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John Rich rips Nashville mayor over COVID controversy

The country star calls for John Cooper's resignation on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

This is a rush transcript from “The Ingraham Angle" September 17, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

INGRAHAM: Thanks so much. I am Laura Ingraham. This is The Ingraham Angle.

From Washington tonight, we have a huge show for you. But let's get back to 
President Trump in Wisconsin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thousands of African-American 
citizens. The Democrat Party's war on cops has already led to surging 
homicides in Democrat-controlled cities, yet Biden supports imposing these 
failed policies nationwide. They ask him, what about nationwide? What about 
the fact that you just had your Democrat National Convention where, by the 
way, we had far many more viewers, millions and millions more than you?

We had millions of more. I thought it was a great thing. Did anybody hear 
Herschel Walker that night? He talk about a good football player, he was 
some player, what a great guy; but all of them, everybody. First Lady did 
great, Ivanka did great, they all did - they did great. We had some 
incredible stories, some very sad stories when you look and see what 
happened. 

But Biden's plan is to appease the domestic terrorists, my plan is to 
arrest the domestic terrorists. Joe Biden is a weak person. He has always 
been a weak person. And that was in prime time and prime time was 25 years 
ago. And let me tell you, he's not old. I always defend him in this. I have 
friends that are 85, 89, 92, 95! And they are 100 percent. There is just 
something wrong with Joe. He is off. OK? He is off. And I have no problem 
saying it anymore when I watched thedisinformation, because this is not 
disinformation, this is fact.

If he is elected, his radical supporters won't just be causing mayhem on 
the streets, they will be running to Department of Justice, Department of 
Homeland Security, the Department of Education, and most importantly, they 
will put many judges on the United States Supreme Court. We can't have 
that. We'll have a totally different country. Radical Left judges, and that 
has to do with your second amendment. It that has to do with right to life, 
it has the right to so many different things that will turn your world 
upside down, and they will have 1, 2, 3, or 4, whoever is the next 
president, hopefully that's going to be us, not me, us. It's us. 

But you know we put - I put, and think of this, by the end of the term, we 
will have approximately 300 brand new great federal judges, court of 
appeals judges, 300, which is a record, 300! Give or take a little tiny 
bit, but 300. Nobody thought that was possible. I want to thank President 
Obama. He left us 142 openings. Nobody gets left one opening. A federal 
judgeship is a big deal. Nobody gets left any openings. He gave us 142 
openings. Thank you very much.

What happened, they thought Hillary was going to win. So they didn't push 
it, and then they said wait a minute, these polls are getting a little 
close at the end. And they tried like hell to get some judges approved, but 
it didn't work. That's what happens. You got to go, and you have to act 
fast. You got to get it done, get it done, right, like we get things done 
like nobody has ever gotten it done.

He was a great president, he was great. He left 142 judges for the 
Republicans. He was a great president, right? If you are of that side of 
the plate, if you are of that ideology and you had a president that left 
you 142 federal judgeships, I don't think you rate him as doing a good job.

Hey, look at what happened in Iraq, look at what happened with ISIS, look 
at what happened with our military, look at what happened with our vets, 
our vets are better taken care of now than they have ever been in the 
history of our country.

But never forget, they're coming after me because I am fighting for you. 
And that's true. That's true. And we are winning thefight and we are 
winning this election. This election, we are doing well. They refuse to say 
it, they refuse to say. And they hate to say it, it just drives them crazy.

But that night, remember, they started off by saying, this will be a very 
short evening for Donald Trump. That was Donald Trump in those time. Now 
it's President Trump. I lost all my friends because of this position. I had 
friends, "Hey, Don, let's go to dinner". "Okay, good, Richard. I'll go". 
"Hey, Don, let's go". "Okay, Larry, I'll see you later when we get a 
restaurant in New York". Everybody was like nice and loose, you could have 
a great conversation, you don't want to know what we talked about. It's 
just none of your business, but we were loose.

All of a sudden, I become president of the United States and these are a 
lot of - I know a lot of important people. I know - actually, the people I 
like the best are the people that are less successful, because it makes you 
feel so powerful. I always say, never go out with a successful person, 
you'll understand. But I know a lot of very successful people, very, very 
successful. And now they call me up, "Mr. President, sir, would you like to 
get together sometime?" I say, "loosen up", yes, "call me Donald. You've 
known me for 30 years, call me Donald". "Oh, thank you so much. Thank you, 
Mr. President. I appreciate".

Now I lost all my friends because it's the respect for the office, let's 
face it. It's different. They used to be loose, they used to be great, you 
could sit back, I'm not a drinker, but you could sit back and have a drink, 
whatever the hell you are drinking. And now you can't do that anymore. You 
can't do it anymore.

So, I have to rely on people in Congress to be my friends. And we just 
happen to have a couple tonight. And one of them who has been a great 
warrior, and he is doing a fantastic job. I just saw you on television, by 
the way, Bryan. Does everybody know? Bryan Steil. Bryan Steil, young, 
handsome, but a warrior. When the fake impeachment happened, it was a total 
fake, what did we finish up with the Republicans 197 to nothing right in 
the house. It was a fake impeachment.

