Impact of lane closure scandal on Christie's political future?

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," January 9, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Guilfoyle, along with Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld.

It's 5 o'clock in New York City, and this is "The Five."

(MUSIC)

GUILFOYLE: In a news conference that lasted nearly two hours today, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie moved quickly to crush the political firestorm brewing over a series of traffic jams last September that some of his aides may have engineered as retribution against the Democratic mayor.

First, there was an apology.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I come out here today to apologize to the people of New Jersey. I am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team.

I'm responsible for it. It happened on my watch. The buck stops at my desk, and so I have to act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Then, he announced his action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: This morning I terminated the employment of Bridget Kelly effective immediately. I terminated her employment because she lied to me.

I was disturbed by the tone and behavior and attitude and callous indifference that was displayed in the e-mails by my former campaign manager Bill Stepien. As a result, I've instructed Bill Stepien to not place his name in nomination for state party chairman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: And then things got personal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: I work hard at this job, and it's incredibly disappointing to have people let you down this way. I'm incredibly loyal to my people, and -- and I expect in return their honesty and their candor and their loyalty, and I didn't get it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Very candid and forthright. Eric, was the statement good enough? What did you think of it?

BOLLING: It was long enough.

GUILFOYLE: Long enough.

BOLLING: I would tell you -- the interesting thing is Chris Christie fired people immediately. President Obama didn't do that with the IRS, Benghazi, Obamacare. No one got fired.

Chris Christie held an extremely long and drawn out press conference, and he answered all the questions that people were asking. President Obama doesn't like to do that.

Chris Christie met with the press and took action right away. You don't see that in D.C. You certainly don't see that in the White House lately.

But that said, Chris Christie left himself zero, zero wiggle room. So if an e-mail pops up with Christie's name on it, copied, CC'd, sent, returned, replied, he's dead man walking politically. And he is finished. But --

GUILFOYLE: You would think he would try that bad and check that out, but a quick turnaround with the action he took.

BOLLING: But to his credit, Kimberly?

GUILFOYLE: Yes?

BOLLING: Ballsy move.

GUILFOYLE: Dana?

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Well, that is exactly the description I was going to use, so I will let Eric use those words instead. So, I would say to Chris Christie, welcome to the big leagues, right, because now, every move he makes is going to be scrutinized by everybody, and in some ways, he's asked for that, right, because he puts himself out there. He gets great funny YouTube videos and every once in a while he'll have a situation like this.

Now, what happens is actually an abuse of power. Power is very intoxicating and when you surround yourself as a leader very much matters.

I think -- I'm going to take him at his word. He seems very sincere to me. He seems hurt by the fact that his staff lied.

What I loved about his management style is -- in the reporting it says that he called everybody into his office, and he said I'm going to give you one hour. When I leave this room you're going to have one hour, you can go to the chief of staff and tell him whether you know anything about this. Anyone who did, fine, we'll deal with it from there.

Nobody stepped forward and that's why the woman was fired today and I think for -- as bad as this feels today, that if you are a fan of Chris Christie or if you like to see good government or good management, this is an example of it.

GUILFOYLE: So you like that tactic and that strategy, give them an hour, step forward.

PERINO: I love that because I always say if leaders really want to find out answer to something, they could force it. And you have to have a really good chief of staff to be able to be your enforcer and say also maybe an assassin but not in the literal sense.

GUILFOYLE: OK. Well, he was a little soft on it, I think. I mean, waterboarding should always be an option.

OK. Go ahead, Greg.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Yes, just a warning to the opposition party. Democrats should not throw stones when it comes to incidents on bridges.

Would you back -- can you show them that podium? I think this is brilliant. Can you show them when he was walking in. That podium is huge. Look how big that podium is. Look how small he looks. It's almost as though he's lost --

PERINO: It's how you feel at this table.

GUTFELD: Exactly. No, but I think that's the prism.

I thought his presser was amazing in the sense that he out-talked the media. He smothered them in words. It was like -- it was like binge watching "Jake and the Fatman." He just did not stop talking which I thought was smart.

I like the point he made where he said -- the reason, here's proof that he didn't know about this was that he joked about it. He made a joke about moving the cones himself, and if he had actually had something to do with it he never would have joked about it.

So, the lesson here is, before you do something bad, make a joke about it. And that will be your way out. I think he did a great job. He sounded sincere.

However, politicians are born to sound sincere. Clinton sounded sincere when he denied his affair. And so, I don't know. I think it's going to take a few more days to see where this lands. It's similar to the IRS scandal.

You know, the targeting of innocent people because they didn't vote for you. The only difference is Obama got away with it.

GUILFOYLE: OK. Bob, you were watching this, and you had some comments about it.

BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: I'm going to take a little counterview here. It had been found out that this is the most heavily traveled bridge in America. When these people all backed up and the complaints came flowing in, why didn't Christie pick up a phone and say, what's going on? He didn't do that.

And if I were a governor of a state and I had the major artery out of my state and it was backed up and people were screaming and yelling, before -- forget calling your staff in. It seems to me you would call the head of the bridge authority and say, why are we closing this down to one lane, something I don't know about? That's number one.

Number two, New Jersey, I haven't worked there politically, is notorious a corrupt state. This is the kind of thing that went on a long time, but this is actually bigger. This is a guy, it wasn't he won't vote for him, a guy wouldn't endorse him. And that's why he decides that he's going to -- somebody decided on his behalf.

But I'll tell you. I don't think for a minute that this is going to go away.

BOLLING: What actually happened, maybe a lot of people don't realize what happened, so you have this bridge that goes across New York/New Jersey. On the New Jersey side, Fort Lee is right at the tunnel. That backs up with a lot of traffic. Fort Lee really depends on a lot of commerce, people being able to get in and out and make the transition to New York and up the Palisades parkway.

When the bridge backs up, stuff shuts down. Fort Lee shuts down.

What you really have to ask yourself -- you know, later on, someone asked a very important question. What kind of traffic study do you have to do to shut down two or three lanes of the busiest bridge in America and maybe on the planet?

This is clearly -- this is clearly a -- they did it. They shut it down. They took a shot at Fort Lee mayor. You don't need to shut down lanes of traffic.

BECKEL: Right. But you made that point. Here's the mayor of Fort Lee, there were thousands apparently of complaints from people.

And if you're Chris Christie why do you not ask the question. Again, I go back to that. So I think this is all very much after the fact. It doesn't show very good management on his part at all.

PERINO: Nor by the chief of staff.

BECKEL: Huh?

PERINO: Nor by the chief of staff.

I mean, one of the things that you need in a White House is good information. Remember President Obama says he doesn't know anything about anything ever, and one of the criticisms is, OK, who is running the shop over there? If you get a ton of complaints into the White House operations center, then that goes up to somebody at the White House and then they make a judgment call whether or not to let the chief of staff know and then the chief of staff decides whether or not to let the president know, same in state government.

So, I think it was right for him to fire the one person, but it's possible that other disciplinary action or some sort of thing --

GUILFOYLE: That something else might be coming --

BECKEL: You don't think it's an indictment on him.

BOLLING: No, but how about this?

PERINO: Is the IRS an indictment on Obama?

BECKEL: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Oh, now it is.

BECKEL: I always thought it was.

BOLLING: Remember President Obama said he learned about the IRS, he learned --

PERINO: Nobody ever told him the Web site wasn't going to work.

BOLLING: Right. The Web site, he learned about these because he read it in the newspaper, or watch --

GUILFOYLE: Yes. We're going to get more into that.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Plausible deniability. Kimberly, plausible deniability. We talked about that with President Obama. Isn't it the same thing? Don't his people shield him from some of the stuff that he probably knows about?

GUILFOYLE: Well, perhaps. But as he said, the buck stops with him.

BECKEL: If I-95 was closed down from Florida to New York, do you think he would have asked the question.

GUILFOYLE: But let's talk about his management style because the whole question is he a contender for 2016? Is he fit for the White House? He is definitely one of the front-runners like Hillary Clinton is on the other side and take a listen.

Some people have called him a bully. It was in "The New York Times" talking about his style.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: Some people like that style. Some people don't, and I've always said I think you asked me a question after the election, are you willing to change your style in order to appeal to a broader audience? And I think I said no because I am who I am, but I am not a bully.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: All right. And some people who might think he is, do they think he's suitable in 2016?

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: And I know that everybody in the political media and in the political chattering class wants to start the 2016 race.

I'll say what I've said before. I am enormously flattered that folks would talk about me in my party as someone who they think could be a candidate for president, but I am absolutely in nowhere near beginning that consideration process. I am not preoccupied with that job. I'm preoccupied with this one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: Excuse me, can I have a point here? If he's not so preoccupied with that, why in the world did he send Christmas cards to every state senator in the state of Iowa for the first caucuses? I mean, who's he kidding?

PERINO: I even got a Christmas card from Ted Cruz.

BECKEL: Well, that's fine. I'm glad you did.

GUILFOYLE: Bob didn't.

PERINO: Can I make a point since you've dominated this, Bob, since you've dominated this block?

BECKEL: I am not.

PERINO: Well, you have. I've got a great point.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Come on. Go ahead, Dana.

PERINO: I want to make a point.

GUTFELD: No, go ahead.

PERINO: I just want to say I think that this unfortunate incident on the bridge is actually good for him politically because I've long thought that his staff surrounding him thinks a lot of him. They think very highly of him. They love him.

