Jesse Watters: Fox News' reporting on Russia investigation has proven to be accurate

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Jesse Watters: Fox News' reporting on Russia investigation has proven to be accurate

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," May 13, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Juan Williams, along with Dana Perino, Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters, and Emily Compagno. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is THE FIVE. Major breaking news today surrounding the unmasking of Michael Flynn, we're awaiting reaction from President Trump and we'll bring that to you very soon. GOP senators releasing the names of key Obama administration officials who may have received the identity of Flynn after it was unmasked.

On the list, former Vice President, Joe Biden, former FBI Director, James Comey, and former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The list also includes President Obama's former chief of staff, Dennis McDonough. Joe Biden was asked about this yesterday about the Flynn investigation. Take a look at what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know nothing about those most (ph) investigate Michael Flynn. I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted, I'm sorry. I was aware that there was -- they asked for an investigation, but that is all I know about it. And I don't think anything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Senator Rand Paul was one of the first Republicans to react. Take a look at what he's saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You remember there was a whole to do about trying to impeach the president, saying using they were using power of government to go after a political opponent. This is a smoking gun if there ever was one that Vice President Biden was using the power of government, abusing that power to go after a political opponent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Dana, I wanted to start with you. You heard Senator Paul say this is a smoking gun. But I was thinking, you know, isn't it the case that, you know, any administration's top officials given Russian interference in 2016 election, would want to know who is talking to the Russian ambassador, telling them, you know, don't worry about sanctions intended to punish Russia, just take it easy. Wouldn't you think that is normal?

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, that might be what they decide to say. And I think that, you know, that Hillary Clinton campaign, they still maintain that the Obama administration did not do enough to stop Russian interference. But I think that this horse has now left the barn. And the Obama administration people have been very quiet about this part of the investigation, but very much willing to talk on the record, on Twitter, wherever else they could, about the Russia investigation leading up to impeachment.

I think they're going to have to answer some questions. I mean, some of these things are curious. Like, I think that there is -- some make sense that you could imagine that the director of national intelligence, the CIA, like, that makes sense. But why would ambassador to Italy and the Republic of San Marino need to know the identity of this person in this document?

There -- seems to me there's a lot of people on here that would not even necessarily be in a need-to-know basis, but more like a want-to-know basis. Now, asking for the unmasked -- asking for his name to be unmasked, apparently that might be within the rules of what they can do. But now, we get to the next question, which is, what happened after that? Who leaked the name?

And that will be something that perhaps we can get to the bottom of as we start to go through these names, and we'll maybe start to hear from some of them, Clapper, Brennan, Powers. The only name that's not on here that I thought would be is Susan Rice.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I agree with you. All right, Jesse, does this mean that people like Samantha Power, Joe Biden, Dennis McDonough, that they somehow were telling Flynn, oh, talk to the Russian ambassador about sanctions. Go right ahead. Did they get him involved? Does this explain or justify his actions?

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: I have no idea what you mean by that, Juan. And I want to correct something you said earlier. You said that these were conservations he was having with Russians. No, they were unmasking every single conversation he had with anybody. I mean, he had basically one conversation with one Russian, so let's just make sure that is very clear.

He is allowed to talk to whoever he wants as the incoming National Security Advisor. And he should be able to do that without being literally spied on by the Obama people. Now, here is the deal. Was there a legitimate reason for all of these Obama officials to unmask an incoming National Security Advisor after the election?

In my opinion, no, they were searching for a reason to take the guy out, because they couldn't have Flynn as National Security Advisor, because he would find out what they had been up to during the campaign and he would ruin the insurance policy. So here is how it all works. January 5th, President Obama's chief of staff unmasks Flynn and sees this conversation with the Russian ambassador.

They have the Oval Office meeting on the 5th of January, with James Comey, with Joe Biden. And that's when Comey and Barack Obama hatched this sting to nail Flynn on this BS Logan Act. Then, a week later, January 12th, Joe Biden himself allegedly unmasks Flynn or gets the Flynn request to unmask. And on that same day, January 12th, Ignatius writes the column in the Washington Post, which reports an illegal leak of the conversation, so the timing is very suspicious.

They don't -- Biden says he doesn't know anything about this. That is obviously not true. He has his fingerprints all over it. So the question is, why were they doing this, how they did it. And like Dana said, it may not be illegal to unmask someone, although, you know, you are doing it without a warrant. It is very sketchy. But to criminally leak the classified conversation, that is exactly what Durham is looking into.

So all of these names on the lists, they are now the subject of a criminal leak investigation. And at this point, we found out more dirt from Barack Obama in three weeks than they found on Donald Trump in three years.

WILLIAMS: Wow. Hey, Greg, you know, I'm not a cynic, as you well know. I'm not a cynic. But I do hear cynics questioning the timing of this release with so many Americans going through the pandemic, suffering and dying. So I wanted to ask you, what would you say to the cynics?

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: I would say who are they? I don't really -- I don't respond to people -- the sum of people who say things. I respond to the people who specifically say things. I do think it is pretty weird that in an era when we're telling people to wear masks, we're doing a story about unmasking people, which to me is proof that we are definitely living in a simulation for that story to happen now.

I think we could ask Joe Biden what did he know and when did he know it. But he would just say tapioca pudding and Shetland pony, so it's pointless. He's going to make a terrible witness. What I find interesting, though, with Juan's question, you're seeing an interesting reversal of liberals, who always seem legitimately concerned about coercion by authorities, setups by authorities, no Miranda Rights being read or pretending not to be investigated a person until they finally get the guy.