I got impeached over a perfect phone call of congratulations to the 
president of Ukraine, who I never met before, ok? I mean, if you're going 
to do something, at least know them a little bit, right? I never met him. 
And then they said it was eight times quid pro quo. That was Adam Schiff, 
shifty Schiff. And he went before Congress, and he repeated my conversation 
except that he made it all up. Remember, he repeated it and then I said, 
"ah, fortunately, we had that whole thing essentially recorded". I'm glad I 
did, but these are very deceptive, deceiving, sick people.

And I said, "Well, he lied, because there was no quid pro quo. It was a 
perfect conversation". But by that time, it was too late, because they had 
already embarrassed themselves by doing it. 

And Nancy Pelosi was all set. She loved doing it, she - from day one, but 
she thought it was what Schiff said, when she saw the conversation, she 
said to her people, what the hell did you get me into? So they could've 
dropped it, but they said, let's give it a shot. So, we won and other than 
Mitt Romney, well, we lost a half of us, right? He's another beauty, Mitt 
Romney. He is a real beauty. He couldn't get elected dogcatcher, right now 
here in Utah. 

So, we have another great one, and he is really a friend of mine, he has 
been solid, he loves his country and he loves his state, Glenn Grothman. 
Glenn, thank you very much though. And a man who just got elected, and he 
is from an area that I know very well, we did very well, we got about big, 
bit, fat beautiful contract that produced lots of jobs. But he was taking a 
legend's place, so it's never easy to replace a legend, that's Duffy, in 
case anyone --. And he was running, and we did a lot of work for him and it 
was great. And he reacted very well under pressure. 

A lot of people don't react well under pressure. They choke, they choke. He 
was under a lot of pressure and he ended up winning by 18 points. And now 
he's your congressman, he's doing a great job. You got to vote for all of 
these people on November 3. Tom Tiffany. Tom? Thank you, Tom.

And we have a great congressional candidate, Derrick Van Orden. Who is 
Derrick? Derrick, good luck. I hear good things, Derrick. You got my total 
support. I hear very good things. I can only support about - our records 
like 222-3. So, I don't like to have a loss and I support you 100 percent, 
you know that. You have my total endorsement. All right, I hear you. 
Fantastic.

And your former congressman, who I hope is making a lot of money in the 
private sector, because he deserves it, especially his wife, Rachel, 
deserves it. She is fantastic, he is fantastic, because I know he's coming 
back into government in some form. He can come with us, he can stay here, 
he can maybe run for governor, or maybe do something. Sean Duffy.

No, but he was the world champion, tree climber. And I love sports, right, 
anytime you are the world champion in anything but especially that. And I 
will never forget. I was asking about how was it? He said well, he broke 
his back numerous times, he broke a lot of bones. I said let me ask you a 
question, how much harder was it to go up the tree than down? He said it 
was easy going up, the hard part was coming down, because if he missed, 
that was where the danger was, right? That was where the danger. But many 
times, world champion, could you still do it today? A little bit heavier, 
he said. Could carry a little bit more weight. That's all right. That's not 
a good sign, right? And it was great job, we love having you Rachel. Thank 
you very much. 

You are a friend, Fox & Friends and plenty of other places, right? What a 
personality. What a personality Rachel has! She has been our friend from 
day one, I think from day one and a fantastic family too.

Tonight, we're also praying for everyone in the path of Hurricane Sally, 
who are out there working very hard. We are working in Florida, and 
Alabama, and Georgia. We have (INAUDIBLE) we have everybody there. We just 
finished and I mean, take a look, we just went to Louisiana, Texas, we're 
getting hit some big hurricanes, but we have it under control really good. 

Our coast guard has been fantastic by the way, unbelievable, the bravery. 
They go into these storms, they go into these storms, I say how dangerous 
is it? Sir, it's very dangerous. I say, all right. They said, would you 
like to try it sometime? I said, at the moment, no thank you. I'll take a 
pass. I think they might have a problem with me doing it. 

But I will tell you, they are - in Texas, they saved 16,000 people two 
years ago, the coastguard, U.S. coast guard. I think there is no brand to 
me that has gone up more than the U.S. coast guard. So, it's great. Now we 
can welcome new ships. Those ships are all coming and nice new ones are 
built in (INAUDIBLE) most of them already are (INAUDIBLE) administration 
will be by their side through every step.

We are working again very, very hard in thePanhandle. We love the 
Panhandle. It got hit hard. We spent the last four years reversing the 
horrible damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years. We passed 
record tax cuts and regulation cuts, nobody has ever done more, more than 
anybody else has ever done to keep our family, farms in the family. We 
virtually eliminated the unfair estate tax also known as the death tax.

So if you die in a hundred years from now, and you have children who you 
love as opposed to children that you can't stand, is anybody here have 
children that they don't like or perhaps can't stand? Because if you do, 
don't listen to the rest of this. But if you have a family that you love 
and you have a small business or farm or whatever, they were being put out 
of business that have to go and borrow the money to pay the estate tax, the 
death tax. And it was a terrible thing. We got rid of it. So now you can 
leave your farm, your small business to your family. And just hope they 
remember you every once in a while.

