Greg Gutfeld explains why Fox News is a success
'Gutfeld!' panel celebrates Fox News' 25th anniversary
This is a rush transcript of "Gutfeld" on October 7, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST (on camera): Happy Thursday, everyone. Oh, it's a big day here at Fox News. It's our 25th anniversary. Yes!
All right. 25 years ago, this network was launched. And Joe Biden had just turned 69.
You know, 25 years. Now, normally, if something's over 25, it's too old for me. But, so much has happened in that time.
This was me 25 years ago. And this is me now. That's what you get from taking care of yourself, Kat. Not a drop of that virgin's blood went to waste.
Meanwhile, you know, here is Kat 25 years ago. And now, here is her today but without makeup. Yes. Thank God for our amazing hair and makeup team.
By the way, Emily Compagno is here tonight. Here is Emily from 25 years ago.
Oh, wow. You've changed, but I totally support the transition and the decision.
So, what was it like back when we started? Well, unlike mainstream media, we weren't afraid to take chances. Mainly, because FNC didn't drug test us back then. Here is our first morning show called "Marshmallow and Friends.
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GUTFELD: Hard to believe that did not win a Daytime Emmy.
KATHERINE TIMPF, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
GUTFELD: Yes, I remember Doocy having to give Kilmeade the Heimlich because he started choking on one of those little buggers. Their ratings plunged when Kilmeade survived.
We also created hard-hitting primetime programming like the slap factor.
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GUTFELD: Our motto back then was we slap, you decide how hard. That's also written in lipstick on the mirror above my waterbed. That's two grounds.
But people also came to Fox for the personalities, unlike places like CNN where hapless drones' regurgitated words from a teleprompter may look at this bunch. You'd find more charisma on a corners table.
But Fox created relationships with its viewers with dynamic likable characters. You probably don't remember this lively debate show, "Klucko and Murgla".
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very stupid doctor. You should know better than to attack us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we did not attack.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Silence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: They were actually arguing over the Iraq War.
Then, there's our edgy late night show, "Let's Talk About Sax.
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GUTFELD: Cavuto has changed a lot. That went on from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. What the stamina on that guy.
And of course, this was our afternoon chat show called, "We Eat Children".
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, oh, hello. I just been to the toy shop. And you know what I bought? Should I tell you? It is -- it's a clap puppet. And you know, you can do all sorts of things with a clap puppet.
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GUTFELD: And those things we cannot show you. Yes, we cut out the part where they actually do eat the children.
Our weekend show, however, was called "Ferris Wheel Losers".
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GUTFELD: You know, that show was the genesis for "OUTNUMBERED".
Finally, we launched our business channel with ultimate stock tips.
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GUTFELD: Yes, he was some kind of host. That guy got me to buy a lot of stock in Enron.
So, we've grown a lot since then. Well, not me, I've actually shrunk.
But I don't think there's been a success story quite like Fox coming out of nowhere mocked by the mainstream, and then beating the hell and the lies at all of them.
All the other networks love to crap all over us. And then suddenly, they all tried to become us. Fox News quickly became number one and made the other networks, of course, look like number two.
It happened for one reason, it wasn't afraid. We had bigger balls than a circus elephant. Fox wasn't trying to fit in with some media cool kids table. If you look at our competition, they were terrified of upsetting their industry peers, which is what happens when you all play for the same team.
Fox said screw that there's an entire country not being served, and we're taking them. I wonder what life would be like without Fox News. I mean, just imagine if there was only one perspective in other areas of life.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, doc, so I was throwing the football around the kids and my elbow is just killing me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, man. Yes, that's for sure, terminal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Terminal. Should I get a second opinion?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry, pal, I'm the only game in town and I know for a fact, you're going to die.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I really have no other choices.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Oh, don't worry, when you're gone, I'll take good care of your wife. Easy, Cuomo.
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GUTFELD: So, I got the Fox full time 13 years ago. You might remember this classic.
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GUTFELD: Hey, this is "RED EYE", a new show about politics, pop culture, and macramAc. It's kind of like Larry King, but without the dead guy.
First thing we're going to talk about, this is our first show, porn.