You know, the FBI did that with Flynn. They told him don't worry about a lawyer. They said, you know, we're not targeting you. They didn't read his Miranda Rights. And then what they did was they ruined him. They targeted him. They ruined him legally and financially, so essentially they set him up. So I don't know why liberals don't defend him the way they defend others.

Maybe it is racism. Maybe they see Flynn as old, white male who served his country, right? He's not considered oppressed by their definition or by your definition, so it is not really an injustice. He's just a symbol of American oppression, so who cares? Now, I have a question and it might be a really stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway, and because we have a lawyer, Emily here.

Now, we have confirmed that this is a three-year charade. It was a phony process of re-litigating something that didn't happen. The person behind that was Adam Schiff. We now know that Schiff lied every step of the way. So could somebody sue to reverse the impeachment when we now know that the impeachment was a house of cards? See, I know you are laughing.

Because I admit, it might be a dumb question. I don't know. But we now know the whole impeachment thing was a circus. It was a circus, so can --

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: I don't agree.

GUTFELD: Can somebody sue to reverse the process? Peel that band-aid off or whatever.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it is all politics. I think it is all politics. But why don't we give Emily the chance to chime in here? And then I have a question for you, Emily.

EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS HOST: Right. Well, as I always say, you can always sue everyone, and the question is whether you are going to succeed or whether it is going to be thrown out. The president himself can appeal that, actually. I think, though, politically, he would do better to wear it like a star on his chest to prove the ridiculousness of it.

Because he was impeached, but he was not convicted, so he still remains in the Oval Office, and likely will enjoy another four years. Juan, if I -- do you want to me the question, because I would like to share my thoughts on this situation, if I can.

WILLIAMS: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: So Emily, can we just take a break for a second? No, Emily, hold on a second. I just want to take a break for a second, because we have some tape of President Trump in conversation with Maria Bartiromo about the Flynn case. Take a look.

COMPAGNO: Got it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They weren't after General Flynn. They wanted him to lie about me, make up a story. And with few exceptions, nobody did that. There were many people. I watched K. T. McFarland the other day. I watched where she was -- knock, knock, FBI. You know, the FBI, OK? This was all Obama. This was all Biden. These people were corrupt. The whole thing was corrupt. And we caught them. We caught them.

And what you saw just now, I watched Biden yesterday. He could barely speak. He was on Good Morning America, right? And he said he didn't know anything about it. And now it just gets released right after he said that. It gets released that he was one of the un-maskers, meaning he knew everything about it. So he lied to your friend, George Stephanopoulos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: So Emily, you see that the president saying this was really about getting him and, of course, the names have come out from the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, Ric Grenell, he's not been confirmed by the Senate. In fact, the president didn't even put his name up for confirmation. So is this what -- I mean this is so political at this juncture, is this what the founders intended?

That some guy who is now sitting in the director of national intelligence office just puts out these names and stirs a controversy --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: You have to be clear, Emily. Emily, before you answer, like, if there is a fine point to be made here, Ric Grenell's office did not actually release the names, the office of Ron Johnson, the senator was the one that released it. I mean, that is a fine point, but it's one that needs to be made.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, but they got it out. Right, but they put it out. Anyway, go ahead, Emily.

COMPAGNO: I would urge everyone actually not to view this through the lens of politics, just for a moment. To actually disregard for one moment, Obama and Biden's intimate involvement in the post Carter Page flurry and to view this through the lens of government power. And the notion that we have so many current laws right now that can become like blowfish with the amount of government power that can turn into abuse.

Because the government is made up of people, its members, so the FISA court, that much of this was based on, that standard is probable cause. You were communicating with a foreign government. But the Constitution demands that is probable cause you are committing a crime. So I think viewers and all of us should ask ourselves what kind of government do we want.

Do we want one that is bound by the Constitution or one that is bound by some looser set of laws that for some reason, the institutional forces on the Hill continue to protect. And I think right now, regardless of your party, you should be deeply concerned and you should care deeply what this is all uncovering, because one day, it might not be a three-star general, it might be you.

PERINO: Right.

WILLIAMS: Good point. We're awaiting more reaction from President Trump on Flynn's unmasking. We're going to bring you that. Plus, the debate over reopening America with this pandemic going on, that's next for you on THE FIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: All right. We are waiting brand-new reaction from President Trump on the release of new Michael Flynn unmasking documents. We'll have that video for you very soon. The president is meeting with governors at the White House right now about reopening the economy. The president also sitting down with Maria Bartiromo for an interview where President Trump says he disagrees with Dr. Anthony Fauci on when schools should reopen. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: Anthony is a good person, very good person. I've disagreed with him. When I closed the border to China, he disagreed with that and then ultimately he agreed. And he said I saved hundreds of thousands of lives, in which is what happened. Everybody disagreed when I did that. I think that we have to open our schools.

Young people are very little affected by this. We have to get the schools open. We have to get our country open. We have to open our country. Now, we want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible. We can't keep going on like this. I mean, you got to have -- you are having bedlam already in the streets. You can't do this. We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Greg, I know you and Emily from California -- want to try to get you in here before we hear from the president soon. California State university system has already decided it is going to shut all state universities for the fall's semester. How can they make that decision so soon, or is it just because they have to plan ahead?