It's always a difficult situation, but it was, it was ruining farms. They 
would have to go out and sell the farm, they would have to go out and get 
partnerships, they would have to go out and borrow money from banks. And 
then all of a sudden, they are in foreclosure proceedings, and they've 
never done that before. They don't have to worry about that anymore.

If you love your family, that's a big deal. They've been trying to get 
that. Sean, for what, 30 years they've been trying to get that, right? 
Especially for the farmers because it's that kind of a business. It's a 
great business, but it's day-to-day you have a bad crop, all of a sudden 
you can't pay interest and a loan to pay estate tax, right? They lose their 
farms, so we're not going to have that anymore.

We achieved American energy independence for thefirst time, totally 
independent. We don't have to be in those faraway places unless we want to 
be.

Biden pledged to abolish American oil, American jail, clean coal, natural 
gas. He said the fracking, I told you that. But we're not going to let him 
get away. We will be bringing that up on occasion. For 47 years, Joe Biden 
crushed the dreams of Wisconsin workers and enriched foreign countries. 
That's what happened. Before I got here, what was happening with Japan, and 
we pay our deep respects to Prime Minister Abe of Japan, a great friend of 
all of ours, a great friend of mine. He is going to be leaving office very 
soon, like in a matter of a day. And he was a great gentleman. He is a 
tough negotiator. I'll tell you that. They made very good deals against the 
United States, but he is somebody that's going to be missed. He's a great 
gentleman.

He championed every special interest, Biden, every special interest. And he 
sold out on trade, he sold out like almost nobody ever before. Earlier this 
year, I kept my promise to American workers when we ended the NAFTA 
nightmare and signed a brand-new U.S., Mexico, Canada agreement into law. I 
saved the U.S. auto industry by withdrawing from the last administration's 
job killing catastrophe. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, if you ever hear 
that beauty, that would have really hit you.

In 2017, I signed a historic executive order making government policy to 
Buy American and Hire American. And I'm watching this Biden, and he has got 
a sign in the front Buy American. I've been saying it for like 20 years, 
right? Where the hell has this guy been? They are actually accusing him of 
plagiarism. I also took the toughest ever action to stand up to China's 
rampant theft of Wisconsin jobs. And it's all jobs, but you got hit 
particularly hard.

Biden has vowed to remove those tariffs and allow China to resume its 
pillaging. He wants to take the tariffs off that are paying us tens of 
billions of dollars a year. I thought like hell to keep him into the China 
deal and he wants to remove them. So, tens of billions of dollars, billions 
and billions, I gave it to the farmers, I gave it to a lot of people, but I 
gave most of it by far to the U.S. Treasury. He wants to take them off.

So, let me just ask you just a very innocent question. There's a young man 
about four years old upfront, I think he could give the answer. Who do you 
think would like to have China, how do you think China would feel about 
this election? In one case, they pay billions of billions of dollars a 
month to the U.S., we never got ever $0.10 from China. In the other case, 
he said we're going to take them off. I think they might be inclined to go 
for sleepy Joe. This is like a dream for China.

Joe Biden's agenda is made in China, my agenda is made in the USA. It's 
very simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

INGRAHAM: President Trump speaking in the all-important swing state of 
Wisconsin tonight. A huge crowd. We're going to go dip in and out 
throughout the hour. 

Joining me now is Lara Logan, host of "Lara Logan Has No Agenda" on Fox 
Nation. Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at TheFederalist and Fox News 
contributor.

Mollie, the difference tonight between very staid and scripted Biden event 
and what you're seeing in Wisconsin with this massive crowd and then 
president doing some stand-up in the middle of a lot of substance on China. 
It's a good comparison of the energy of both campaigns and what the people 
will be voting for in November.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THEFEDERALIST: It is. I think it's also 
actually a good example of what they both excel at. So with Donald Trump, 
he is in front of a large crowd, he is having fun, he's going through a 
list of policy achievements and desires for his second term.

But Joe Biden, he is in his, sort of, safe place, which is a very friendly 
media outlet asking questions that give him an opportunity to talk about 
the basis of his campaign, which is dislike of Donald Trump, friendly 
audience. But we haven't seen a lot of campaigning from Joe Biden. So this 
is sort of the closest we have gotten what he did tonight. Donald Trump 
seems to be doing more of what we saw four years ago that worked out so 
well for him then.

INGRAHAM: And Lara Logan, what was interesting in the Biden event tonight, 
was that there wasn't the moderator debating thecandidate like you had at 
A, B, C, where George Stephanopoulos was constantly interjecting and 
saying, oh, no, no, no, you said this two years ago. Oh, wait a second, but 
what about this? He didn't have any of that, it was fairly straightforward 
questions and minimal follow-up. Did you notice that?

LARA LOGAN, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, FOX NATION: Well, Laura. I mean, that 
has been consistent, right, with how it's been for some time now. It's 
every single interview, it's not just this interview. And what I am only 
struck by, because I have been a journalist for more than 35 years, and 
I've never seen a press core treat a president theway this president has 
been treated.

