Kellyanne Conway: Not sure media is relevant, consequential
Kellyanne Conway discusses the Trump White House's relationship with the press on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 2, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Ingraham standing by. Hi.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Hey, I'm just writing Eric Trump a thank you note for mentioning me during your show tonight.
HANNITY: I'm sitting here, and he goes, literally says you know who is great at defending Melania? Laura Ingraham. I'm like, what am I, chopped liver?
INGRAHAM: Well first of all, this is why you and I have been friends for 18 years. You were number one in cable, you are number -- close to Rush in radio. A little mention of someone else, you are like, "oh what about me"? Typical man.
HANNITY: You know why? Let's be honest. Everyone in this business, you know this is true -- is overpaid, lazy, and narcissistic. And most of them are all agenda. We're honest. We're talk show hosts. We do journalism, we do straight interviews, we do investigative reporting, we do commentary, we do opinion, we do it all.
INGRAHAM: We do radio --
HANNITY: By the way, how great was headed, Rush -- 30 years, paving the way for all of us?
INGRAHAM: Unbelievable. I would not -- 18 years ago, I got into radio -- you when I started the same year on national radio, you were doing other stuff -- 2001, I never would have done it.
HANNITY: Right, I was the guy in Santa Barbara, 1987, and then Huntsville, Alabama, and then Atlanta, you started at the top. I am so sorry it was so hard for you.
INGRAHAM: I was a lawyer, OK? Have a little pity for me as a lawyer. I was a lawyer.
HANNITY: We probably could go on for another 40 minutes -- we'll just fill the show with us bantering back and forth and figuring like children.
INGRAHAM: We're doing that. One Friday when you are not taking a vacation day, we're going to do that.
HANNITY: Seriously, if -- you and Tucker take more vacation than anybody/.
INGRAHAM: Probably because when you live in a palace, you don't have to go anywhere. The rest of us live in ramblers, OK?
HANNITY: I can't win this debate. I can't
INGRAHAM: You can't. No you can't. You had a great show tonight. All right, talk to you later.
HANNITY: OK, have a great show. All right see you later.
INGRAHAM: Welcome to Washington -- we are going to do that show some time -- I'm Laura Ingraham. This is 'The Ingraham Angle.' We have a very busy Thursday night. The president wrapping up another ruckus rally, just a short while ago amidst new bad blood between the U.S. and the media.
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway will be here in just moments to react to both. Herman Cain will stop by later, and he'll break down the looming battle between the president and former President Obama in the midterms. But first, partisan reporters and faux outrage. That is the focus of tonight's Angle.
All right for the past few days, a search in cable news reporter has been dining out and whining about this scene from Tuesday's Trump rally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(CROWD CHANTING AND BOOING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No ma'am. No ma'am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're a phony! You're a liar!
(CROWD CHANTING AND BOOING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: The day after he basked in the afterglow of the insults with contrived dismay.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN REPORTER: Honestly, it felt like we weren't in America anymore. I don't know how to put it any more plainly than that. Americans should not be treating their fellow Americans in this way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: OK, I have a question. Do these guys ever think about how they treat America? Hearing reporters complain about the angry reception they get in red state America is kind of like having an arsonist to lecture us about campfire safety. As Billy Joel saying, "we didn't start the fire." Now I personally don't like anyone shouting swear words or giving reporters or anyone the finger.
But I certainly can understand the frustration of the Trump voters. For much of the past three years, many in the press have been either underestimating or ridiculing both Trump and his supporters. Raise your hand if you are tired of journalists making themselves the center of every story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: I tried to calmly talk to a lot of these folks at the rally last night, and say, listen, hey, tell me what you want to talk about. Why are you guys so upset with us? They would kind of go through a list of questions, most of the questions were about, why don't you guys report positive news about the president?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: OK, so why don't you report positive news about the president? I wonder why these people are so understandably upset. According to the Media Research Center, and the first two months of 2018, 91 percent of broadcast network coverage of Trump was negative. The favorite story, of course, was the Russia investigation. And of the time devoted to covering the administration, one fourth of it, 24 percent of that airtime, was devoted to the Mueller probe. No other administration topic received that much attention, not even close.