And this is a -- he said he was humiliated and he will be humbled and, also, they will be much more careful going forward. So politically this could be a moment when they start to get their you-know-what together if he does want to do something in 2016.

GULFOYLE: That's a good point. Great opportunity as a teachable moment for potentially 2016.

Greg?

GUTFELD: I love that part when he said he was shocked, shocked by the callous tone of those e-mails. Has anybody watched him for the past how many years?

PERINO: Right.

GUTFELD: We fell in love with his callous tone.

GUILFOYLE: He's Bigfoot.

GUTFELD: We at FOX News adored it. I called it Christie porn. Whenever he would yell at somebody, it was amazing. Remember the ice cream cone, walking around with the ice cream cone.

He always has a problem with cones, ice cream and traffic.

GUILFOYLE: And get off the beach.

GUTFELD: The point is he wasn't shocked by the callous tone in the e- mail. He was pissed off it was in the e-mail.

GUILFOYLE: That's true. Final thought?

BECKEL: Final thought is -- and, by the way, I have not dominated this segment.

GUILFOYLE: There will be a word count later.

BECKEL: But if you read the latest book on -- "Double Down" about the vetting of Christie for vice president. Christie would not show up with all of his stuff. They were very late. There were questions raised about his brother. There were a number of things and Romney people said we can't get this stuff and we have to go by him.

GUILFOYLE: And you think what? Why is that?

BECKEL: I think that -- look, you can't run through New Jersey and not have a few things in your background that are going to be a problem. If they think the Democrats are going to leave this alone, they're out of their mind.

BOLLING: There are issues --

GUILFOYLE: Eric, real quick.

BOLLING: With the U.S. attorney he had issues with his brother, whether his brother is in trouble or not.

Again, I find two things very interesting. Number one, there aren't any -- I haven't heard any Republicans standing up saying, hey, we back him. I haven't heard the RNC, I haven't heard anyone saying he did a good job other than --

PERINO: Yes, they are way behind him, way behind him.

BOLLING: Yes, way behind.

GUILFOYLE: As in you can't see me.

BOLLING: The other thing is, he had me. At first, he was apologetic. I was buying into every bit of that story until later when he started defending that traffic study. Guys, if you want to go back and look at that and watch how he defended it, started throwing out numbers -- this wasn't about a traffic study. It's admitted that this was about a payback to the Fort Lee mayor. He should have said I'm cleaning house, let's move on.

Don't defend the traffic study. There was no traffic study.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Next, two big stories over the last two days involving the two major presidential contenders, Chris Christie and Hillary Clinton. Which one is getting more coverage in the mainstream media?

We're going to compare the coverage when "The Five" returns. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLLING: Liberals in the media and the Democratic Party are just giddy about this Chris Christie controversy.

Here's Rush Limbaugh's theory about why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: The left right now is very excited over what we just learned about Governor Christie, because what we've just learned about Governor Christie is helping to take the Gates thing off the front page. But the point is the media is just glommed on to that like bees in a honeycomb so they don't have to talk about the Gates book.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: That book written by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has damning info about Hillary Clinton and President Obama. It says Hillary voted against the Iraq surge for political reasons and that President Obama wasn't committed to the Afghan war after he sent 30,000 more troops in harm's way.

Pretty big news, but nothing compared to the Chris Christie traffic jam controversy out this morning.

Listen to the morning news shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roadblock, New Jersey governor and potential presidential candidate Chris Christie on the defensive. E-mails suggesting a top aide deliberately orchestrated a massive traffic jam on the world's busiest bridge. What did the governor know, and will it stop his presidential ambitions?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Christie in crisis. Calls at this hour for the feds to step in, investigate the explosive e-mails that show Christie's aides closing highway lanes on America's busiest bridge, causing massive traffic jams to get back at his political foes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gridlock for political revenge. Will a traffic jam derail Chris Christie's White House hopes?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So, K.G., what about it? A little bias, media buys.

GUILFOYLE: I mean, my gosh, I thought it was the end of the world this morning. I mean, it doesn't matter what media outlet you turned on. It was just like an explosion, word salad, media salad all over the screen because it was just like, oh, this is Chris Christie, let's get after it. This was something they could get excited about really, right, in the start of the New Year, to kind of put their teeth into. It was like fresh red meat for them.

And that's what it looked like, total disparity.

BOLLING: Bobby, I've got to think the Obama administration is going like this, thank God we found this out because of the Gates information, the Gates book.

BECKEL: Yes, something to be said about that.

But let's remember -- Christie has gotten an enormous amount of publicity over the last year, and the fact is he's a very topical politician.

GUILFOYLE: It is news. It's news.

BECKEL: It is news. And the other thing about Hillary Clinton, the thing about Clinton, I can understand why the Obama piece of that is damning.