And people get up in arms, they roar in outrage when I say that kind of 
thing and cast to some kind of Judas Iscariot, how could I betray the media 
by saying that? And of course, the response as always, well, Donald Trump 
did that to himself. But I just wasn't raised that way, right, I was raised 
that this is about the office of the president. This isn't just about 
Donald Trump.

And from the beginning, the focus has always been, look at Donald Trump, 
look at all the terrible things he does and says, and how annoying he is. 
Just focus on him, and don't notice what we're doing in the meantime to 
your country. 

And that's pretty revealing, when you look at what is happening in many of 
these cities like Minneapolis, where the police have been defunded and in 
Austin where they are re-zoning single-family home areas, because they say 
that those are systemically racist. There's a lot of very quiet erosion of 
the principles upon which America was founded, that's been going on, while 
everyone has been so focused on whether Donald Trump is too tanned or not, 
or whether he said something that offended someone.

INGRAHAM: And both Trump and Biden have done these town hall type events 
this week. So, I thought it was important, Mollie, that we compare the 
types of questions that were asked. Now this is how CNN laid out the red 
carpet for Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How will you get the proper messaging out to all 
Americans to keep them informed as to how to properly protect themselves?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I look up to you, and as a middle-class health care 
worker, do you have any plans to stand up for us health care workers?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How will you handle Russia's involvement with Trump?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Silly girl, I married a silly girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, silly girls are the best.

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

INGRAHAM: Now compare that to how ABC chose their questioners of President 
Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did you throw vulnerable people like me under the 
bus?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't you support a mandate for national mask 
wearing? 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would you downplay a pandemic that is known to 
disproportionately harm low-income families in minority communities?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Should pre-existing conditions, which Obamacare 
brought to fruition be removed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please stop and let me finish my question, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

INGRAHAM: Wow! Well, Mollie, it's just night and day, Biden gets all the 
soft balls. And someone is like his campaign slipped CNN one of the 
questioners and a list of supporters to ask them.

It's like Trump is debating Stephanopoulos and theliberal questioners, and 
one of the questioners tonight on CNN was actually on Twitter with multiple 
photos of himself with campaign posters of - with supporting Joe Biden. So 
obviously, supporters are coming and asking favorable questions of Biden.

HEMINGWAY: It is beyond propaganda, what you're seeing with how the media 
are treating the two different campaigns. It used to be said that the media 
acted as a public relations arm of the Democrat Party. I think it's much 
easier to just understand them as essentially running the Biden campaign, 
particularly with the trouble that Biden is having in terms of typical 
campaigning.

It's less of a problem for Donald Trump, I think, and that he seems to 
thrive with a hostile media audience. But it's something that Republicans 
do need to think about, whether they will continue to allow themselves to 
be treated like second-class citizens by so many people in the media. 

It's also interesting that despite what the media are claiming about Donald 
Trump, you look at the headlines and the questions that they pick for these 
debates or whatnot, and they portray him as this evil monster who is a 
racist and whatnot. And yet at the same time, Donald Trump is doing better 
than he did in 2016 with various minority voters. 

It doesn't matter so much what the media are saying, because I think they 
are so extreme that people are just having trouble believing anything that 
they have to say.

INGRAHAM: And Lara, I know you have done so much on this on Fox Nation, and 
your news special on Fox Nation, and we've seen therise of Antifa, these 
extremist organizations on the left. Nancy Pelosi finally comes out today 
to condemn the violence 3.5 months in. Now what is that all about, polls or 
something else?

LOGAN: Well, it's obvious what that is about, because so many Americans are 
looking at the situation on the streets and they are concerned about what 
it means for them. I mean they are walking through suburbs saying, out of 
your house, onto the streets. People are being attacked for the color of 
their skin. We are returning to a time in this country, which is, by the 
way, in the rearview mirror, it's seen as going backwards where the color 
of your skin is what defines you. And it concerns people.

Quite honestly, Laura, it's so hypocritical that it's really quite 
nauseating. I have to agree with Mollie, it has become beyond reprehensible 
at this point. So if you imagine, if you are Democrat supporter now, you 
actually think that the violence in these cities is Trump's fault, that 
Russia collusion was really, even though Mueller didn't find evidence. And 
that everything of significance like guilty pleas from FBI attorneys for 
falsifying evidence, that none of that really mattered or was significant.

And this is kind of the alternative universe that they have created for 
people who, if they're not looking for any outside view and they keep 
putting people forward like Adam Schiff who have lied and lied and lied. 
Peter Strzok, John Brennan, they let them comment on the things in which 
they are complicit and if possibly broken the law and it's really quite 
astonishing. 

But in spite of all of that, Mollie is right, I mean, people are just not 
falling for it. It's really thanks to a group of young reporters out there 
risking their lives on the frontlines of Antifa's war against America, who 
that we know the truth about so many of the things that are happening on 
those streets, because honestly the media and many of those places are not 
doing their jobs. I mean, some of them are.

INGRAHAM: Yes. 