And when they do cover another topic, like immigration for instance, it is 92 percent negative, only 8 percent positive. And you wonder why people are ticked off. It is not surprising that in a new survey by the research firm Brand Keys, Fox News is near the top of the trusted names in news. CNN, down near the bottom. Of course, the media may not be great at objectivity, but they are total pros at blame diffraction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: These opinions that they have at the rallies, they are shaped by what they see in the primetime hours of Fox News. It is very unfortunate but it's a pitting of American against American and honestly, it needs to stop.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The erosion of basic standards, stability and human decency, continues. It's not just a republican phenomenon, we are being led down the drain by President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: A little over a statement there, Jake. So it's our fault or the president's fault that the press refuses to do no soul-searching at all? None of the blame is theirs? Have they not seen most surveys that show trust in the network, their product, is near an all-time low? A new poll from Quinnipiac format a majority of all Americans disapprove of how the media cover Trump. Among Republicans, nearly nine in ten disapprove. But still, come on. It's the people who are the problem, not the press.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: This kind of unfocused, visceral anger at the other side of really neutral people, like folks in the press corps, it can lead to this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That's just beyond reprehensible comparison. We want to talk about Steve Scalise. We'll talk about that later. I don't recall the same level of concern over the violence that let's say, at Berkeley, when conservatives speak, or outside the Trump rallies in San Jose during the campaign. Remember when that guy was pummeled? When the left engages in not just harsh language, but criminal acts of violence, destroying property, putting police lives at risk, the media work overtime to understand the underlying anger and upset.
BEGIN VIDEO CLIP
UNIDENTIFIED MALEI: I see a lot of people expressing their humanity in the face of a candidate who has really built his candidacy on denouncing their humanity. And yeah, there are a few people out there who were not out there to actually protest, but at the end of the day, they accomplish their goal. They got on TV and they got their issues aired.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have grievances. It's not like his mindless or they just want violence. They are speaking out about somebody who is attacking their communities.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want you to know that our hearts are out there marching with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Did any of them bemoan the vile nature of the commentary or the signage at, let's say, the women's march?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MADONNA, SINGER: I didn't know devils could be resurrected, but I feel Hitler in these streets. Yes, I'm angry, yes, I am outraged, yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Remember when Madonna did all that yoga? I thought that was supposed to make you calm and zen-like. Where were the liberal complaints about this rhetoric?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS, D—CALIF.: And with this kind of inspiration, I will go and take Trump out tonight.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wish we were in high school -- I could take it behind the gym. That is what I wish.
ROBERT DE NIRO, ACTOR: How dare he say the things he does. Of course they want to punch him in the face.
JOY BEHAR, ABC: Right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Where was the media outrage about that? Did President Obama or other well-known Democrat leaders decry that approach, that language, that vitriol, that incitement to violence? Of course they did not. Because after all, President Trump, the people who supported him, continue to support him, they all deserve that and worse. And were the media condemnations when women who were affiliated or support for the president were harassed at restaurants, driven from movie theaters? The liberal media don't have any difficulty finding tough words to describe Trump supporters, though.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is truly dangerous.
UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We keep referring to his base. Well, I'm sorry, but the people we saw, at that rally, if that's his base, it is deranged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Deranged? I guess, he kind of as an aspect on deranged, sitting across Joe Scarborough for all these years. But come on, the selective media outrage is laughable, it's also kind of sad. But come on, if it's directed at Trump, protest and violence are considered really patriotic and kind of cool. But otherwise, it must be condemned as dangerous. It's pretty simple. Look, the culture has been coarsened, the entertainment industry, music, film, billboards, television, everything is over sexualized or too violent or just dumped down altogether.