But Hillary Clinton, every politician I know whether it's about war, peace or agriculture makes political decisions when they are running, not when they are in.

BOLLING: But Obama saying, after I send 30,000 troops in, I'm not sure --

BECKEL: That was damning, but I think Hillary Clinton was not.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Yes, he wants to bury the lead.

BOLLING: D, what about it, should they have covered both of them equally or did they do it right?

PERINO: Right. But that's fantasy land, because when you're a conservative politician that will never happen to you. And sometimes if you're not the target of it, it's fun to sit back and watch the media lose its minds for a while over any sort of topic. Jodi Arias was my favorite from last year.

But also in this situation, you have a sitting governor who has just won re-election in a big way, and you have then a private citizen as Hillary Clinton, although everybody assumes she's going to run, she's not right now.

So I think that's why I think it's good for the Christie administration, state governor, to go through this right now because this is just the beginning of what will -- you know -- remember Romney's dog on the top of the car? This will be Christie's dog on the top of the car for -- every imagine during the debates, all the bridge jokes, oh, you believe that, governor, I've got a bridge, oh, ha, ha, they write themselves.

GUILFOYLE: Greg wouldn't even have to write it.

BOLLING: The bridge set me up.

PERINO: But the family has come out and said the woman did not die because of that.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: No, no, no. She said -- it wasn't ambulance-related, Bob. Let's be specific. So, it wasn't due to the bridge delay.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: No, the daughter came out and made a statement.

BOLLING: Let's bring Greg in here. Has the gates news come and gone? Has that shipped sailed?

GUTFELD: Why didn't they called it gates-gate. They missed a perfect opportunity, America.

What happened to the "this is a local story" angle. We always heard something when it involves liberals. It's a local story.

However, we cannot sit here and dismiss this as a distraction. It makes us look like complete hypocrites because we would explode -- we would have exploded at this table when somebody says Benghazi, Benghazi is a distraction or the IRS --

PERINO: Phony scandal.

GUTFELD: -- or a phony scandal. The guns, the running guns story, Fast and Furious.

This is not a distraction. It is a scandal, but what you're talking about is the intensity of pursuit on a scandal which is always going to be more on a Republican than a liberal because of liberal bias, but you cannot use that as an excuse to say that this isn't real.

Republicans have to try harder. They are not afforded the mulligans that our grad student in chief gets for being a beginner in office. He will always get the excuse a Republican will never get.

GUILFOYLE: I like that.

BOLLING: I want to roll a sound bite. Don Lemon last night asked a very, very good question. Watch, it was fantastic. Take a look and a quick round on that one. Go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN: The president has claimed that he didn't know. He didn't know about the NSA spying on allies. He didn't know about the Obamacare Web site. He didn't know that if you -- that you wouldn't be able to keep your doctor.

So, how -- what's the difference between Christie not knowing and the president not knowing?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: The difference is the issues that President Obama said he didn't know about were policy issues. This is a scandal. How could you compare that to health care policy, intelligence policy and foreign policy?

None of those three things were scandals. They are not comparable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: That is awesome, that's just an awesome answer. Oh, my gosh. It's -- it's almost inexplicable.

And I think she looked like the deer in the headlights that she felt at the moment because -- NSA is the one we forgot to list in the A-block. He didn't know his own government was spying on other foreign leaders, like no one tells him this, no one in the briefings. He saw it in the news, please.

GUTFELD: I'd just say it's good to see the media waking up from hibernation over these outrageous scandals. It's about time.

GUILFOYLE: I thought it was great questioning. I thought I was watching FOX News for a second there and then I rubbed my eyes.

But, you know, ask the pointed questions, be a journalist. Do your job. We've got to do all the heavy lifting.

BOLLING: Bobby?

BECKEL: I think it was a legitimate question, but what they didn't raise is the 16 kids that died of asphyxiation on the bridge in that school, which I think was a significant --

GUTFELD: What? Wait a minute. Sixteen children died --

BECKEL: Did I get that wrong?

BOLLING: Yes, that's a wrong story.

BECKEL: I'm sorry. I was kidding.

GUTFELD: Oh, OK. You got me on that one. Suffocating children joke. It's an old one. It's an oldie but a goody.

GUILFOYLE: Geez, Bob.

BOLLING: I think you did that like in the late '80s.

All right. We're going to leave it right there.

Coming up --

GUILFOYLE: What the heck was that?

BOLLING: Do you want the man who defended an unrepentant cold blooded cop killer to be in charge of defending your civil rights? President Obama does.

Stay tuned for the nomination abomination, next on "The Five".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: The Fraternal Order of Police slammed the White House for nominating a cop-killer's coddler to a top job at the Justice Department.

Debo Adegbile is a volunteer supporter and defender of Mumia al Jamal, who murdered Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in cold blood 30 years ago.