LOGAN: But it's remarkable how on a national scale, they are still lying 
about this and downplaying it. And when the FBI Director has to come out 
and say what he said today, even he seemed reluctant. So there is a real 
issue here at the heart of this about why the left and so many in law 
enforcement downplay this threat, because it's fundamentally dishonest and 
that odds with the facts.

INGRAHAM: Yes. And I think they are now talking about the threat, probably 
in the end helps Donald Trump, and they don't want to do anything that 
helps Donald Trump. So if means sacrificing law and order, they will do it.

Let's get back into President Trump in Wisconsin on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

TRUMP: They clean their phones, so you don't have any of the information. 
But that is a big problem for them, I would imagine. It is a disgrace that 
they can do it. But when you go back, but Hilary got it and she deleted and 
acid washed, right? Who acid washed, did you ever --? And she also used a 
bang them with a hammer, remember that? We forget that, right.

So, let's see what happens with all of that stuff. I think Bill Barr is 
doing an excellent job. He is fighting a very bad establishment in 
Washington and there is some bad apples in that whole deal. But if you 
think that Biden opposed the mission to take out Osama Bin Laden, he was 
against it. He opposed to killing of Soleimani, he oversaw the rise of 
ISIS. What a mistake! And he cheered the rise of China as a very positive 
development for America and the world, but I don't think so. I don't think 
so and not been too positive.

If we are up to sleepy Joe Biden, Bin Laden and Soleimani would still be 
alive, ISIS would still be on the rampage, and China would now be the 
dominant power in the world. And they are not even close, I will tell you.

We have weaponry the likes of which nobody has seen, 2.5 trillion buys you 
some good stuff, especially when we have the finest scientific minds and 
military minds in the world. We have weapons, thelikes of which nobody has 
seen, and just hope to god we never have to use them. I say that, and I say 
it strongly. Hope that we never have to use them. 

My attitude was that and I have learned this a long time ago, by having 
them, we keep ourselves out of war as opposed to bringing ourselves into 
one. But we have built and created weapons thelikes of which this world 
has never seen before. And we don't have to talk about it too much, nor do 
I really want to talk about it.

When I banned travel from China, Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. 
He said he is xenophobic, what does that mean, Joe, tell me? Biden also 
opposed my plan to ban Europe, I saw what was happening in France and Spain 
and Italy and highly infected we banned Europe. If we had insisted and 
listened to Joe and insisted in doing what so many other people said to do, 
which is you don't have to do the ban, hundreds of thousands of more 
Americans would've died from the plague.

Biden was willing to sacrifice American lives on thealtar of open borders. 
And now I hear him talking -- he should've followed me. You know, this 
guide did the swine flu, right. It was a catastrophe. And the man that 
headed up the swine flu, I won't use his name because I would like to have 
a nice evening, because I can't imagine theDemocrats are thrilled, he said 
it was a horrible job. We had no idea what we were doing. It was a 
disaster. He said it was a disaster. 

And now Biden is telling us how to do what we're doing so well on, what 
other countries are calling me and congratulating me on the incredible job. 
And I got sleepy Joe Biden trying to tell me how to do it. And his only man 
who headed in up, swine flu, its' H1N1 swine flu. Joe called N1H1. I keep 
saying Joe, Joe, it is H1N1, right? I said it's easy to remember because 
"h" comes before "n." 

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: But he can't do it. 

And then you saw what he said the other day, under a Harris-Biden 
administration. That was a disaster. I never said under a Pence-Trump 
administration. He said under a Harris-Biden administration. And what made 
it worse is she said the same thing. That was terrible, right? Sean, right, 
did you hear that? They are a disaster together. 

Through our historic relief programs, we've saved more than 1 million 
Wisconsin jobs, and 87,000 Wisconsin businesses. That's not too bad. 

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And Biden would demolish all of those gains. And we've done similar 
things in other states. He would destroy your Social Security, totally 
destroy it, and destroy protections for preexisting conditions. They want 
to go to social medicine. They want to go to social -- you know that, 
right? You do know that. They want social health care where you don't -- 
remember Obama, 28 times, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. 
That didn't work out too well, right? Why haven't they looked into that 
one, 28 times? 

Under Medicare for all, but it's basically socialized health care, you will 
never have your doctor, you will never have your plan, you'll have horrible 
health care. You're going to wait long times, long times. And he wants to 
wipe out 180 million private health care plans that people love, 180 
million plans. 

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Trump moments ago addressed his COVID 
response at the rally, but there are many troubling developments about how 
local leaders are reporting numbers. I want to key in on these disturbing 
revelations out of Nashville, where a local FOX affiliate obtained emails 
exposing a sinister COVID cover-up, and this done by city officials.

The emails show that the office of Mayor John Cooper, a Democrat, hid data 
that undermined the rationale for keeping the city locked down, namely, 
that contact tracers were only able to link a small, small fraction of 
COVID cases to bars and restaurants, of course, that have been destroyed in 
Nashville. Only 22 out of thousands of cases were tied to bars and 
restaurants. 