But come on, this didn't start with Trump. It began about 50 years ago when liberals were on a mission to kick God out of the schools and when they began ripping down our basic institutions of civic life. And as this happened, fly over America felt demeaned by the dominant culture, which came to see them as backwater, intolerant, and yes, even racist. This just made them furious and resentful. But then came Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our economy is soaring, our jobs are booming. Factories are pouring back into our country. They are coming from all over the world. And the forgotten men and women of the United States are forgotten no more,
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: You can almost hear the peals of laughter at certain cable news at studios after he says stuff like that. But most in that crowd in the audience, across America, they like what they hear there. They don't want to be forgotten. My friends in the media, you cannot ridicule and attack a major part of the American electorate. You can't disparage them and the president they voted for every day and then expect gratitude and cordiality in return.
But I hope everyone will take a breath and learn to treat each other with civility and respect. The protesters, the president, and the media, and the way they cover them all. And that is the Angle.
Joining me in every action, here in studio, two political heavyweights, Matt Schlapp, on the American Conservative Union side, and Philippe Reines, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, and in California, a man who has written extensively about media hypocrisy, especially when it comes to violent rhetoric, Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute. Good to see all of you. Philippe?
PHILIPPE REINES, FORMER ADVISER TO HILLARY CLINTON: I don't even know where to start. What do you want me to --
INGRAHAM: Your reaction --
REINES: My reaction is --
INGRAHAM: -- your laughter is what I was writing about. You are laughing about the America or the supporters?
REINES: I'm not laughing at America. I'm laughing because I see what happens as someone watching this every night. Now I understand also, I understand if someone only watches another channel every night. It's very possible that you are not 100 percent right, you, being Fox. And that CNN is not 100 percent right and there's somewhere in between. But you don't get any of that.
There is no common -- I'm not going to be cutesy about common ground -- but we were talking earlier about different conspiracy theories. There is nothing I could say to debunk one because I would say, well, here, look at this Associated Press story, or here, look at this Fox story. There is nothing we all agree upon. So you have, yes, this toxic environment in the White House briefing room. I don't think it should be on TV anymore. But you also have a president who is lying, he is lying multiple times a day, he is lying at a rate more than anyone ever has.
MATT SCHLAPP, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION: That's not true.
REINES: It is true. He has lied 4,229 times every single day--
SCHLAPP: That is just lying from left-wing outlets. That's exactly what you're talking about. We can agree on truth. We can agree on truth. There are good reporters.
REINES: Do you fact check?
SCHLAPP: But that does not help -- the fact-check organizations that all these groups --
REINES: But why don't you?
SCHLAPP: -- are all paid by your left-wing buddies. That shouldn't happen. There is truth, Laura. There is right and wrong. By the way, all politicians should be held to that standard, but I agree with you, you can't go out there is a journalist and say you are objective and then be on your Twitter feed making fun of me and my friends and my family on a regular basis. You don't get to have it both ways.
INGRAHAM: Do you think there is polling, the way people feel about the media general? Whether they approve or disapprove of the coverage of the president? The majority -- it's not a Fox poll -- the majority, it they do not approve the way they cover the president to bring the majority believe they are biased toward the liberal side of the equation.
So I know you have your views about the president. I'm trying to keep this argument focused on this conflagration between the media and conservatives and the media and this administration. Victor David Hanson, you just wrote a column today about this. The culture that we live in.
VICTOR DAVID HANSON, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: Yes.
INGRAHAM: Your reaction to what you saw and heard over the last few days and the Angle?
HANSON: Well, I think there is a certain elite that feel that because their aims are so virtuous or they're so enlightened, so well educated, that there means to achieve them are okay. Take Jim Acosta, in reaction to that, a reporter at Politico said basically -- the people at that rally had no teeth and they were garbage. We haven't heard that since Peter Strzok said that people smelled at Walmart.
And you get into this deplorable and irredeemable, your political activists that talk about her Twitter, they go across the White House and make noise so the president can't sleep. It's all predicated on this contempt that they have a geographical or sociological or cultural subset of America and they are imbued with it.
And the irony of it, Laura, is that when you take this Sarah Jeong, who is now a member of "The New York times" editorial board, she's a product of Berkeley, she's a product of Harvard law school. Yet, she's voicing racist sentiments that are right out of the middle ages.
