINO: They do. Right.

WILLIAMS: They say they identified the actors and traced it to Putin in terms of the organization.

BOLLING: In what terms?

WILLIAMS: What do you mean?

BOLLING: Like they were part of the KGB? They were part of...

WILLIAMS: That they were operating under orders from Vladimir Putin.

PERINO: Outsourcing.

BOLLING: Outsourcing is different. By the way, we out -- every country outsources intel. Every single country does it.

GUILFOYLE: It's extenuated (ph). It's not a direct link.

WILLIAMS: No, no. Well, we hire some agents.

BOLLING: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Yes, yes, yes, yes. You mean like covert operatives?

BOLLING: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Let me just say, I don't mean to shift the conversation, just briefly. I think there's so much concern on President-elect Trump's part that this delegitimizes his standing as the winner of this election.

So as the lone Democrat sitting here, let me just remind everybody, the Congress today confirmed that Donald Trump won the election.

GUTFELD: Yes. It's over.

WILLIAMS: It's over. It's like, you know what? That's our president.

GUTFELD: Biden said it was over.

WILLIAMS: It's over. But I don't get why you would then attack the intelligence community. Let's move on. Let's stop talking the politics and worry about delegitimizing Donald Trump. We're in a different game now. It's a foreign country. It's attacking us.

GUTFELD: I agree. Look, the Russians do this stuff. We do this stuff. Everybody does this stuff. This is just tiny stuff. We need to start talking about the big stuff, the attacks on our grid, on our power grid, hospitals, and banks.

BOLLING: Our nuclear codes. Can you imagine if they could hack into everything -- I'm sorry, Dana -- if they could hack into everything, but they can get our nuclear codes?

PERINO: The only thing that makes it different is that we are a country, for all the complaints about how we're not as transparent with our government, there is no other country that is exposing this kind of information and allowing the citizens to read a report as many times as they want to come up with their own conclusions. That is one of the things that makes this country so exceptional.

GUTFELD: And it does tick me off. Like, WikiLeaks began -- its purpose was to go after oppressive regimes. How did we become the oppressive regime to him?

PERINO: We are going to head back to Phil Keating, who is in Fort Lauderdale, and he has an update on the other story that we are covering this hour, the -- Phil. We'll go to you, Phil, for an update.

PHIL KEATING, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: OK.

PERINO: Phil?

GUILFOYLE: Phil?

PERINO: Hey, Phil.

GUTFELD: Phil, what's happening?

PERINO: I don't know.

BOLLING: Think it over first, Phil, before...

PERINO: We might not have Phil. But there will be an update, and I'm sure that "Special Report" will be covering.

Kimberly, any last thoughts?

GUILFOYLE: Yes, I was trying to say that Putin doesn't get mad, he just gets even. This is a situation where if he feels we attack him, he's going to do something. He's not going to forget about it.

GUTFELD: Very Russian. Trust me.

GUILFOYLE: You know this, because you live it at home every night.

GUTFELD: Oh, I know.

GUILFOYLE: You're holding up well.

BOLLING: In Clapper's defense, when he did do this oleo (ph) on whether or not we are being data mined, it was because he was asked in a public forum, and he probably had information that he felt was going to be dangerous if he answered it. You know, and some would say he should have just denied answering, because he had done that before.

But so in what your point is, that we are so transparent to the point of sometimes it's dangerous.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know what my thought is? I remember that President Obama said that, because we get so politically divided, we are more susceptible to this kind of attack coming.

GUTFELD: We air -- we air our dirty laundry. That's what our country does.

WILLIAMS: That's what Dana was saying.

GUILFOYLE: Yes, but in the interest of transparency.

WILLIAMS: Thank God for America on that point.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: I do think that that is quite remarkable. I do think -- it is weird to talk about retaliation against the Russians. Like, with the 35 people being expunged, and they had been here since the '70s and all that.

GUTFELD: Yes. We should just keep them. Better to know...

PERINO: Make them stay here?

GUTFELD: Better to know them than get rid of them. Like, then you've got to start over with all the new people. It's better to know your spies.

GUILFOYLE: Then they sent better ones to replace them.

GUTFELD: Yes. By the way, their spies are always attractive.

WILLIAMS: Oh, my gosh.

GUILFOYLE: Honestly? That's the conclusion?

GUTFELD: Russian spies -- yes.

PERINO: Well, that was one of the things. You watch "The Americans"?

GUTFELD: Yes. That's where we get our intel, from watching -- watching cable television shows about spies.

PERINO: Well, it was actually very good.

GUTFELD: It is very good.

GUILFOYLE: Just in that Vice-president-elect Pence said that President- elect Trump will take aggressive action early in the days of his administration to combat against cyber hacking.

GUTFELD: There you go.

GUILFOYLE: That just in.

GUTFELD: It's very important.

PERINO: I do think it would have been a strange position for Obama to be in in October, when he's getting this information. He's seeing this coming. He thinks the election is probably going to go Hillary's way, doesn't want to overplay his hand. And all that doesn't work out, and so now they're putting this all there.

WILLIAMS: And now the left is mad at him.

PERINO: At him.

GUILFOYLE: But also, the biggest takeaway from this is, you know, we got a report here and a determination, a conclusion. But again, we don't have the classified information. We have a report mostly with conclusions that are very strong, as she said. So, you know, we're not going to be able to get that information. We have to trust their judgement.

BOLLING: Donald Trump was briefed by the heads of intel, and post briefing he did come out and say -- and he made a formal statement -- that he didn't think whatever they had actually influenced the outcome of the election. Now you can say, well, what else is he going to say, but...

WILLIAMS: No, I think...

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: ... would be an opportunity to do that.

GUILFOYLE: Well, nobody -- this report doesn't say that. It doesn't say that it influenced it. It was just that the intention was to influence and undermine and attack one candidate.

PERINO: And also to set up Hillary Clinton for failure. That was -- because they had thought she was going to win, so they wanted stuff to hang on her.

GUTFELD: She didn't need any help.

PERINO: All right. Set your DVR so you never miss an episode of "The Five." That's it for us. "Special Report" is next with all of this breaking news.

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