Now, despite knowing this inconvenient truth as early as June 30th, the 
mayor still issued even stricter lockdown measures ahead of the July 4th 
weekend. But if the mayor's office knew it wasn't true, why did they say 
it? Councilmember Steve Glover called out themayor's office. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE GLOVER, NASHVILLE COUNCILMEMBER: I don't trust a thing they say going 
forward. Nothing. 

We raised taxes 34 percent, and we put literally hundreds and thousands of 
people out of work that are now worried about losing their homes, their 
apartments, et cetera. And we did it off of false information and bogus 
data. That should be illegal. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now is Phil Kerpen, president of the Committee to 
Unleash Prosperity. Phil, this is something, really, you'd expect from 
Communist China, Soviet Russia, not an American city. My concern is that if 
this is happening in Nashville, are other cities lying to? I was dealing 
with this earlier this week in Texas with the governor of Texas still has 
these artificially low restrictions on restaurants even though, I think the 
same deal, they can't really trace these infections back to restaurants. 
It's killing the restaurant industry across the country, frankly. And here 
we have proof in Nashville. 

PHIL KERPEN, COMMITTEE TO UNLEASH PROSPERITY: It's a pretty remarkable 
story, Laura, because we now know in the data that at the time that the 
mayor of Nashville walked out and said, we know from our contact tracing 
that it's the bars and the restaurants, and theclusters are going up 
sharply. There were like five clusters and 20 cases total from restaurants, 
and over 1,000 cases from nursing homes and health care transmissions, over 
1,000 cases from construction sites. And yet for some reason, the city 
that's extremely dependent on tourism and bars and restaurants and 
musicians decided to lock down the bars, close them completely, cut 
restaurants back to 50 percent. And then they said, oh, we have no money 
for our government. We need to raise property taxes 34 percent. This is 
about as bad as it gets. 

And to your point, this can't be the only place this kind of thing is 
happening. This is just one of the only places that you have really good 
local activists who are pushing back on it. And there's a great group, 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__SmartNashville.org&d=DwICAg&c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&r=tgDLkJy54PfJyWJwul3dKe54qGxqO7b7d5vjo7RcZds&m=MjErQ_dHYKtElBgLgCscbO13-V3k3ZWQUgMuhy7VV4Q&s=_Ls6S9pL2ca94q520qPzwGzUT-N1FzwfoJCLjrORpJo&e=  (ph) that's behind a lot of these efforts to push back, 
was to obtain these emails. I've heard they have got other stuff coming. 

But we need efforts like that everywhere in this country, Laura, because I 
think they are only basically two kinds of governments right now, the ones 
that are lying about the data, and the ones that don't understand the data 
and actually think there are problems that aren't. 

INGRAHAM: Right. And yet, Phil, the same old stale lines are recirculated 
day after day. Trump is anti-science. If you question the lockdowns, you 
are anti-science. And Joe Biden tonight at his town hall said I don't trust 
Trump, but I just Fauci. Which Fauci? Do you trust the Fauci who said we 
don't need masks, or do you trust the Fauci who said you've got to wear 
masks? So, it's always which expert you hold up on a pedestal to reinforce 
the conclusion you want.

KERPEN: This is what's so dangerous about what Biden and the other liberals 
are doing, is they're acting as if the policies that they prefer are the 
only ones that are based on science, when you and I know that there's huge 
disagreement among scientists on all of these issues. They're essentially 
contested. There's a lot of evidence that lockdowns did not work, had no 
positive factor, and had massive both health and economic costs associated 
with them. And they say, if it's Stanford or it's Oxford, it doesn't count 
as science. Only if it's Harvard or Imperial College, only if it's the 
scientists that are seeing what we want to hear does it count as science. 
Otherwise you are anti-science and we exclude you. 

And when you take that mentality, along with theguy who says, hey, if 
science tells me to lockdown, I'm going to lockdown, well, the science he 
is going to choose is going to say national lockdown. So that's very 
frightening that we could go back to that. 

INGRAHAM: And Phil, tonight at the town hall, thedrive-in, it's an old 50s 
style drive-in town hall with Joe Biden, there was a moment where he was 
talking to a teacher that had M.S. -- I believe it was muscular dystrophy, 
I believe, and so had underlying conditions. At this is how the 
conversation went about going back into theclassroom. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You should be able to be in a position 
where you are behind elastic, you are in a sanitized circumstance, and you 
are teaching. I would not take the chance, even if everyone had been 
vaccinated because of your compromised immune system. And by the way, some 
teachers have already died. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK. The operative point here is, he is saying a teacher with an 
underlying issue shouldn't go back to the classroom even if there is a 
vaccine. So what are we talking about here, Phil? I don't know if he 
understands what he's even saying at this point. 

KERPEN: I think he's either saying we want school closed forever, or we 
want to pay for that man's retirement or transition him to an 
administrative role or a remote teaching support kind of role. Look, if you 
have teachers who genuinely have serious medical conditions that they can't 
do the job, than they probably shouldn't be in that classroom anyway, 
because there are a lot of potential exposures, not just coronavirus, if 
you're in a school. In fact, there are a lot of other things that children 
are much more contagious with than that. And so if somebody has that kind 
of a serious condition, then we should maybe look at moving them into a 
different role or another position. 