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GUTFELD: Yes. That's aged well. Like a loaf of white bread that felt behind a refrigerator five years ago. I looked disgusting. But it's odd is that show was Fox stood by it like a nurse besides a gravely ill patient.
Of course, they put us on at 3:00 a.m. I think that was the first example of social distancing. They hit us like a body in the trunk of a serial killer's car. But they all saw something in me besides a pint of gin and 25 bar olives.
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: They saw my genius, the talent, the quads, and they knew I was the man they wanted to see at 3:00 a.m. in the Eastern Time Zone, on T.V., instead of outside their windows crouched and the bushes.
But I'm grateful to Fox. It's amazing they hired me after Visiting Angels fired me.
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: They found that I was stealing bed pans. They make great dinner plates. But he -- but history has a way of repeating itself. The way Fox News entered the arena and clobbered mainstream news, this show, now is doing the same thing with late night.
The mainstream media treated us like a joke. Now, we're the ones delivering the punch line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GUTFELD: And every night, millions of viewer laughing along with us. The current crop of stale boring partisan late-night hosts are more interested in having Nancy Pelosi write their scripts than they are in keeping their audience interested.
SNL won't even make fun of Joe Biden. No wonder they had their lowest rated show in history last week, their season premiere. But this show follow the game plan of Fox News.
Look at what all the sheep are doing and provide what's missing. The unspeakable truths, the humor, the fun. Fox News also loves its country. And for that, Fox stood apart from the other media types who thought it cool to denigrate the bitter clingers.
As CNN devolves into a shrill clown car of sad scolds, we laugh harder than Kamala Harris after doing five whippets.
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: As MSNBC continues to use the emergency room at the mental hospital as their employee pool, we hire the renegades. And as late-night host shows become just more boring soapbox lectures, we are reinventing.
All those people will keep watching us, and they will keep reporting what we do and say, and we will continue to gladly let them. And we have you to thank for this. So, thanks, America. And also, you're welcome, America.
ANNOUNCER: Period!
GUTFELD: Let's welcome tonight's guest. His parents don't let him stay up this late. And if they find out he's here he's grounded. North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn.
She talks so fast, auctioneers asked her to take a breath. "OUTNUMBERED" co-host, Emily Compagno.
They call his fans pyromaniacs, mainly because they like to burn things. Co-host of "FOX AND FRIENDS FIRST", Todd Piro.
And she's a morning person because she's constantly mourning her mistakes from the night before. Fox News contributor Kat Timpf.
All right. Todd, I have to go to you first because you were an intern right at the launch, 1998.
TODD PIRO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR (on camera): Two years after the launch, but still, I mean, this place was nothing like it is today with one exception.
GUTFELD: Right.
PIRO: You were always allowed to be yourself here. And for somebody like me, I'm not allowed to be myself at home. They asked me to really tone it down.
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GUTFELD: Me too.
PIRO: But to come here, you're right, you get it. So, to come here and actually be yourself is what makes us so successful.
GUTFELD: What did you do as it -- Who you -- who did you interned for?
PIRO: I interned on a show called like, "THE EDGE".
GUTFELD: Oh, yes.
PIRO: But that thing, "THE EDGE," they had no idea what they were doing. And I feel like I can say that it was so unorganized, But that's what made it great because you got an opportunity as an intern to figure it out and you learn.
GUTFELD: Do you -- do you remember that it hosts?
PIRO: I remember I once brought John Scott a script.
GUTFELD: John Scott! All right, it might have been John Scott.
PIRO: And that was it. And there were few other (INAUDIBLE) a guy named Kris Osborn. These do like the reports on the weekend.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: And they would let me write these things. And it was a great opportunity. I also got roast beef sandwiches a lot.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: But I remember both of those experiences. But it's the fact that like, the place has changed, but the fundamental nature of it has, you're allowed to be yourself. And that's what makes us great.
GUTFELD: Yes.
So, Congressman Cawthorn you weren't even born, were you?
REP. MADISON CAWTHORN (R-NC): I was not alive at the time. No.
GUTFELD: No, no, no. When did you first start watching Fox?