So, you've got to wonder in a nation of sanctimonious attorneys Obama picks this guy? What, none of the chaps he's releasing from Gitmo were free, or is he saving them for a cabinet post?

And yet we're still supposed to believe that Reverend Wright's claims were all false. So once again America's punished for being deeply racist.

How is this nomination not a hate crime against our nation's police? Maybe celebrity supporters of that same cop killer like Ed Asner and Mike Farrell can explain this to Officer Faulkner's widow or asked Harry Reid who gained the Senate to ensure passage of horrid nominees like this one.

This guy maybe the first job Reid's created. But, look, the outrage doesn't matter to Obama and neither does Mumia's guilt. This is about transferring power to race-baiting academics. Cop killing after all may be just a response to a racist society. Even the phrase cop killer is just too mean. Isn't it really just bigot control?

But who cares? The media will focus on New Jersey traffic instead and ignore this. Alas, Christie casts a big shadow in every sense.

BECKEL: Didn't pronounce the names correctly?

GUTFELD: Which one did I get wrong?

BECKEL: I don't know, I can't remember.

GUTFELD: I figured as much.

I just want to show -- this is what the Fraternal Order of Police had to say in a letter to the administration. They wrote that this nomination was basically a thumb in the eye of our nation's law enforcement. It demonstrates a total lack of regard or empathy for those who strive to keep you and everyone else in our nation safe.

Bob, I understand you got to defend everybody. I mean, if this guy has killed a police officer, he still gets a defender. This guy is an obsessive defender. Should he have been nominated?

BECKEL: If not mistaken, he was part of the NAACP council's operation, and they were defending this guy and so as part of his -- I don't suppose you walk out of a law firm because you don't agree with everybody that they are going to represent.

GUTFELD: Right.

BECKEL: I think the idea of denying somebody a job because of a past affiliation. He did nothing wrong. He did nothing illegal. Maybe used bad judgment, maybe should have quit the council's office. But that's not what he did. He kept his job.

So, I think, frankly it's -- it's much ado about -- it's a terrible situation what happened, but I don't think you can hang a whole guy's career on a situation like that.

GUILFOYLE: You're right, because there's no one else they could have chosen. That's because this is deliberate politics at play by the Obama administration. You know exactly what's going to come forward from this guy.

BECKEL: Oh, come on.

GUILFOYLE: By the way, people are going to remember who votes for him in the Senate hearings because this is somebody who represented a non- repentant cop killer, and it wasn't because oh, he's innocent. We all know he killed him. He shot the cop in cold blood four more times and then directly in the face close range, OK?

So in this instance and that situation, this is not an appropriate appointment and it's quite appalling and in the face that they would even put this guy forward. He's not suitable for that position whatsoever.

BECKEL: Does that mean any lawyer in the council's office at NAACP that time should not be allowed to be in government post?

GUILFOYLE: I would never make a blanket statement. I'm making it on an individual basis.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: That's the whole point.

PERINO: It's not like he was a public defender.

GUTFELD: Yes.

PERINO: That's what makes it -- it sounds like that, but this actually has celebrity endorsements and a boulevard named after him in Paris.

GUTFELD: Crazy, and Francois Mitterand.

GUILFOYLE: This is on a jury instruction technicality. That's what they are saying this guy should be freed on. It's OK to kill cops and murder people? Come on.

GUTFELD: All right. I just want to, Eric, before I go to you, this is Maureen Faulkner (ph), the wife of the police officer killed by the cop killer. I'm not even going to say his name.

Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was absolutely outraged by President Obama to make this decision to have a man who defended a murderer who -- someone who murdered a police officer with premeditation and malice, is a radical, is a Black Panther, and to give him an appointment, to nominate him to the Department of Justice. I mean, it's a disgrace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: You know what kills me, Eric, by the way, he's referring to the cop killer being a Black Panther, the more people know about the cop killer than the victims because of the celebrity attention and the sympathetic media.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

BOLLING: And the celebrities all -- and the lawyers falling behind him.

Look, leadership is about making good choices. This is clearly not -- I think it's -- you'll be hard pressed to find someone that says this is a good choice given as you point out so many other competent lawyers that aren't going to be so controversial. That would be a better choice than this.

BECKEL: But this one instant.

BOLLING: Oh, this one. How about the prosecutor or the investigator that President Obama just hired to look into the IRS scandal? A former bundler and major donor to the Obama administration --

BECKEL: Gee, that's unusual.

GUILFOYLE: It's not unusual for this administration.

BOLLING: There are so many people that request fill those posts that aren't controversial. It's like me hosting the next presidential debate, probably not the best idea.

BECKEL: Nobody should be in government who isn't controversial.

GUTFELD: I just want to ask Dana before we leave here. Imagine if an administration had appointed an ardent supporter of George Zimmerman to a post.