But what we're getting from Democrats like Biden, it's never going to be 
safe. It's not safe now, it's not going to be safe when there's a vaccine. 
So, is this forever? Is this it.

INGRAHAM: Phil, I'm sorry to interrupt, but there's always a reason the 
left will want to take your freedom away. They will always have a 
justification for stealing your freedom. That's it. It's never going to be 
safe enough. You hit the nail on the head. Phil, it's always great to see 
you. Thanks so much tonight. 

And my next guest says the actions of this Nashville mayor are convincing 
even some of his liberal buddies to back Trump this fall. Joining me now is 
country music star and Nashville resident John Rich. He's also the host of 
"The Pursuit" on FOX Nation. John, before we do anything, get into anything 
here, the bar and restaurant scene is critical to Nashville's economic 
health and the livelihood of so many. What's it like right now?

JOHN RICH, COUNTRY MUSIC STAR: It is a disaster. It is gutted. Mayor John 
Cooper has betrayed our time. He has betrayed Music City. He is a Judas to 
this town. He is now the de Blasio of the south, that is what he is. He has 
lied to our town for months and months on end. And there are real 
casualties with this law. Forget some of the big companies that have lost a 
lot of money. Let's talk about musicians. Let's talk about bartenders and 
servers and security guards, all the people that work downtown in Nashville 
that were targeted by this Judas of a mayor, John Cooper, who claims he 
loves Nashville and loves Music City. Yet he had theinformation at his 
fingertips that told him Broadway and the music scene is not what's 
creating the COVID-19 problem in Nashville. 

But yet he decided not to display that information to us, and instead, week 
after week lied to us and kept it under control, brought this town to its 
knees to try to put us into submission, thinking that his elitist arrogance 
could overcome a bunch of dumb country hicks that live in this town, and 
that he could override us with his will. Let me tell you something, he's 
got a real highfalutin education. Go look him up. I bet there's a phrase he 
understands really well, but I'm going to remind him of what it is -- class 
action lawsuit. That is what's coming for this Judas of a mayor, next the 
de Blasio of the south. Congratulations. 

INGRAHAM: John, this is what a Nashville bar operator, Joseph Pemberton, 
said about the mayor's COVID restrictions last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSHUA PEMBERTON, OPERATING PARTNER, NASHVILLE UNDERGROUND: We're excited 
and pleased that the mayor has given us permission to stay up past 10:30 on 
a school night. We are making the best of it. And we'll take everything we 
can get. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: We'll take everything we can get. Business owners can't be 
content with getting these crumbs thrown at them. So many of them in 
Nashville especially, they are closed for good, John. They are not coming 
back. 

RICH: It's like the mayor wants us to say, thank you, sir, can I have 
another? This attitude, now that we've uncovered what's actually been going 
on -- I will give him this. He's created unity in a town that there's been 
a lot of division in. We are all unified now that our mayor, regardless of 
your political persuasion, we all know now in this town who we're dealing 
with. We have an actual, real-live pariah on our hands. 

As a matter of fact, I think John Cooper is probably going to be the new 
favorite cuss word in Nashville. Next time I hit myself with a hammer I'm 
going to go, "John Cooper that hurt." That's where this guy is headed. If 
he had any dignity or any love for this town, he would apologize to Music 
City and he would resign before midnight tonight. That's what he should do. 

INGRAHAM: And your bar is downtown Nashville, of course. It's called 
Redneck Riviera. Everybody knows who has heard you talk about it. You don't 
require masks. Now, people are outraged you don't require masks. What has 
the response been among the patrons of that bar? 

RICH: So, our staff wears masks, everybody that works there gets 
temperature texts, they wear masks. That's another thing, we followed every 
single rule that the mayor laid out to a T. We followed every single rule. 
We offer our patrons masks. We socially distance our patrons. We follow the 
rules. 

And in the beginning when the mayor was giving us these outrageous numbers, 
it scared everybody to death, and we're like, hey, mayor, we're team 
players. We don't want to be part of the problem. Of course, we will do 
what you're asking us to do. We did it and we did it and we did it until he 
completely gutted what drives this town, which is live music and Broadway 
downtown. And now we find out that the entire thing was built on a lie that 
he perpetrated, that he put on us. So we have no sympathy -- 

INGRAHAM: John, really quick -- hold on, John, really quick. We've got to 
roll. But is this turning into a problem for Democrats? I know there are a 
lot of Democrats in Nashville, it's a Democrat town. But are even some 
Democrats perhaps giving the president a second look now because of these 
lockdowns? 

RICH: I think what you're seeing the mayor of Nashville do is a microcosm 
of what could happen been nationwide if you put somebody like him or 
somebody that thinks like him in a bigger position of power, for instance, 
the White House. Yes, I think --

INGRAHAM: Yes, that is Joe Biden. That's Joe Biden. John, we've got to go. 
Thank you so much for joining us tonight. 