GUTFELD: I guess so. I just -- quickly, comment on the tape we just saw. Something that the press should value about Trump is that he talks about these disagreements, right? These things we actually see. I think it was like a month ago, I said that the solution to the -- the solution to find the right answer when you don't have an answer is to let 50 experiments unfold.

For example, like California. If you don't know what's too soon or what's too late, the 50 experiments are going to tell you. So when people say, oh, screaming, oh, people will die. We know that that is a possibility. The 50 experiments will show you the best path forward. It is like your 401K portfolio, an assessment of different performances that help you evaluate the winning path.

So when you hear, like, other people in the media, I don't know what they are thinking. They prefer to pick one date for everyone, which is like putting all your chips on one number at roulette? No, no, roulette doesn't have chips. Here we go.

PERINO: Greg, we're going to have to go to the president now. Here is the president.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. It's great to be with the governor of Colorado and the governor of North Dakota, two governors that are working very hard, harder than they thought they would have to work. We also have two very distinguished senators that you know very much, Senator Gardner, who you know, and just say hello, say hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. We appreciate the invitation. And, of course, appreciate all the support you are giving us and the leadership of our governors.

TRUMP: Thank you. And that is what we're here for, to do that and to talk about -- we just came out with a new list on testing. We just cracked 10 million tests, which is here. I'd like to show that to everybody, 10 million. We set an all-time record by far. If you look down here, these are other countries that have not done anywhere near what we're doing.

And we're double. If you add them up and double them, weave done more tests. But I can't get the press to print that, unfortunately. They just don't want to print it. But I want to thank the governors. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We're going to have some good, fruitful talks about going even to the next step. And I know you are trying to open up.

And I know you are opening up, more than trying. You are opening up. And you're both doing an excellent job. And it is an honor to have you at the White House very much. And these two gentlemen have done a fantastic job. And David, you know, from Interior. And David's very much involved with your states. And how are they doing, David, what do you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fantastic.

TRUMP: I think so. They are doing a good job. They really are. They're doing a good job. We are talking about, as you know, Space Force, and a lot of states are interested in Space Force. And we're talking to some of them. And I know that Colorado is very interested in it. And so we'll be talking to you about that, too, OK, we might mention that today a little bit during our meeting. So thank you all very much. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Administrators and school principals around the country, in terms of their plans to reopen school and colleges in the fall?

TRUMP: Oh, I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should. And it's had very little impact on young people. And I think that if you are an instructor, if you're a teacher, a professor, and you're over a certain age like, let's say 65 or maybe even if you want to be considered at 60, perhaps you want to stay out for a little while longer.

But I think you should absolutely open the schools. Our country has to get back and it's get to get back as soon as possible. And I don't consider our country coming back if the schools are closed. And it's a very unusual situation. It's had very little impact on young people. And I would strongly say they should open. It is up to the governors. It's the governors' choice.

But the state is not open if the schools are not open. So again, it's had very little impact on young people, and I think they should open their schools.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, (Inaudible) sanction China, would you support it if it goes to the House and it comes to your desk, would you support that bill?

TRUMP: Well, I respect -- I will certainly look at it, the bill to sanction China. So I will certainly take a look at it. I have not seen it yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)

TRUMP: Well, the unmasking is a massive thing. I just got a list. It's -- who can believe a thing like this? And I watched Biden yesterday on Good Morning America being interviewed by one of your colleagues, George Stephanopoulos. And he said he knew nothing about anything. He knows nothing about anything, nothing at all. And then it gets released today that he was a big un-masker.

So how do you know nothing if you weren't the un-maskers? It is one of the very big stories. And I suspect you'll have a responsible -- even bigger stories coming out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Follow-up on a separate -- the number of explosions in Afghanistan. But are you concerned that the peace deal may be falling apart?

TRUMP: Look, Afghanistan, we have been there for many years. We're like a police force. We are not fighting in Afghanistan. We are a police force in Afghanistan. And at some point, they're going to have to be able to take care of their country. They're going to have to be able to police their country. But we're not meant to be a police force, we are meant to be fighters.

And we've been there a long time. So I don't know. We will have to see. I have not heard that. See if we have in Kabul, we've had some pretty big blowups. But again, you count on a government to be able to police themselves, and they are having a hard time, I suspect. But again, we are the greatest fighting force in the world.

We are not a police force that's going to stay around and police the streets and check out the red lights and traffic. It is not what we're supposed to be doing. We've been there a long time. You know, our force has done quite a bit, as you know. We are way down. And a lot of people have come back, brought them back. But the government has to be able at some point to do something for themselves, right?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- said both that he wasn't interested in bringing interest rates negative, and that he felt a need for additional stimulus from Congress. I know that you said that we have been waiting to see stimulus and that you want negative rates, your reaction?

TRUMP: Well, I'm a believer in negative rates only if other countries that are competitors. Look, Germany, they are now friends of ours, but they're still competitors on trade and other things. So Germany, Japan, others have negative rates. And I think if they do, we are the most prime of the world. You know, we're -- it's based -- many countries, based on the dollar, the dollar is by far the strongest, most powerful currency in the world.

We've made it more powerful. We've made it stronger. And certainly, they're going to have the advantage of negative rates. We should, too. I feel strongly we should have negative rates. Negative rates is basically where they pay you interest if you borrow money. This is a new one. I've been looking for something like that all my life. That's a pretty good one.

But certainly, if other countries are going to be paid for putting up money, I mean, think of it. They are borrowing money. And instead of paying interest, they are getting paid. It's the craziest thing. But you know what, other countries are doing it. Look at Germany. Look at Japan. Look at others. And we are the most prime in the world right now.