And the same thing with Ocasio-Cortez. She's a Boston University graduate but she's clueless on the Middle East or basic economics. So red state America is presented with this paradox that this really well educated, enlightened elite know everything, but they really don't. And yet, they disparage people on the base of class and we are reaping the whirlwind of that. I think we got to take a big step back.
INGRAHAM: Yeah you are talking about the new editorial board member of "The New York Times," Sarah Jeong, who said among the most hateful things about white people, I guess, when you're not white, you say hateful things about white people, "The New York Times" will still hire you if you delete your tweets and say you're sorry. I'm for redemption, I think that's great, but wow. I mean I can imagine people tweeting other things that are more directed -- in favored conservatives, they would never hire them at "The New York Times." But he made a point --
HANSON: We don't know what the rules are.
INGRAHAM: Yeah the rules are different -- we say the elites, it's not about where you go to school, it's the way you look down upon regular people. I see people at the Trump rallies, they don't go to fancy clothes stores and by the fancy clothes, certainly not like Paul Manafort does. They don't get the cool clothes. They don't speak in the same high influent terms of other people. But they're good people.
And they think America is in trouble and I think Donald Trump has more answers than the in crowd. That's why they voted for him. They believe he fights for him. The media don't get that. So focusing on the media. Do you believe that they are giving the policies of this administration a fair analysis, Philippe?
REINES: I do. And I think you are defining unfair as coming up with a negative outcome. That is assuming President Trump never makes any mistakes.
INGRAHAM: No of course he does. I called him out for mistakes.
REINES: You do it on immigration, all the time. I think the problem is, elite is code for looking down at someone. Soyboy. Calling someone a beta male. Low IQ. This is not one group looking down from a mountain saying the other group is scary.
INGRAHAM: I think people get offended and they strike back. It's a bad cycle.
REINES: You have 100 percent of the country angry as hell, and there's -- the media to some extent, is one of the ways to hash it out. And they have been neutered. You have been neutered. The same way you talk to your crowd, Jim Acosta talks to his crowd.
INGRAHAM: But he's not an opinion journalist. I am.
SCHLAPP: There's a difference.
INGRAHAM: I'm not a reporter. I'm a commentator. I worked for the Reagan administration and I clerked for Justice Thomas. I don't pretend to be objective. I'm an opinion journalist but I think I'm fair and I think there are great reporters --
REINES: Reports have very little impact on fact and story, Sean Hannity has given single-handedly given incredible credence to some of the worst conspiracy --
INGRAHAM: First of all, if you're going to come on this network and attack Fox, Philippe -- we could do this for the whole hour --
REINES: I'm not (inaudible), I'm sitting here -- I think I'm --
INGRAHAM: -- conspiracy theories. You know what I think it is a conspiracy theory? Saying garbage people, jeering at another person, falsely accusing them, flip them off -- like Mark Caputo, who says the most horrific things, as a Politico reporter --
REINES: I don't know who he is --
INGRAHAM: Mark Caputo?
REINES: No, this Sarah Jeong person --
INGRAHAM: Sarah Jeong is a new member of the board --
REINES: I think everyone has said things that they should regret, whether they do or not --
INGRAHAM: But I'm not -- these people are reporters. They are supposed to be calling balls and strikes, correct?
REINES: And they are.
INGRAHAM: They are?
REINES: And when Sarah Sanders lies to them, they call it out.
SCHLAPP: No, no no. Here's the thing. When Jim Acosta goes to a Trump rally --
HANSON: No, they're not though.
(CROSSTALK)
INGRAHAM: We'll get you in there.
SCHLAPP: These are Americans. This is the audience they are trying to get. He can see the hostility in how they cover things. Why doesn't CNN listen to what the American people want? Their ratings --
INGRAHAM: I think they would do better, actually, -- VDH, final thoughts.
HANSON: The disinterested Shorenstein Center at Harvard give us a number of reports that 90 percent of the press coverage, this wasn't opinion journalism, was slanted anti-Trump. This idea on the one hand, the other hand, is really disingenuous. Whether we like it or not, the media is from a particular subset of American life and they feel like their odyssey and their journey to delegitimize this president and the people who support him for a variety of cultural and class reasons, and I'm not saying that Trump is an angel, but the coverage is not disinterested and to suggest it is, is really pathetic.