CAWTHORN: Probably about two days after I was born. Very good. It's shocking. I mean, you know, Fox News is celebrating 25 years, which is incredible. You guys are now constitutionally eligible to run for Congress?
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORN: But what's incredible is, you know, CNN is over there just celebrating having 25 viewers.
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORN: And they're surprisingly all in terminal B of JFK.
GUTFELD: Yes. Very good point.
No, we have to -- on them. Because right now, they are -- no, they -- let's be clear, they are the losers. And all they are doing are like, because we're enjoying this, they're doing these little things, bad-mouthing us, saying, oh, we're bad for America. But it's because they are the losers.
That's like, you know, Tom Brady here winning the Super Bowl and the team saying you're bad for America? Does it look like Tom Brady?
The women are going, yes. Yes. Meanwhile, I look like Greg Brady.
Emily, you're a relatively new member of the Fox family. Was it me that made you want to join?
EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR (on camera): Should I be honest? I think to piggyback on your point that would always attracted me to Fox through all the years and through my career development was the caliber here.
It was obvious that the people here and what was being produced it -- just was head and shoulders above every other network, above everything else that was being put out there. And I felt the same way. I feel like I've had the honor of participating in a lot of different industries and doing a lot of different things. And nothing really felt like home. I always felt one step out.
And yet here, I can be totally myself and provide analysis in certain ways and be myself here. And there is always an opportunity to shine here, right? We're playing football at 8:00 in the morning on the plaza, or we're telling jokes at 11:00 p.m. Or we're hitting serious topics at noon.
All of that stuff. There's room for all of us here. But the common denominator is the truth and that we love this country.
GUTFELD: Very good. I only wait -- I just wish that maybe you were less yourself. I'm joking. Not really.
But, Kat, as I said before, this is the time where we crap all over our rivals that we have crushed. There are no interesting people on the other networks. There are no Kat Timpfs. There's not a single Kat Timpf on any of those shows. They would never hire you. They would never hire a Tyrus. They certainly would not hire me.
TIMPF (on camera): No, they wouldn't. But you wouldn't want to. I mean, what we're doing on this show is crazy. And that's what makes it awesome. I think I always wanted to do this. I was watching "RED EYE" before you knew I existed and I waited for a few years to tell you that.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: Because it's -- you can do what you want you to like you use that you can be yourself and not everybody here is the same. That's what people always think, oh, Fox News, you think this, you think this, you think this. If you think that, you're going to end up being wrong because there's a lot of people here with a lot of different perspectives. And it's just really awesome to work here.
GUTFELD: Yes, it is true because you know --
TIMPF: Oh, oh, and I love the country.
GUTFELD: You know, what's interesting to me is, as the elites, you know, and the pseudo-intellectuals crawl further up their own butts. This -- we just become more successful. Do you know what I mean? That I find that --
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COMPAGNO: Yes. They're eating themselves while we are rising above the rest.
GUTFELD: Exactly. They're eating their own butts.
OK, I should probably just move on.
Up next, need a new lung or heart? Get the vax or they won't even start.
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ANNOUNCER: Please God make this end!
GUTFELD: Get the vax or your transplant gets axed.
Colorado hospital system is denying organ transplants to patients who haven't been vaccinated against COVID, in quote, almost all situations. The reason, studies show transplant patients are more likely to die if they contract COVID. And the mortality rate for those who get it is more than 20 percent.
One woman with stage five renal failure is now looking for a new hospital after she was denied a kidney transplant. She spoke to a hideous-looking man who calls himself Todd, earlier today.
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PIRO: One of the hardest parts of obviously, your process that you're going through right now is to find a donor. Yet you found one, but the hospital said no transplant unless you get the vax. What went through your mind when the hospital said that to you?
LEILANI LUTALI, DENIED KIDNEY TRANSPLANT: I had a myriad of emotions, from confusion to dismay. Left me with a feeling of now, what?
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GUTFELD: Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, which stands for meaningless stuff, nobody cares. The calling for the FBI to start targeting Americans who share info that would make people more cautious about the vaccine.
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DR. UCHE BLACKSTOCK, MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR, MSNBC: There needs to be a concerted effort at the federal level to combat misinformation. This is about building social media platforms responsible. This is about engaging even with cyber security and the FBI.