And we have the currency and we have the power of the dollar. So I know that the chairman has done a very good job over the last couple of months. I have to tell you that because I've been critical. But in many ways, I call him my MIP. You know what MIP is, most improved player. It is called the most improved player award. Did you ever get one of them when you were playing baseball, Cory? Good baseball player?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Certainly not.

TRUMP: The chairman, he's my MIP right now for the last few months. I think he's done a very good job. I disagree with one thing now, and that is on negative rates, and only because we're paying zero. Good news with this money, you're talking about in the stimulus. We're paying zero. We're down to zero interest. That is good.

But some countries and some states, rather, and some also countries you look at. But we are paying right now zero, and other countries are paying less than that, if you can believe it, if you couldn't believe it. They are receiving money. And I think we should be in the exact same situations. And by the way, states are getting tremendous deals on borrowing.

So a lot of the states that are coming to the federal government, they can go out and they can borrow and they're getting phenomenal rates. Some of our states is where I'm talking about. They are getting phenomenal borrowing rates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you agree stimulus should move forward? There have been some Republicans who suggest that --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't know. It depends. It's certainly not the package that I saw today, basically. If you look at that package, what they want more than anything else, it is a voting package. They want to be able to make sure that Republicans can't win an election by putting in all sorts of mail-in ballots. Now, I don't know if you do because the press doesn't report this too much.

But we had two very big victories last night. We won very big. Tom Tiffany won very big in the great state of Wisconsin. You saw that. That was last night. It came in. That was a big one. You saw that, Doug, and won by very, very substantial margin. And in California, of all places, we had a fantastic race, and this was all mail-in ballots.

This was all mailed ballots. And when they saw, because it was the mail, they saw they were losing three days ago. And they end up putting polling booths in into basically Democrat areas. But despite that, it is looking like Mike Garcia, I don't know if they've called the race yet. But he was substantially ahead. That's the problem with mail-in ballots.

Are they going to dump a whole pile of ballots on your desk just before the election? So the problem with the mail-in ballots it is subject to tremendous corruption -- tremendous corruption, cheating, so I'm against it. And if you look at the bill that Nancy Pelosi is putting in, it has a lot to do with elections. We're not going -- we're not going to lose elections because of that.

And I do think you should mention the fact that the Republicans won two major Congressional seats last night. I think it's really worthy of mentioning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, do you believe that the judge presiding over the Mike Flynn case limits

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Let's finish with your question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that bill a nonstarter? Is there anything in there you could support?

TRUMP: Well, as they say, DOA, right? DOA, dead on arrival. Of course, Nancy Pelosi knows that, you know, obviously.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Do you believe that the judge presiding over the Michael Flynn case, Emmett Sullivan ought to recuse himself or be disqualified for being biased against Mr. Flynn?

TRUMP: I was just with General Milley and some other generals, and I asked them about General Flynn. Do you know him? They said, "Yes, sir. I've known him for 20 years." What do you think? "He's an incredible man, an incredible soldier. He's an incredible general." This is General Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star. He's done fantastically.

He thinks General Flynn is a great, great gentleman and a real fighter. When I see what is happening to him, it's disgraceful and it was all a ruse. By the way, the FBI said he didn't lie. The FBI said he did not lie. So with all this stuff I'm hearing about lying, the FBI said he didn't lie. But the sleazebag said, "Well, we don't care what they say. We're saying he lied." OK, but the FBI, you remember when they left, they said he didn't lie.

What they've done to that man and that family is a disgrace, but I just tell you that because I just left General Milley and he said, "A great man and a great soldier."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you consider a pardon for Mr. Flynn?

TRUMP: I won't talk about that, but he's going to be OK. He's going to be just fine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the --

TRUMP: I'm very, very saddened by what's happening to General Flynn and others. I want to tell you right now, and others. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dr. Fauci yesterday was a little cautious on reopening the economy too soon. Do you share his concerns?

TRUMP: About reopening what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reopening the economy to soon in some states.

TRUMP: Look, he wants to play all sides of the equation. I think we're going to have a tremendous fourth quarter. I think we're going to have a transitional third quarter. I think we're going to have a phenomenal next year. I feel that we are going to have a country that's ready to absolutely have one of its best years.

Next year, with all of the stimulus and all of the fact that it's a pent-up demand like I haven't seen. And you see it right now. These two really professional, good governors that work so hard. I know both of them very well. One happens to be a Democrat, OK, but we've worked together and I think we've worked together very well. And one, you would expect me to say that, but it happens to be true, OK. Really good job too.

But we've worked very, very well together. They want to get their states open. Some governors and some perhaps partisans, maybe for election reasons, don't want to have their states open. Then some shouldn't open them quite yet. They're not ready. They went through a lot and they're not quite ready. But no we're opening our country. People want it open. The schools are going to be open.

I was seeing the other day, Purdue is a great school, great college, university. Purdue is opening and others are opening, and they're all announcing it. These are young people. These are students, young students. They're in great shape. They're in great shape.

Now when you have an incident, one out of a million, one out of 500, that well something happen perhaps. But you know, you can be driving to school and some bad things can happen too. So no, we're going to open our country. We want it open.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you say Dr. Fauci is playing both sides, are you suggesting that the advice he's giving to you is different?