INGRAHAM: All right, gentlemen, thank you so much and stay with us. We have an exclusive interview with White House insider Kellyanne Conway next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We are doing better in all of these states then we did on election night.
(CROWD CHEERING)
TRUMP: Much better. Despite the only negative publicity, only negative stories from the fakers back there -- I got along great with them. And everybody said, wow, that was great. A couple of hours later, I started hearing these reports that they wanted me to walk up -- here's a podium here -- they wanted me to walk up and go like this -- whatever happened to fair press? Whatever happened to honest reporting? These horrible, horrendous people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Well that was President Trump tonight in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to discuss the president's relationship with the press and a lot of hot news. Let's bring one of our close friends, at least mine, for too many years to count, and the president's closest advisor, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Kellyanne, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We've been discussing the relationship with the press, and the crybaby response, which I think is feigned, phony moral outrage, the horrible things said about this president, the horrible types of violence at anti-Trump protests, and smashing windows, and beating people up who have a cap on that says make America great, but now the press is upset because some 70-year-old lady yells at Jim Acosta. I mean, I don't get it.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I thought Press Secretary Sarah Sanders handled it beautifully today when she really read a bill of particulars -- an entire litany of facts -- of things that have been said about her and some violence that has been incited against her, she is the only press secretary in U.S. history to hear her say it -- that needed bodyguards, needed secret service. I had secret service when I got there for much the same reason. Laura, I have a slightly different take on all of this. I know that it may be annoying, it may be irritating, and may be unfair, it may even be biased at times, it certainly is. But I am also not sure it's particularly relevant or consequential.
The media is overall -- the approval rating is at 17 or 20 percent. I will give the range, I saw a low of 17, high of 20 percent in the latest. The president's approval ratings are ticking upward. And particularly on matters that are of the most consequence to the American people, like his handling of the economy, him trying to forge peace and prosperity around the globe.
People know what they see and what they see are their bonuses, their raises, deregulation, the historic tax cuts, they have confidence in this economy, and they are spending more of their money. I was at that rally tonight with the president. I participated in the round table with him ahead time also.
People are absolutely buoyant. They know that beginning with Hillary Clinton, they were referred to as irredeemable and deplorable, and looked down upon, they know that Barack Obama, when he was running for president, said these people who cling to their god and their guns -- he's had other things to say -- just always dismissing them, and this is why it is very important point. I'm not sure they care anymore. I speak to these people all the time. You know what they care about?
The care they have a president --
INGRAHAM: Right.
CONWAY: -- who respects and takes action daily for the military, for the veterans, and for them. And look, let's not mistake was going on here, too. A lot of these journalists have very expensive seven-figure contracts, go on late-night TV where they can yuk it up with others (ph) in similar situations, and they can just laugh all day long, particularly about the women in the Trump administration, and then they can go and give speeches -- I mean, they speak for free every single day, and half the country doesn't want to listen to them. But then somebody pays them a lot of money to give speeches, so they are raking it in. Listen, Donald Trump is absolutely right. President Trump, Laura, is absolutely correct when he says nobody has been better for the media than him. Their ratings -- well certainly the revenues, the popularity --
INGRAHAM: But Kellyanne, I got to jump in here. When I talk to my radio listeners every day, I did nothing a couple of days ago, I said, tell me how the Trump economy is affecting your business, your family, don't sugarcoat it. If it's not working, I want to hear from you. I did this for three hours. Okay, three hours. People literally talking about truck drivers, salesman, people in medical devices -- you know what they say? People are happier. People are happier because they are not worried about waking up and saying, oh, my God, I will lose my job tomorrow.
I was -- I knew the economy was great. But until you hear from the regular people, just saying, I don't know what these media are saying, everyone is unhappy, people are angry. People are happy because the economy is doing well. "The Hill" has a great piece today, Kellyanne, but other tariffs that are trashed by the media and the democrats, some of the democrats, the media getting that wrong, too. The tariffs are very popular with businessmen across the United States and they want more tariffs to level the playing field with China. So they are missing the story and it's going to your point.