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GUTFELD: If MSNBC was really against misinformation, they turn off their microphones. And on another show that no one clapped. And another show that no one watched, a panel claim that parents protesting mask mandates in critical race theory in schools are white supremacists.
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JASON JOHNSON, POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR, MSNBC: To me, is this really about people being upset about mask mandates? Or are there sort of underlying disruptive forces, white nationalists, anarchists, whatever in this country that are using mask mandates, and a public health crisis, to sort of wage chaos?
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GUTFELD: Whatever. He's really -- he's really specific when he smears people he has never seen before. Name them.
Meanwhile, in New York, the most vaccine reluctant groups are young, Black, and Hispanic people. The diversity of white supremacy must strike again.
Finally, according to Johns Hopkins, more Americans have died this year from COVID than all of 2020. But I guess that's Trump's fault too. But it's like my uncle used to say, help me bury this right now or we're all getting the electric chair.
COMPAGNO: Oh, my God.
GUTFELD: Congressman, so much to pick from here. You got the FBI targeting -- well, the FBI targeting people that they -- that this person wants to happen over COVID beliefs. That's pretty bad.
CAWTHORN: It's awful. I mean, you know, when we came into New York talking about that the vaccine transplant lunacy when we came in here, I was honestly expecting to see the Empire State Building, you know, really retrofitted to look like a giant syringe jab, whatever you want to call it.
But we landed here and then just to see, you know, how COVID crazy this place is, it's insane. Because in the south, it's like COVID doesn't exist.
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORN: But now the fact, you know, there is so much more to worry about than just -- you know, the government overreach when it comes to your health autonomy. Because, right now, when they're starting to in dispatch the FBI to go after these normal Americans, it's like, OK, hey.
So, if you want to have an active role in what your child is being taught at school, then you are al-Qaeda?
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORN: Then you are the Unabomber. It's insanity.
GUTFELD: It is insanity.
You know, Kat. I worry about you. Because, you know, you're definitely -- and you're on the path to a second liver.
TIMPF: You guys don't know me either to be fair.
GUTFELD: It's third liver.
TIMPF: Well, they regenerate.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: That's what's nice about a liver.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: They regenerate.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: I can grow my own new liver. I tell myself every day.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: Yes, look. I -- the mask mandate is white supremacy thing really blows my mind. Because these parents are saying, we are protesting this because we care about our children and what -- want what's best for them? And that they're saying, no, that can't be it.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: Like, that doesn't make any sense. What makes more sense is white supremacy.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: That makes no sense at all, which makes me think they can't even really believe that. They just know that once they say that, no one will push back on it because then they will be called a racist or pushing back on it. And it's just like a big idiocy tornado.
GUTFELD: Yes. Now, just saying white supremacy is like, it's just like -- it's -- if it's there, you just say it in your head and you don't need to back it up because no one's going to question it.
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TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: Emily, when I -- when I used to watch movies long time ago --
TIMPF: What?
GUTFELD: Those who are portrayed as like, wanting a police state were always on the right. But in reality, it's always the left that wants a police state. That wants the IRS, the DOJ, and the FBI to go after you. It's odd -- and oddly, too, they hate cops.
They hate cops, but they want all this law enforcement to go after the people that they disagree with just for the hell of it.
COMPAGNO: The left is using every type of governmental arm and body to control every single American, right? Because we are the greatest enemy to the left. Individual liberties, the greatest enemy, I totally agree with you.
So, think about it. We have National School Board Association, these are basically you know -- the school boards are trying to use the Patriot Act. They're trying to use Hate Crimes Act against parents that just have a vested interest in their parents -- in their kids' education, that care about their child's education.
We have them whispering in Biden's ear in order to pass that executive mandate. We also have them infringing on your religious liberty to make that choice. Just today and the federal appeals court ruled that athletes - - student-athletes, indeed, could have a religious exemption to the vaccine requirement of their teams.
But by the same breath, as you just talked about a hospital is requiring that vaccine for a transplant, so they're infringing on your health, they're infringing on your warship, they're infringing on your right to school, and education and you're staying in your kids. They're infringing on your right to go -- to go into place of commerce and operate places of commerce.