TRUMP: Well, I was surprised -- I was surprised by his answer actually, because you know, it's just -- to me, it's not an acceptable answer especially when it comes to schools. The only thing that would be acceptable as I said, is professors, teachers, etcetera, over a certain age. I think they ought to take it easy for another few weeks, five weeks, four weeks. Who knows, whatever it may be.

But I think they have to be careful. Because this is a disease that attacks age. It attacks health. And if you have a heart problem, if you have diabetes, if you're a certain age, it's certainly much more dangerous. But with the young children and students, it's really -- it's just take a look at the statistics. It's pretty amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, businesses are concerned about getting sued once they reopen. Will you be insistent on some sort of shield from liability being in a phase four bill?

TRUMP: If anything is done, I will do that. These are the new testing numbers and you saw that, but I was just showing this to a group of people. I said, we're now over 10 million tests or we will be very shortly, like within a couple of days. Look at that test. This is us. This is the rest of the world, OK. We have more tests and we have better tests. We have more tests and we have better tests.

And we're going to have your football team in, your championship football team, right? And we were -- tell us a little bit about the team. First of all, you know, they won the championship and we're all set to have them. And what happened is the plague came in. Because of the plague, came in from China. And because of the plague, we didn't have those great people, but we'll do a rain check, OK. But seriously, even if it's in a few months, we'll do a rain check. Tell them about the team because it was a tremendous season.

GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Well, I'll just say that the team and Senator Hoeven was here, Senator Kramer was here, the whole codel, the first lady was here. She says, hi. But you hosted them last year because they again, won the national championship this year in January. This is the eighth out of ninth year in a row they've done that. They would love to get back here with the rain check.

TRUMP: So I watched the game on television, the championship game. I didn't know too much about it. I don't get to watch too much of the television, football games, right. And I'm saying, man, that team is really good. They were really good. Then I got a call from Doug and I get a call from John. I get a call from our other very friendly Senator, right, the three of them.

They said, "Do you think we could possibly honor the team?" Because we honor the national champion. And my question was, "How would your team do against the national champions?" They were pretty good, LSU this year, right? Not a bad quarterback. How do you think? I don't know. You think, OK, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You open up against Oregon. Next year at Oregon. So then we'll be able to answer your question.

TRUMP: That's pretty good.

BURGUM: That great LSU quarterback started his career playing flag football in elementary school in Fargo, North Dakota. So that's where

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Had a good start. Well, let the team know we're going to do a rain check, OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, what will happen to the public companies that don't return their PPP loans to the SBA by tomorrow's deadline?

TRUMP: Well, we'll go after them very seriously. If there's any companies that got loans that they weren't entitled to, we'll go after them very soon. They'll have big problems.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, what's your level of confidence that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in your favor in the case involving your tax returns?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope they will. You have a situation where a president has to be able to focus on this. And you know, when you're doing an audit, you know, in the old days, no president gave tax returns. A while ago, I mean, no president gave tax returns.

But when you're under audit, who would -- who would want to give them? It's a very big thing. But it would also take time. It would take -- and this -- people are going to get -- ultimately, people are going to be getting returns. They're going to see that. But I think you know, I think it went very well yesterday. I thought I was -- I have great respect for the Supreme Court. And I think the lawyers put out a very strong case. And from what I've read, it was a very strong case. Yes, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long do you and the vice president plan to stay apart distance wise?

TRUMP: Well, it's an interesting question. I haven't seen Mike Pence and I miss him. But he was in the room with somebody that tested positive, and he did not test positive. He tested the opposite. He's in good shape. But I guess we said for a little while, we'll stay apart because you don't know what happens with this very crazy and horrible disease.

But we speak a lot on the phone, but I'm in the White House. Mike is at his office, but he's pretty much away from people. He's doing a great job. He's done a great job I think you'd say on the task force, he really has. I think you've pretty much gotten everything you wanted and we try and get it to you quickly.

GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO): We talk to the vice president regularly.

TRUMP: We work very well together with Republican governors and with Democrat governors. When are you thinking of opening and explain what you're going to do (INAUDIBLE)

POLIS: Most businesses are open in Colorado, pretty much everything except for those social businesses like bars and nightclubs. A few places have restaurants open. We're working on the rest soon, but offices, manufacturing, salons, pretty much all people are back in a safer way, right. It's not the same way it was. I got my hair cut the other day.

TRUMP: It looks good.

POLIS: Thank you. You should have seen it before. It was crazy, what little is left of it.

TRUMP: Not bad. Not bad.

POLIS: They wore a mask. I wore a mask. So we're doing it in a safe way. All the stores are back. In April 27th, we were one of the states where we wanted to do that in a safe way. People are being responsible. I mean, you know, it's that individual responsibility that's going to make sure that we can stay on this trajectory. And hopefully, restaurants in May, by the end of May. They're already opening a few places in our state.

TRUMP: How about because I go there, as you know, and the ski slopes are fantastic. There are those that say the greatest anywhere. How are you doing with the skiing? And you know, It's a big business for you.

POLIS: It's a big business. It's also one of the reasons that we got a lot of the virus in our state because people come from all over the world. All over the world.

TRUMP: That's very true. I've heard that.

POLIS: So that's what led to the spread. And so most of the ski season is ending, but we're actually hopeful. We have -- a lot of people don't know this, but in Colorado we have a few areas that they're skiing through July 4th. And we're hoping that people will be able to ski again. David knows, the Secretary Bernard knows this. In Arapahoe Basin, and in Wolf Creek, maybe Breckenridge, Loveland in June. We're hoping that people can actually ski again.