PERINO: Yes. His nomination would have gone as far as Michael Estrada (ph), which was a wonderful lawyer that President Bush supported and eventually had to withdraw, John Bolton. I mean, there's several of them.

I think that not only was this a decision on the merits from the Obama administration that they want him to lead, it's also a very political decision as well.

GUILFOYLE: It is. A bad one.

GUTFELD: Still ahead, some important advice from all the millennials out there, and what we hope they will give up in 2014, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: The millennials get a lot of grief and some of it is deserved. Check out this list -- 24 things millennials need to get over already.

Number one was brunch and there were many others, including things like -- there's always millennials that always say they are so old. And they're -- I don't know if this is FOMO, fear of missing out, which I think we could be accused of.

And another one on this list is energy drinks. Now, Greg --

GUILFOYLE: Here we go.

PERINO: I'm not for energy drinks. I think they are bad for you.

What do you think?

GUTFELD: I'm the worst person to come to first because I really hate this topic. It just -- we don't need to rag on young adults any more than we already do. Think of the demo. You know, I mean --

PERINO: But they are writing this about themselves.

GUTFELD: No, this is -- the list reflects actually things that bother everybody and that we all do. We're all guilty of disposable distractions. Never mind the age. We all brunch. We all go to karaoke.

The preoccupation with super heroes was in "Seinfeld" in the '90s. Maybe the worst millennials, list the articles by hack writers at the "Huffington Post."

PERINO: Oh, I like lists and lists are very popular.

Kimberly, do you like lists?

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh, I'm obsessed with lists, and my calendar is so amazing, so organized. Dana and I e-mail back and forth, I'm doing my calendar, you're making a list. We just love to do it because you organize you win. If you want to win in life, make a list.

GUTFELD: I'm talking about the article.

GUILFOYLE: I don't care.

PERINO: She could talk about whatever she wants. You've basically blown the whole topic.

GUILFOYLE: You're not the boss of me. I love lists and I actually like energy drinks because they give me a lot of energy. Bolling loss of them, too, and Bob does, but Dana throws them away.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: You quit?

BECKEL: I quit. Dana is the patrol officer.

PERINO: OK. Let me ask -- anything on these lists, Bob?

BECKEL: I don't understand, I don't know what grammar Nazis are. I don't know Nick nostalgia (ph), I don't know contemporary folk pop, I don't know vampire zombies.

PERINO: You don't know what a vampire or zombie is?

BECKEL: (INAUDIBLE) What's that? (INAUDIBLE)

GUILFOYLE: You know what, Bob?

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: We don't want to talk about it, Bob.

PERINO: I don't even know what it is.

BECKEL: There's going to be something.

GUILFOYLE: First of all, you didn't pronounce it correctly is the first problem.

GUTFELD: What's on the list in. Selfies. Who made selfies famous?

GUILFOYLE: Geraldo.

GUTFELD: Geraldo. He's not a millennial.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: That's true. Stealing bad habits from the millenials.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: Millenials are now the largest generation of history of America and they also give more volunteer work than any other age group ever.

GUILFOYLE: You're kind of a millennial, you hate Lindsay Lohan, Kanye West and the Kardashians and other celebrities.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: What's -- what's FOMO?

PERINO: That's what I said, it's called fear of missing out.

BOLLING: Oh.

PERINO: The thing that drives bob crazy when we're all on the phones when he's talking to us because he's afraid we're going to miss something.

GUILFOYLE: It's that.

GUTFELD: And feeling the need to go out. When you're at home, I'm not going to go out Friday night, I'm going to stay in because I've got to give my liver a rest, and then at 10:00 you're like there's a party out there. I've got to find it.

BOLLING: That's not limited to millennials.

GUTFELD: That's what I'm saying, it's everybody.

BOLLING: What's nick nostalgia?

PERINO: Nickelodeon.

GUILFOYLE: I watch Nick too because I have a child.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: When I was drinking, I'd start brunch at 6:00 in the morning.

PERINO: Brunch is just breakfast for drunks.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, OK. I like a lot of these things.

PERINO: We had dunch. We had dinner at 4:00. So, we call it dunch.

GUTFELD: Do you ever have breakfast for dinner?

PERINO: Only when my dad was out of town because he hated it, French toast.

GUTFELD: It was a great thing. It's special.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: I like grits, I like dinner.

BECKEL: What about cats (ph)? Are they like cats?

GUILFOYLE: I don't know. I can do without the cats. But I like karaoke. I like Disney, multitasking is super fun.

GUTFELD: We're seriously competing with the intellectual equivalent of "SPECIAL REPORT" right now. So, we better pull back.

GUILFOYLE: We didn't surpass it.

PERINO: OK. I love that segment.