And every step of the way, they are using the government to do so. You're exactly right, they are weaponizing.
GUTFELD: Yes, because they -- none of the things that they like, can be possible without coercion, which says everything about what they like. Stuff we like, you don't need to -- you don't need to force it on anybody, am I right?
TIMPF: Oh, you just need to try it once.
GUTFELD: Try it once and you are feeling amaze. This capitalism -- this capitalism -- he let me -- whoa. I mean, why -- them lying?
CAWTHORN: The government created an entire agency to limit most southerner's favorite three things: the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms.
GUTFELD: Yes.
So, Todd, you were a very early interviewing these people, very touching. Where do you stand on this? Can you say your opinion on this as a --
(CROSSTALK)
PIRO: Absolutely.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: I mean, you have these individuals that they are bringing their own donor to the table. This lady probably wouldn't be donating an organ to her friend if it wasn't her friend.
So, the fact that there's a 20 to 30 percent chance that this might not work out, that's a risk that the government, the hospital system, everybody should be willing to take because, at the end of the day, health care is designed to help people.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: And I don't understand why it has to be this absolute bureaucratic mess. And this lady could die unless we get her message out there and hopefully find some health care workers that are willing to do this.
I don't want to say like in a backroom alley, but at some hospital somewhere where this can get done.
GUTFELD: That's how my nose, done.
PIRO: Right. And it looks great.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: It looks great.
GUTFELD: That's a little van out on the corner. They'll do anything what Botox, butt implant. I don't know why I did -- that was weird.
As a host, you just look at people when you're talking. And it just so happened that happened then, and therefore, now, I'm in trouble.
Up next, rising crimes obvious cause. But who will fix these broken laws?
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GUTFELD: Should the mentally ill have a license to kill? She should have been behind bars not throwing people into subway cars. But thanks to bail reform, violence is the norm.
Earlier this week, a woman shoved an innocent bystander right into a subway car as it approached. Fortunately, the victim didn't fall into the tracks and will be OK. Unfortunately, the suspect who's been diagnosed with schizophrenia shouldn't have been free to frolic in the first place.
That's because in July, cops busted her for allegedly battering someone else, leaving them with a black eye, broken nose, knocked out tooth and memories to last a lifetime. But since that beatdown was classified as third-degree assault, a no bail misdemeanor, thanks to a controversial 2020 law, she was quickly released and free to allegedly commit even more crimes, which he should have been kept somewhere she couldn't hurt herself or others.
Of course, that's also what we say about Bill de Blasio. She had several prior arrests and like eight, many for attacking female passenger pedestrians. But now she's charged with attempted second-degree murder and locked up again, this time on $100,000 bail. It's almost enough to buy a Hunter Biden painting. Anyway, for more let's go live to an ex-convict for comment.
EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, come on! So ridiculous.
GUTFELD: You're allegedly a lawyer, can you explain to me when everybody sees that this bill is a bad idea that it can't just be unbilled or changed because Judge, Judge Jeanine today on "THE FIVE" says no one's going to change this no-bail thing, which means the city's done.
COMPAGNO: It is done. And I mean, you, you might have better insight than I do in terms of the, the legislative aspect. But you know, I always talk about the fact that here in the state, what was removed was judicial discretion. So, you can put whatever law on the books that you want, right, but you have to provide for exceptions. You have to always provide for the exception that proves the rule or otherwise.
And the problem in this state is that there wasn't an exception put in. So, unlike Jersey, where the judges can actually take it on a case-by-case basis. But these cases to me, they are getting so (INAUDIBLE). I think and I fear that everyone's becoming numb to it. We're not on this network, but how many stories do we talk about where someone's been arrested 22 times.
GUTFELD: Mostly women, mostly women are the victims, too, which is like, where are the (BLEEP) feminist? Thank you. I should have said that --
KAT TIMPF, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
GUTFELD: Congressman, these last liberal policies are what's leading to this heinous crime. There's a woman that was murdered by like her ex- husband after he was released for beating the crap out of her.