CONWAY: That's right. The president said today that China is way down now and he told everybody to be patient. Well Laura, I wanted to mention something else. Bias is not just -- or it doesn't come in the form of overtly, one-sided, lopsided reporting. That's kind of easy to detect. Bias is also a selectivity of what gets covered and what does not.
So just this week you had the pool reporter from "The New York Times" say there was no news made when the president and Ivanka Trump and other office holders and high school students were in Tampa Bay at Tampa Bay Tech, so excited that the Perkins Legislation had been reauthorized, it's going to benefit upwards of 11 million students across this country. But no news was made.
INGRAHAM: No, no no. You don't wanna cover that. No.
CONWAY: Just today -- just today in the briefing room. This was so important. Just today in the briefing room, we had cabinet members come and talk about what they are doing in 2018 to stop meddling in interference in our elections --
INGRAHAM: Kellyanne, guess what happened? Not only did they not covered, Kellyanne, listen to what Chuck Todd said. Again, four, five top intel national security officials saying Russia meddled, we're going to stop it, but next time --
CONWAY: And that's what President Trump is doing.
INGRAHAM: Right. And this is what Chuck Todd said. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD: We begin tonight by trying to make sense of what happened this afternoon, and perhaps more importantly, why? For some, it's going to take more than one surprise briefing to convince them that what we heard today about cracking down on Russia has the full backing of the president, and that it was not an effort by a White House communications team desperate to turn the page from the other headaches they had been asked about all week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Kellyanne, your reaction to Todd's point?
CONWAY: I want to say something. There's my reaction -- in 2016, the president at that time, Barack Obama and Clapper and Brennan and Comey and others on their team, had information that Russia was meddling, trying to interfere in our election, but they sat on it, they buried it because "I'm with her" also meant with I'm going to bury the information we have about meddling.
Fast forward, this president is in charge, his entire team is on task. The security of homeland security said she's got a 50-state effort on way. They are investing cyber and election security. Secretary Nielsen and Vice President Pence two days ago were in New York City for all the public to see. The media hardly covered this entire conference on cybersecurity and election security.
But for this mainstream media who, as you pointed out, covered the Russian story more than anything this calendar year, when it came to speaking from the podium about what this president's administration will do to stop it, to try to stop it, they are not covering it because it's not coming in the Manafort trial, it's not coming in the Mueller report, it's not coming out of the mouths of someone else. It's coming in a cohesive and positive fashion from this president, what he's going to do. So it's complete hypocrisy.
Laura, if the mainstream media truly cared about election interference, they would be able to write a story or finish a sentence without mentioning Donald Trump's name. They can't do it.
INGRAHAM: We are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
CONWAY: Thank you. I had fun in the rain, thank you.
INGRAHAM: We'll continue to cover this and more. Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: The Democrats keep talking about blue wave this year, and once again they've labeled it the year of the woman. Wasn't that '92? Not so fast. According to a new poll by the "Independent Women's Voice," a candidate's gender makes no difference to 83 percent of likely 2018 voters.
Joining me now to discuss this, make sense of it, Harmeet Dhillon, the RNC committeewoman from California, and Pam Hayes, a former Hillary Clinton campaign organizer. Great to see both of you. Let's start with you, Pam. Why should a person's sex matter in an election? I thought we were supposed to be away from labels and gender. The only thing that matters is merit in what you bring to the equation. So why are we now labeling the election a year of the woman? Why isn't this just the year of great issues?
PAM HAYES, FORMER HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN ORGANIZER: I think it is the year of great issues. I don't know why it is being labeled the year of the woman. I just think that one reason why people were referring to it as the year of the woman is because you have more women candidates than ever before. So that would be one reason. I don't think people are just going out and saying, she wears a skirt, so I'm going to vote for her when her ideas are so far-fetched and they are different from mine. I don't people really do that. I just think that's just one of those tantalizing fact that pollsters do to make people come to their side of the equation.