TRUMP: You also did a lot of a summer business and springtime business. What are you doing with that?

POLIS: It's we really respecting the communities in our state because they have a lot at stake. Nobody is more at stake than -- in fact, Jill Ryan who's with us from Eagle. She's our secretary of health in Colorado. She was a commissioner in Eagle County, which is where bail is. So they have the most at stake economically and from a health perspective.

So you know, we're really respecting what the different communities decide. I think there'll be some folks that are coming back, spending money in stores. There'll be other communities that say, "You know what? We have to wait a little bit longer." It's been very traumatic for many of those communities because Eagle County for awhile, had the highest infection rate in the country early on.

TRUMP: I heard that.

POLIS: Yes, early on.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Now, there's people coming because everyone goes, everyone coming in. How has that been? How is the level of infection right now?

POLIS: Eagle County has done an amazing job, as has Summit County, Picking County, Aspen, all those areas, they've gotten it under control because they acted early. They have great county health departments. They look at the science, they look at the data. Their residents stayed home.

And in fact, Eagle County was one of the first in our state, along with Mesa County, which Secretary Bernard knows well in Grand Junction area, to be able to open up a little bit ahead of some of the other areas in a safer way, right, in a safer way. So like in Grand Junction, the restaurants are at 25 percent capacity, so there's space.

We're looking at ways that people can dine outdoors, sidewalks, and even on a lane of the road because it's safer to be in that environment. So those are the kinds of things that we think about as we're just trying to get back to as much normalcy as we can.

TRUMP: Corey, you're working together very much I know with the governor and everybody else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do. We speak regularly. The government's done a good job and I appreciate that. Here to help as much as we can.

POLIS: One of the things we did that Corey introduced us to and worked on, was importing some tests from South Korea. So they're already being used in our state. We're also partnering with the vice president and you on some Thermo Fisher tests that we think are coming very soon. We're getting, I think, 95,000 --

TRUMP: We're still over here.

POLIS: Good. We're excited because we're running through those tests from South Korea. That's what's so important is the supplies. We have the ability to do it, the labs to do it. You guys sent around the labs. We have the capacity, but it's getting the tests in. And so you know, both with the Thermo Fisher test, the Abbott test, the SolGen test, we're mixing and matching across.

We have 32 free community testing sites across our state. Some of them you drive in, some of them you walk in, but those are free. That's in addition to the hospitals and doctor's offices. Of course, you get tested there. But we have 32 free community testing sites --

TRUMP: And you have good healthcare in that state.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, so I think the key that Jared is talking about, the governor talks about is you have counties that have a plan they're able to open up earlier than others because of the work that they're doing. So when the governor is talking about Grand Junction, you have restaurants that aren't just open, but you have dine in. In some of these restaurants, which I think is maybe some of the first around the country to actually reopen to dine in because of the good work that they have done together.

POLIS: Then we wanted to, for our restaurants who were open throughout this whole period in our state. They just did delivery. They did take out, they did curbside. We even waived some of the laws so they could sell alcohol curbside and sell alcohol delivery, because that extra piece can make the difference between them staying in business or not.

TRUMP: How did they do? How did those restaurants do with the take out?

POLIS: You'll hear from some that are doing okay with it. It doesn't work for every restaurant and that's why they need to be open for the restaurant dining. But for many of them, it's paid their bills and they've gotten through it, and it's helped them.

TRUMP: That's good. That's good.

POLIS: Not every restaurant, but I hear those stories that it's helped them get through it. That we've been able to make sure they've been able to stay in business the whole time.

TRUMP: Good job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday we talked as well about Colorado's additional Thermal Fisher tests, and that'll be a very big help to get those.

TRUMP: That's a great test. That's a new and a great test. So Doug, how about North Dakota? How you doing?

BURGUM: Well, first I want to just lead with gratitude and say thank you to you for your leadership, and the vice president, and Dr. Birx and the whole team has been a great partnership federal to state, to local and North Dakota. Secondly, wanted to say thanks to all the great people in North Dakota, because like Jared in Colorado, we relied a lot on individual responsibility, light touch from government and had great results. Here we sit today, we're number two in the nation. We passed New York this week in terms of testing per capita. So we've really driven in. We've tested over six percent of the population.

TRUMP: Great. And you're using different tests, all different and you're in good shape with the testing. What test are you using?

BURGUM: Well, this has all been the PCR, the nucleic acid testing. It's been across a number of different platforms, Thermal Fisher, Avid, Panther. And so we've got a variety of different platforms, but most of it driven through our state lab, which has had an order of magnitude increase. So we've gone to three shifts a day and each shift is doing more than three times they did before. So 10X increase going on there on the testing site.

TRUMP: That's fantastic.

BURGUM: Then we're the fifth lowest positivity rate in the country. Alaska and Hawaii are ahead of us, but we've been right at the bottom in terms of that. You take those two things together-

TRUMP: So what do you attribute? What do you attribute that to?

BURGUM: Well, I would say very early on-

TRUMP: Being a good governor.

BURGUM: Well, geography helps and the people of the state helped. Those two things, but I'd say we took early action to try to reduce transmissible moments. So we kept 93 percent of the jobs in the state open, but the seven percent we closed, bars and restaurants and personal care businesses. Everybody else kept going. All the construction, all of energy, all of Ag, including all of elective surgery at hospitals kept that going.

TRUMP: Oh wow. That's fantastic.

BURGUM: We were well-stocked. We had a great medical cash and --

TRUMP: That's great.