REP. MADISON CAWTHORNE (R-NC): You're talking about something is going on in the legislative process that for some reason it is a, it's a cultural norm in Washington, especially that, OK, once we pass a law, we're not going to go back and revisit it.
I think that every single act, every single law that we passed should have a trial period.
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORNE: To see if it makes sense, and then re-vote on it. Because right now, you're starting to see -- the problem is, criminals don't care about the severity of the punishment. They just care about the certainty of the punishment.
So, they're pretty sure that they can get out of something, then they're going to go commit whatever crime they want. And so, it's incredibly heinous and we need to repeal this law.
GUTFELD: Yes, I just, I just don't know how you repeal it. Good point.
Todd, the suspect was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Who is in charge of all the mental illness programs in the New York City? De Blasio's wife.
TODD PIRO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Right.
GUTFELD: Who runs Thrive, an $800 million program that has that nothing for the people that you anybody in the audience are here who just walked around today, you see stuff you had never seen before. Just horror -- like human beings not treated like human beings anymore, just lying on the streets, half naked, shooting up, and that's just the employees at Fox.
TIMPF: Speak for yourself.
GUTFELD: I had to lighten it up a little.
PIRO: There's this argument out there that you hear from the liberals in New York City. Oh, Rikers Island is so bad that we need bail reform. OK, here's the thought, if Rikers Island is that bad, put them somewhere else.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: You can find a place to put the people that are going to lead this great city down to its destruction. Just because Rikers Island sucks doesn't mean, bail reform, walk the streets.
GUTFELD: And you know what they did, Kat, you know this because you live in the neighborhood. A lot of the people that released from Rikers, so Rikers for people around the country is a prison on Rikers Island where they put a lot of the rough felons and stuff like that so they've been releasing them. Where do they put them? Hotels in Midtown.
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: There's a date selected during COVID and they're just -- so they shunt these people, they hang out in front --
TIMPF: Right.
GUTFELD: They beat the crap out of people and it to your, to your point, it's like they don't care because they know that it's a revolving door.
TIMPF: Right. Yes, believe it or not, they didn't want to sit in the hotel room and watch, Dr. Phil. They were all out on the street. And it's, it's just makes me so upset because when you do talk about you know, the, the Thrive NYC initiative, that de Blasio his wife is supposed to do that money, that 800 million, that was our money. That was our tax money, everyone who lives in New York, and we were forced to pay for that. And if we didn't pay for that, then we would have to go to jail.
GUTFELD: Exactly. We would go to Rikers.
TIMPF: Yes. And it's not working.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: If they're even trying.
GUTFELD: No. And by the way, again, no one knows where the money went out.
TIMPF: No.
GUTFELD: And she's married to the mayor. This is like absolute corruption. I don't know how we still have a state. It's -- I'm, I'm turning into an anarchist. As I even think about this, it gets me crazier and crazier.
TIMPF: Welcome.
GUTFELD: Yes. Yes. All right. Coming up, Chappelle's jokes, cause harm, or are activists sounding a false alarm?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: His name is Chappelle, and he's raising hell. In his latest Netflix special, comedian, Dave Chappelle, defended Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling against the woke outraged mob. Back in 2019, Rowling was cancelled by self-appointed activists over comments she made that transgender-women weren't actual women.
She, of course, wasn't having it, because J.K. Rowling has a F.U. money, she can say those things. She subsequently received a slew of death threats and hate mail online, eventually being labeled by the community as a TERF, an acronym for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists -- and not the fake plastic grass that Kat sleeps on.
TIMPF: Not anymore.
GUTFELD: I know. It's a label that Chappelle now embraces in his support of Rowling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CHAPPELLE, COMEDIAN: I am a feminist. That's right. I agree. I'm teeing TERF. I agree. I agree, man. Gender is a fact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Chappelle, who describes himself as a feminist went on to argue that women have a right to be mad at trans-women. Of course, his comments are now being met with their own backlash, especially on Twitter, which Chappelle called not a real place.
In fact, NBC even found three whole people who were mad, three people. But he ended this special vowing to no longer discuss LGBTQ community. Or it's just as, Justin Trudeau calls them that P.B. and JWKRLMNOP community.