Coming up, the moment you've all been waiting for, my favorite poems about the Jasper calendar coming your way. One more thing, and, Bob, brace yourself.

GUILFOYLE: Bobby.

BECKEL: Please.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECKEL: Oh, yes. Could the donkey and the elephant be teetering towards extinction? I'm speaking, of course, about the Republican and Democratic parties.

A new Gallup poll shows a record 42 percent of Americans identify themselves as independents, while a record low -- let's repeat this -- while a record low of 25 percent consider themselves Republicans, the lowest Republicans have ever been in the history of the Gallup poll. That was not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because a reporter wrote it.

The 31 percent who identify as Democrats represents a five-point shift from 2008 but no shift since last year.

The other thing that Gallup did was they gave the hottest politicians, they checked this out. They've got a sort of warmth gauge, and this is the hottest politician in America. No. 1, Chris Christie. That makes some sense.

BOLLING: What? Oh, my goodness.

BECKEL: Well, you explain it. OK.

BOLLING: Who are you talking to?

GUILFOYLE: He's talking to the control room.

BECKEL: Never mind. I'm sorry. I was talking to our producer, who's a right winger who doesn't want me to talk about that.

OK. Let me ask you a question here. Is anybody surprised that there's people walking away from both political parties?

GUILFOYLE: Terrible.

BOLLING: I like what you were talking about before better.

BECKEL: They cut me off.

GUILFOYLE: Bob.

BOLLING: What are we talking about, brother?

GUILFOYLE: We don't know now.

BECKEL: Are you surprised that so many people are becoming independents?

BOLLING: No.

BECKEL: That's it?

PERINO: You're on your own now, Bob.

BECKEL: If this was on Obama you'd go on for 50 hours.

Dana, let me ask you something serious here, a question.

PERINO: Can I answer that question?

BECKEL: Yes.

PERINO: I am surprised that it's happening as quickly as it is, because -- the numbers are actually very shocking if you look at the popularity of Obama. Why are you laughing?

BOLLING: I'm not laughing.

PERINO: And I think what is happening is that the extremes are turning people off. And I have another theory, is that government is doing too much for people, and, therefore, you get less interested because if you don't feel you have to fight for something, if you think everything is cool, everything is good, then you don't have to fight for it as much.

GUILFOYLE: That's an interesting perspective.

BECKEL: Greg, what do you think?

GUILFOYLE: Good theory.

PERINO: Yes, it is.

GUTFELD: I don't think they're growing out of parties. I think they're growing out and beyond politicians and their policies. We have a lot of chumps in both parties, and the stereotypes of the parties are what we're becoming sick of.

If you look on the left, I see the stereotype as an Elizabeth Warren: humorless, shrill. You look on the right, Rick Santorum: humorless, shrill.

The branding is also in trouble. The Democrats have become the party of government subservience, and you are a slave to the man. And the Republican, you can't shake the dorky moralism. They need a new message and it's step off, get out of my paycheck, out of my bedroom and out of my way. That person wins.

GUILFOYLE: That's libertarian.

BECKEL: What do Republicans need to do to re-brand their lousy brand?

GUILFOYLE: Can I tell you that if the Republicans adopted the entire platform of the Obama administration, the mainstream media would still criticize them, would still demonize them and still call them racist, because they don't pay attention to any of the details.

BECKEL: You probably...

GUILFOYLE: I'm not stopping. I'm just getting started.

And I think that the rise of the whole independent thing, the new FOX show called "The Independents" with Kennedy.

GUTFELD: That was nice.

BECKEL: When I was in politics, 20 percent of the people were generally considered to be independents. There were 40 percent Democrats, 40 percent Republicans.

One of the things that has happened is, generationally, generally people tended to inherit their parents' party.

GUILFOYLE: That's true.

BECKEL: And their political views. In this case the millennials have walked away from that, and don't feel at all connected to it.

The other thing is, if you look at the demographics of where the independents are coming, it's mostly young people. Older people are stuck in their parties where they want to be. And if you have a favorability rating of 9 percent in the Congress, is anybody surprised that you're going to have this kind of number? Generally, it tends to go up in an off year, by the way.

GUTFELD; You can tell it's also healthy to dislike these people. I do not trust any people who likes government.

BOLLING: Well, it also feels like maybe, with what's going on on the right, the divide that's happening on the right between the far right and the center right, maybe a lot of them are deciding, well, let's go independent for a while and see what -- let's.

BECKEL: I think that's exactly...

BOLLING: It's safer to say, "I'm independent right now, and I'll figure it out in the next couple of years."

BECKEL: I think that's part of the Republicans' problem. I don't think that they're leaving because -- just because of the Republicans. I think because they're trying to figure out where their party is going to shake out.

BOLLING: Yes.

BECKEL: And a lot of that's going to have to wait till the presidential elections to see whether the -- I'm not calling it the libertarian wing of the Republican Party versus the mainstream wing.