BURGUM: We never took more than two percent of our capacity in healthcare. We have a lot of great healthcare providers in North Dakota. Only two percent we're going to COVID.

TRUMP: That's fantastic.

BURGUM: So we were able to then drive through that. We handled the virus and really focused and we got Michelle Comber here who leads our commerce department. We have less to worry about opening up because we never really closed down. But on that other seven percent, we got bars, restaurants, personal care businesses open on May 1st. And all that's going very well under new operating procedures that everybody's using to stay safe.

TRUMP: And your oil prices are going up a little bit now. So that you're $26.00, $27.00 a barrel. And pretty soon you'll up to the number that you have to be up to. That's the big difference.

BURGUM: Well, absolutely because what we do in North Dakota is we power the world and we feed the world. Number two oil producer, producing state in the nation. A lot of the unemployment that we saw early on wasn't related to the virus. It was related to the demand destruction associated with the oil price drive.

TRUMP: Great job. John, what do you have to say about the state and the job the governor and everybody else has done? I know it well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listening to these two governors, I was governor for a long time. It tells me your approach is the right approach. You're working with the governors across this country and empowering them to open up as soon as they can safely, based on the conditions in their state and every state's different. And that's why that approach is so important.

Then you providing all that support, along with us in Congress with the CARES Act as well. But you see that now with North Dakota, with Colorado, and across the country. So that's why it's so important that you're doing it the way that you're doing it with these great governors that we have across the state. So thank you for that. The other thing I want to mention is for our farmers. You know I work a lot on Ag.

TRUMP: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But for our farmers and ranchers, you've been there for them and hang in there with them. They're doing a whale of a job and they're so important, and our energy industry too.

TRUMP: And we're sending them billions of dollars of money that we took in from a country that targeted them. Last year, we gave them $16 billion. The year before, we gave them $12 billion. And no other president would have done that, I can tell you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's really important and appreciated. We need to hang in there with them. The only other thing I got to tell you is we have a great governor as you know, but he is so data-driven that I was teasing Dr. Birx, who's more data-driven? These two are amazing.

TRUMP: She is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're amazing together. They're just amazing.

TRUMP: That's great. Michelle, do you have anything to say?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, it's been a privilege to work for governor of Oregon. I think it's through his wisdom that we've talked a lot about lowering the curve. But as governor pointed out, we didn't close the state. So I feel like-

TRUMP: That's so good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We raised the bottom and we've had the good fortune to work very, very closely with our business community. And it's through that process and the open dialogue, and the collaboration, and the hyper connectedness in our state, that we were able to build what we call North Dakota smart, restart protocols with our business community over the span of about eight days. So we were closed for 40 days and 40 nights and we are opening in a safe way.

TRUMP: That's fantastic.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're really proud of the work that's happening.

TRUMP: You've done a great job. Thank you very much. Just to finish off, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, hi. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank the federal government for its partnership on our COVID-19 response. Particularly, the supplies you've given us, the tests. And I look forward to that continuing. And you know, the more people we can test, and then we can force multiply that with contact tracing. So we can quarantine people that haven't even had a test yet.

That's really you know, the way that we're going to contain the virus in Colorado. We've got a local public health department that covers every county. They are ready to do testing and contact tracing. So that's our plan. It's going to be a statewide effort.

TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. Terrific job too.

BURGUM: While we're here I want to also say, Secretary Bernhardt, doing a fantastic job because we had a chance to interact with him on national parks. We had great things going on in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. As we move ahead with the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, we've got the U.S. Fish and Wildlife BLM. We've been great partners working with the five tribal nations that are headquartered in North Dakota, with whom we share geography. We've done great collaboration with those tribal leaders on testing through COVID. But I just want to thank the secretary.

TRUMP: They've had a lot of difficulty in the different tribes, haven't they? A lot of difficulty. Tremendous difficulty.

BURGUM: Thank you secretary (INAUDIBLE) and for all their support as well through all this.

TRUMP: David, you've done a great job. Do you feel comfortable with all those cameras right behind your head?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You gave me clear direction to work with governors to open things up. We worked with local communities. Our parks, my goal is that we're right on the shoulder of the governor. We've worked with Larimer County Health Department and (INAUDIBLE) park to bring that online. We've opened up Theodore Roosevelt and we're -- we just announced today, the timing of the opening for Yellowstone. So we're moving forward.

TRUMP: So you getting those parks open, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

TRUMP: I hope everybody's listening. The parks are opening and rapidly actually.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With those governors.

TRUMP: And with those governors. You want the help for the governors.

POLIS: Even with the counties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

POLIS: Even within the state. And you know, we're all excited because recreating outdoors is safe and healthy. The flip side is, we're not yet ready to have all the people from other states and other countries coming in. So that's the battle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's why we're collaborating with those local communities to ramp up --

TRUMP: So in all cases, you're working with governors in opening up --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And local towns.

TRUMP: That's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

TRUMP: That's great. Great job. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good neighbor.

TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- confidence in American public go travel on America's airlines right now.

TRUMP: They have great confidence and they have great confidence in us, and they have great confidence in the airlines. We've saved the airlines with $25 billion and another $25 billion. And we have airlines that are now in good shape. I mean, obviously, they're going to pick up with the fares and with the seats, but the airline industry is in good shape. We've been able to save the airline industry, which would have been devastating if that happened. So they're in good shape. Thank you very much. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Press. Thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: All right, if you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall in the cabinet room of the White House, you just got an opportunity to listen in on the conversation the president was having with a couple of governors and of course the Secretary of Interior Dave Bernhardt, taking questions from the press as well.