All right, so Kat, Chappelle can say this because like Rowling, he also has F.U. money, he's uncancelable. What makes the those two different is there's a lot of people like that who are uncancelable, who don't have the guts to do this. That's what's infuriating. You, you got to be able to speak your mind if you have the ability to.
TIMPF: Right, and he's actually being so open about it and saying I am doing this because people are getting canceled over these things. Remember his last Netflix special, people went crazy about that one too, because of the things he said.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: It's comedy. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, because it's jokes. And he's saying, hey, I'm saying this because other people can't.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: And I'm doing -- so it's not that hard to figure out. It's not like oh, maybe he is, he's saying that he is so they're just really kind of pushing it further by continuing to say, you know, he's got to be cancelled over it.
GUTFELD: Yes. Emily, this is the interesting thing because you need -- there needs to be activists speaking up for say gays and lesbians because the issue here is if a young boy is a feminine, the activist will say transition and become a girl. And if a young girl is a tomboy, the activist will say transitioned to being a boy.
That's two problems that ignores the phases that children go through. And over time, it reduces the number of gays and lesbians. So, that's another issue here they are turning potential gays and lesbians into the opposite sex, which then creates a myriad -- there's that word again -- of psychological and physical challenges.
COMPAGNO: Yes, and those that respond with a wait and see approach that say, give this person time to figure it out on their own, are branded as now supremacist fascists, anti, you know, homophobia, transphobia, et cetera. So, the spectrum is totally shifted. And I agree that they're trying to force those people into a certain radical and permanent box.
And I think the point of comedy, which we always talk about is that you're never immune, right? The whole point of comedy is that at some point, you will be the butt of the joke. And so, with Dave Chappelle, I found it so ironic that all of the criticism was like, you know, I used to find him funny, but as a trans-woman, I've crossed the line, he's crossed the line, I'm now disappointed and I hate his jokes. And one of the most insane criticisms that I read was someone that said he spent more time on jokes against the transgender and gay community than he did on white people.
He's now reached a Trump level gaslighting. So, essentially the fact that, the that just that session happened to have more jokes against a certain community than another one, then all of a sudden he's not OK, because the only people that it's OK to trash forever are white people.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: I would never be OK with being the butt of a joke.
GUTFELD: You know, Todd, you -- we need to have joke quotas.
PIRO: Emily's point is so well taken because I mean, let's face it, Chappelle is one of the top five comedians that's still out there working right now.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: And most of his act throughout his entire career has been against white people. You know what? I'm white. I think he is absolutely hysterical. Have you seen on the Chappelle Show, the Clayton Bigsby sketch?
GUTFELD: Yes.
PIRO: I mean, it is what -- you know, it is one of the funniest sketches you are ever going to see.
GUTFELD: Last word to you, Madison.
CAWTHORNE: Well, you know, this whole gender argument has become so strange, like before, transgenderism used to be OK, this is a mental anomaly, that we should try and limit as much as we can with children. I think we need to pass a law that if anyone does some kind of irreversible surgery, or hormonal, hormone change or change surgery to a young person under the age of 18, they should go to jail. It should be against the law.
But I will tell you that though, the way the radical left has started making everyone abide by these gender rules and gender norms is insane. I was with a defense lobbyist recently, and he started telling me that oh, yes, well, I've got two e-mail accounts, because one is used for Republican members of Congress, and I want one I have to use for Democrat members of Congress where I have my pronouns in it. They won't respond if you don't have your pronouns. I said, well, one, just don't do business with them.
GUTFELD: Yes.
CAWTHORNE: But then I was like, what do you put down like, he/him? It just doesn't make any sense. He said, oh, no, I just tried to make it as, as funny as I could. You know, I made it XIM, so ze-zim-zer. I was like, What are you doing -- hello, sir, I'm here to give you a Zim job. Buy missiles?
GUTFELD: Yes. But you know what, the one thing that's really interesting, we taught -- for decades, we were talking about the evil nature of conversion therapy. Remember that? Trying to get gays to not be gay and lesbians not to be lesbians.
And this was roundly condemned. It was called Exodus. It was a big deal. A lot of documentaries on it. It's happening again, with surgery. We were actually converting people because they express a same sex desire or they want or that child feels that they should be this way, which is a phase.