We continue to monitor the president's rally in Wisconsin. We'll take you 
back there when he makes some news. But still ahead, the depravity of 
Hollywood getting out of control. The Netflix film "Cuties," that's only 
the tip of the iceberg, and they're trying to defend that. Dinesh D'Souza 
explains and gives us an sneak peek at his new movie that his the theaters 
tonight. Stay there. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Most of you have been following theoutrage that is the Netflix 
film "Cuties." I canceled my Netflix subscription because of it. Featuring 
children in sexually exploitative scenes, it made clear that the streaming 
service puts profits above protecting children. But what's also shocking 
was the media's just blatant defense of the film. Of course, they always 
protect anything bordering on pornography. And the way that they attacked 
the critics. "Rolling Stone" ran this headline, "How "Cuties" is fueling 
the far right's obsession with pedophilia." Nice try. And "The New Yorker" 
claims the film became the target of a right-wing campaign.

So being disgusted by the sexualization of children is now a far right 
proposition? What's going on here? Here to tell us, conservative 
commentator Dinesh D'Souza who is the executive producer of the brand-new 
film, I have five different friends who went out to see it tonight, 
"Infidel." We'll get to that in a moment. Dinesh, how did opposing the 
exploitation of children become a far-right position? 

DINESH D'SOUZA, CONSERVATIVE FILMMAKER: Because Hollywood has now come to 
specialize in two things. One is sexual depravity, and the other is 
ideological propaganda. So with the sexual depravity, something that began 
really a generation ago, they keep upping the ante, pushing the envelope. 
And this has just reached a level of disgusting so many Americans, and, by 
the way, giving a horrible image of America abroad. Many people abroad come 
to think of Americans as sexual perverts when they see young children 
behaving in such lewd and suggestive ways. They mistake, in a sense, 
American culture for American behavior. 

Now, to the ideological propaganda, we see this, too. The Hollywood a 
villain is typically a businessman, or it's a pastor who turns out to be a 
secret hypocrite and a racist. So, they've run out of plots. They've run 
out of ideas, and if they didn't have the gimmicks of modern technology the 
Hollywood industry would collapse completely. 

INGRAHAM: Dinesh, it's so interesting that your film "Infidel" is out 
tonight, of course, Islamic radicalism and so forth. I want to give 
everyone a quick sneak peek of it, and then I'll ask the question on the 
other side. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This caused and international incident.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't give up on it. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This Friday, one man, one mission, one movie event that 
can't be missed -- "Infidel." 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Dinesh, it looks amazing. And it highlights the persecution of 
Christians in Iran. How much of this is friction, and where are the Muslims 
speaking out in the United States against the kind of pornography that is 
rampant on the Internet and approaching it in this film? 

D'SOUZA: The official Muslim groups in this country like CAIR and so on are 
in bed with the radical left. And they are not going to speak out against 
"Cuties" or anything else. I've been making documentaries, films, as most 
people know. I've got a new one, "Trump Card," coming out next month. But 
I've been eager, and so my wife and I, my wife Debbie and I came up with 
the idea of doing a feature film, not a niche film for the Christian market 
or the conservative market, but a mainstream political thriller full of 
action that would confront issues that Hollywood would never touch. 

So Hollywood is really scared of radical Islam. If they ever feature a 
terrorist, it's typically some Russian or eastern Europe. It's la-la land, 
it's not even the real world. So we have a film, "Infidel" that is based on 
true events. It's based on a series of Americans who have been entrapped in 
radical Islam, captured, imprisoned in Iran. And we tell the story, which 
begins in Washington D.C. It takes you to Lebanon and it takes you to 
Cairo, and then on to Iran. It's starring Jim Caviezel who made "The 
Passion of the Christ." It's very exciting, it's fun to watch. It's really 
a great film. 

INGRAHAM: And Dinesh, again, we always hear we're going to have this 
alliance between Christian conservative and conservative Muslims, and they 
are going to work together on all these big social issues. But in a film 
like "Cuties" where it's kind of, in the beginning at least, it looks like 
it's ridiculing this Muslim family. You don't hear anything from the 
Muslims. Nothing that I've seen. 

D'SOUZA: Our real allies, I think we figured out -- we're not going to find 
these Muslim advocates speaking up on this stuff. One of the interesting 
highlights of the film is it focuses on theunderground Christian movement 
and Iran. This is something that is very rarely reported on, certainly 
never covered in a Hollywood movie. But it is a powerful force in Iran. 

The director of this film, Cyrus Nowrasteh, is a young Iranian-American and 
a convert to Christianity, and he brought that element to the script. And I 
think it brings the movie a whole new depth and dimension. 

INGRAHAM: I cannot wait. Dinesh, I cannot wait to see the film. If I 
could've seen it tonight, I would have. Congratulations on all your 
success. Everyone is going to go out and see "Infidel." Thanks so much.

And still ahead, President Trump has a new nickname for Nancy Pelosi. I'll 
let you know after the break. The last bit explains.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: This from her earlier tonight, President Trump breaks out a new 
nickname for a political foe, and did he just find a new hairstylist? 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Crazy Nancy, crazy as a 
bedbug. She decided to make a nice little stop in at the beauty parlor. How 
did that work out? Not too good. It didn't work out too well. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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