So we still have THE FIVE together, so we'll take it around the table, so to speak. Jesse, maybe let's just start on bigger news of today on the Flynn unmasking, list that has come out. The president is talking about that. He has an interview with Maria Bartiromo, which will air tomorrow morning. He says there is more to come.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Well, there keeps being more to come. And he's been right, and Fox has been right. All of our reporting on this entire thing has proven to be accurate. And all reporting from the other side in the mainstream media has proven false, which makes me wonder, why aren't the mainstream media reporters angry?

They were fed lies by their sources for three years and they printed fake news. Now, if I printed fake news for three years and then I found out through the transcripts my sources knew they were telling me lies and knew they were having me push a fake story, I'd be angry at my sources.

But they're not angry at their sources. They are angry at the people that have pointed out that their sources lied. Think about how ridiculous that is. Now they're saying the president is politicizing the intelligence. That is pretty funny coming from them because it wasn't Donald Trump that set people up with stings, that used spies, that cooked up crooked dossiers and colluded with the Russians and entrapped people and threw political opponents in jail. No, that was Democrats that did that.

All the president is doing now, like this unmasking list, is shining a light. All he's doing is disinfecting the last administration. He's exposing it. He's correcting an injustice. That's what's going on here. And the timing is not being used to distract from the pandemic.

It was Adam Schiff that released all of those transcripts under oath. Remember that. And it was the Justice Department that withheld the exculpatory evidence from General Flynn for two years. So the timing of all of this, it's on the Democrats. It's not on the Republicans.

PERINO: Greg, Jesse brings up something that reminds me of -- do you remember during the Obama administration when Ben Rhodes, the national security communications guy said, did that whole interview basically saying that he had played the media on Iran and how they had just fell for everything that he said.

I mean, one of the -- when Jesse just said that it made me think about how reporters -- I mean you would have think they would have been mad then.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Yes. I feel like a broken record but the fact is look, I just -- I just saw -- I think it was one of Biden's spokesperson meltdown on Twitter over this basically attacked Catherine Herridge. It's pretty brutal attack on her. And I believe they might have removed the tweet.

I'm just interested how the media is going to approach that. Will that be considered a sexist attack because she's a woman or is it different because it was a Democrat doing the attacking. But it's clear that Joe's campaign is worried.

And I hate -- I hate to pretend -- I hate to act like the worst, the very worst of the media and the very worst of the Democrats about demanding this person get locked up and this person be tried and this person go away. But something's got to be done for Adam Schiff because he created three years of a massive fallacy that did so much damage to this country and made us miss probably one of the most important stories of our lifetime.

We were having hearings on impeachment while the corona virus was exploding. We talked about that virus in green rooms, but we were -- we to do this impeachment story. We had to show these hearings. It's all on him, man. He's got to go. They got to investigate him. They got to hold him accountable.

I'm not going to say he should go to prison, but my evil twin will say he should go away to prison for a very long time.

PERINO: Juan, I think that the next few days are going to be very interesting to see how many Democrats are going to be willing to talk on the record about what's been going on and what's been revealed.

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Well, I think people are glad to talk. I think the question is are you playing into a political action. You know, regardless of how you view it, I think lots of people do worry that it is diversionary. Certainly, Vice President Biden has said that.

The other thing that I wanted to mention to you, Dana, was I think the president was pretty clear. He said that the Democrats bill that Nancy Pelosi put out today is DOA, dead on arrival. And then he said that Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chair is his most improved player over the last few months for reducing interest rates and the like.

But today Jay Powell came out and said you know, the economy is in big trouble and needs additional help and support from the government. So the question now becomes what will the president and the Treasury Secretary Mr. Mnuchin put forward. Are they going to negotiate?

Because their own Federal Reserve chair, the most improved player for the president is saying the economy, the workers need help and Nancy Pelosi is talking about getting more money to workers, more money for kids who are hungry through food stamps, more money for small business.

PERINO: Well, and also having the government play God on a lot of things which perhaps is not the best way to get money in the hands of people to do stuff. But well, hopefully we're going to talk about that today. Hopefully, we'll get a chance tomorrow.

Emily, can I talk to you a little bit about this reopening. He's talking to the governors. Are you seeing that out in where you are that the parks are reopening, that people are figuring out a way to get back to business? You mentioned that there's a possible registry at restaurants in Seattle.

EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Exactly. That the governor has outlined a plan for a restaurant to be able to have dine in people. So for people to be able to go and sit indoor, they have to provide -- the restaurants have to stipulate, agree to its stipulation. They'll provide the names, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers of those diners.

So of course, people are sort of revolting. It remains to be seen obviously whether that's going to be implemented. But as of now, the governor has articulated that. If I may, Dana, you asked before we cut to the president about California which is where I'm from, and we saw the difference of the governor's treatment in California of all of those other governor's that were in the Cabinet Room with the president.

Governor Newsom is operating under a short-term crisis psychology and it's in stark contrast to that long-term fundamental unraveling that we are watching there --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Yes. All right, Emily.

COMPAGNO: We'll pick at back up tomorrow.

PERINO: Sorry, we got to kick it over to Bret Baier. We'll have more of THE FIVE tomorrow, of course. Don't miss an episode of THE FIVE. "SPECIAL REPORT" is up next. Hey, Bret.

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