Tease? I have something to say about warm politicians. OK, the two "warm" politicians. Christie is No. 1 and Jindal is No. 5.

BOLLING: Wait. Mike Huckabee has very, very high numbers in that poll.

BECKEL: It's amazing.

GUILFOYLE: They're hot?

BOLLING: Hot.

BECKEL: Hot.

GUILFOYLE: Hot.

BECKEL: Just like me, baby. "One More Thing" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: It's time now for "One More Thing." We begin with Greg.

GUTFELD: We have a great "Red Eye" tonight. Dana is on.

PERINO: It will be great.

GUTFELD: Mike Baker. But it's time for a banned phrase. It's been a long time.

"Giving back." People like to talk about giving back. They never do. They always say, "We should give back," but they're not the ones giving back. You know the people who really give back? The people who never tell you they're giving back. And I never give back. I got back.

GUILFOYLE: I got back. What are you talking about?

GUTFELD: That was directed at you.

GUILFOYLE: Come on. Everybody knows.

All right. Dana.

PERINO: So all week long I've had where you could win on my Web site, DanaPerino.com, a word you can't say.

GUILFOYLE: A contest.

PERINO: You can't say that word. Go on my Web site. If you wrote a poem about your dog, you could win one of the five Jasper calendars that are left and I'm just going to read the first one. You can go to my Web site, DanaPerino.com. You can see it and also "The Five's" Facebook page.

This is about Gruff, and he's a blind puppy. All right?

GUTFELD: Aww!

PERINO: "I'm six weeks old, My name is Gruff. My brothers and sisters got the good parts. I got what was left. I need constant attention because I cannot see, but I'm doing all that I can just to be me. Around the clock, I'm hand fed every day. I do get all the attention, though. Hey, what can I say? One day I'll grow up. Maybe cohost 'The Five.' Could you please send me a calendar so I'll know when to arrive?"

Isn't that lovely? That was a winner.

GUTFELD: Aww.

PERINO: There are several others.

GUTFELD: A, he got the sympathy vote. That's not fair to other dogs.

PERINO: And the last thing is, I found one extra calendar in my office, the bonus calendar. It's one joke about "The Five." Here we go. "I watch 'The Five' and listen to you. For you I salute, and I lift my leg. And I do business when I think of Greg. I only joke. Each one I admire. Keep up the good work. 'The Five' is on fire."

GUILFOYLE: That was cute. I liked that.

BECKEL: I'm begging you. I'm begging you to not mention your dog just one day.

GUILFOYLE: Eric.

BECKEL: That's all I ask, just one. Three hundred sixty-five days a year, just one.

PERINO: I'm trying.

BOLLING: All righty. They're yelling at me, hurry up and go. So last night, apparently, Karl Rove was on Sean Hannity's show, and this happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, HOST, "HANNITY": All right. Karl Rove, thanks for finally sharing the whiteboard with us. We appreciate it. You know, Eric Bolling's is bigger, just as a side note. It doesn't mean anything.

KARL ROVE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: It's a comment on Bolling's lack of self-confidence.

HANNITY: Oh, big Twitter fight coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: A Twitter fight ensued. Look at it this way. Here's a little example. Bob, hold Rove's board and here's the size of my board.

GUILFOYLE: Bolling's board.

BOLLING: No, no, Tim Russert's was bigger (ph). Carl, keep telling yourself size doesn't matter. You can do so much more with a big board.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh.

PERINO: Oh, lord.

BECKEL: OK. It's my turn.

I want to do a shout-out to a remarkable man, Dr. Charlie Melone, who runs the hand surgery center in New York, who has saved and extended lives of hundreds of athletes and thousands of young people whose hands have been hurt. And he's figured out ways to do operations. And what he did for me after many years of hand pain, yesterday it all went away. So thank you, doctor.

GUILFOYLE: One day? How did that happen?

BECKEL: Because he was -- it's a process, and I'm pain-free.

GUILFOYLE: That's amazing.

BOLLING: Well, God bless him.

GUILFOYLE: That's amazing. It's not puffy anymore.

BECKEL: He's a remarkable man. He's a fun man, and he's a great man.

GUILFOYLE: Well, God bless him and all doctors. They do incredible things.

GUTFELD: Not all of them.

GUILFOYLE: Well, OK. Kate Middleton.

GUTFELD: Oh, yes!

GUILFOYLE: Love the royals.

She's 32 years old. Can you imagine? So 32 years ago she was born.

GUTFELD: Oh, my God!

GUILFOYLE: And gave birth to a future princess, and she's given birth to the heir of England. I love it.

GUTFELD: Oh, yes.

GUILFOYLE: Set your DVR so you don't miss an episode of "The Five." See you back here tomorrow.

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