And then, now, so this is actually conversion therapy that is permanent. It's (BLEEP) up.
CAWTHORNE: It should be illegal.
GUTFELD: Yes. All right. Up next, truth or rumor. The smartest kids had the best sense of humor.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: The thing off in class, you might just get a pass. Turns out, class clowns maybe the smartest kids around. A recent study -- aren't they all -- asked children to come up with captions for cartoons. Humor experts, meaning, no one from the Colbert show, judged the best ones and discovered that the funniest lines were written by the smartest kids, proving you could be smart and funny, which I always knew. But who could have predicted I'd also be good looking? Emily. For more, let's go to a clown for comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, I was known as a bit of a cut up back at Yale but as all this clowning helped lead to my success, well, let's just say when I got a tiny car with 30 of my friends now that car is a BMW.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Kat, you were a funny looking child.
TIMPF: Yes, I was.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: I sent in a picture earlier today, would even use it on the show. I was a heinous looking child.
COMPAGNO: No you weren't.
TIMPF: No, listen -- yes, I was, Emily, don't lie to my face. Yes, there we go. You tell me that's not an ugly kid and I will tell you you're a liar. But it's great because then I had to have a sense of humor, or else I would have never survived.
GUTFELD: Yes, it is a survival. What do you think, Emily?
COMPAGNO: I'm telling you guys she was an adorable child. I've seen your photos though. You were adorable always.
TIMPF: I look like a weed whacker with my hair.
COMPAGNO: But what I thought was funny about this study is that it specifically said that it, it didn't hold water for adults. I'm sorry for looking at you when I said that. But basically, the intelligence funny corollary only goes for kids, but it did take place in Turkey. So, it might have been a cultural --
GUTFELD: In Turkey?
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: Who does studies in Turkey about comedy?
COMPAGNO: These guys.
PIRO: I'm like picturing Erdogan being like, I got to craft this joke. I'm so smart. How am I going to make the timing hit? And then I'm like, and then he's going to kill somebody.
GUTFELD: Yes, I think it's eight guys out there to put the crap out of you on a sidewalk. Which is actually kind of funny to think about it.
COMPAGNO: Sorry. Yes, it shouldn't have laughed.
GUTFELD: Anyway. Where are we? Madison?
CAWTHORNE: Yes, well I mean, I think it just further goes to prove you know we've all heard the saying you know the, the A students are managed by the B students. The C students own the company, and the D students you know, they, they dedicate the buildings.
You know, I'll tell you I never thought -- I was more focused on learning the ability to learn that I wanted to memorize a bunch of stuff. And so, I always like to just be cut up and have a good time and laugh and then you know, you had me back on the show because you said I was good at stand-up comedy. Really, and I think I am good at comedy, but I'm not that great at standing up, so I really don't know why you pick me.
GUTFELD: I never said such a thing young man.
Anyway, we're done here.
TIMPF: Yes.
GUTFELD: I think we're done.
TIMPF: I mean, I guess so.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TIMPF: I don't know.
GUTFELD: What a great way to end a comedy segment, huh? Total silence.
TIMPF: We can show that picture of my weed whacker hair again. I did that on purpose to myself.
GUTFELD: Your parents, your parents wanted you to be ugly, so no guys would hit on you.
TIMPF: Oh, well, they didn't so -- look at that. Look at that. I did that on purpose.
CAWTHORNE: You look like the woman from "Queen's Gambit."
TIMPF: I don't know what that is. Um --
CAWTHORNE: Yes --
COMPAGNO: A really good show. Yes.
GUTFELD: Terrible show.
COMPAGNO: What? "Queen's Gambit" is amazing.
GUTFELD: Oh, it's phenomenal.
COMPAGNO: Oh, it's amazing.
CAWTHORN: I will checkmate you in like four moves.
GUTFELD: All right. Don't go away. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: We are out of time. Thanks to Congressman Madison Cawthorne, Emily Compagno, Todd Piro, Kat, studio audience. "FOX NEWS @ NIGHT" is next. I'm Greg Gutfeld. I love you, America.
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