INGRAHAM: I want to play this Michelle Obama soundbite. This is from September of last year when she talked about the women who turned out for Donald Trump. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice. What does it mean for us, for women, that we look at those two candidates, as women, and many of us said, that guy, he's better for me, his voice is more true to me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Harmeet, again, it seems to look down on women who voted for Trump. If you vote for a conservative Republican, you are voting against your interests. But with this booming economy, every level of the economy is up, female employment, optimism, manufacturing, all of it up, up, up. How can you say that this year after all these results are already in?
HARMEET DHILLON, ATTORNEY: Laura, they see it because they are out of ideas. They've got nothing. The year of the woman was 2016, by the way. It didn't work very well for the Democrats. They tried to use gender to catapult an otherwise bad candidate across the finish line and it didn't work.
I am a woman business owner and I can tell you that woman or man, everybody who is a business owner or who works for a living looks at their 401(k), looks at their rising salary, looks at job competition from people who are not in the country who are not citizens, and everybody factors those things in. So it is very passe for leaders to say that women should be voting according to their lady parts, as opposed to with their brains, with their pocketbooks, and voting for their futures.
Our party does need to do a good job, though, of defining those issues that all Americans care about, particularly people who have households caring about health care, they're caring about safety, and we can do a better job in Congress of making sure that we pass Obamacare, making sure that we get border security an those the issues like that. That is what women, that's what men care about. We all care about it.
INGRAHAM: Pam.
HAYES: That is what people care about, Laura. I don't think it is so much this gender focus as people want to make a statement. I think it's about the issues. And when I've got to worry about what is going to happen if, God forbid, something happens to my daughter and she's raped and you can even get a way to deal with that, that is a problem.
INGRAHAM: When you say a way to deal with that, you mean --
DHILLON: Abortion, that is the word you are searching for.
HAYES: Yes, that's what I mean, precisely.
DHILLON: Why couldn't you say it?
HAYES: Because I don't want to. I can say it the way I want to.
INGRAHAM: Pam, so what you believe in this election cycle is that one of the preeminent issues on the minds of voters is the ability to get an abortion? You think that will be outlawed in the United States, all 50 states? And why do you think that?
HAYES: I think it becomes dangerous when it's outlawed in some states. I think it should be a policy across the United States.
INGRAHAM: For abortion?
HAYES: I think it's a choice for women, for abortion. But that is not the top issue, at least for me, and I'm also --
INGRAHAM: It's not the top issue for any American. The top 10 issues, abortion, I don't think abortion is in the top 10, is it.
HAYES: I don't think so, either, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Why did you bring it up?
HAYES: I brought it up because I wanted to make a point.
INGRAHAM: What point?
HAYES: And that's why I brought it up.
INGRAHAM: I'm not finding it -- let me read you the comment from Hillary Clinton because we are talking about, there a lot of women candidates, and they are doing actually really well. The Democrats are fielding a lot of female candidates who are doing well so far in the pulling in a lot of open seats.
To both of you, this is what Hillary Clinton said. She said "We do not well with white men and we do not do well with married white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should." Pam, do you agree with what Mrs. Clinton said there? You read between the lines, you don't even have to read between the lines, is that these women are kind of stupid. They just vote the way their men want them to vote.
HAYES: No, I don't think that the vast majority women are stupid and vote the way their men want them to vote. But I think there are some people who do that, just like there are women who might just vote for women because they are women. I think the issue is, what is of importance to the majority of people in America. For me, it's a pocketbook issue. I am a business owner --
INGRAHAM: So you should be for Trump.
HAYES: No, I should never be for Trump. I have very serious issues with him.
INGRAHAM: How is your business doing?
HAYES: It's doing OK. It was doing better under George Bush. I'll put it like that.
INGRAHAM: OK, was doing better under Obama?
DHILLON: My business is doing great.
HAYES: I don't have that type of business. I'm a lawyer.
INGRAHAM: So is Harmeet, so am I, but I'm recovering.
DHILLON: So am I.
HAYES: Maybe I should get a job like yours.
INGRAHAM: Harmeet, last word.
DHILLON: Laura, the type of the candidates the Democrats are fielding in this election cycle are the extreme, unfortunately, these younger women who are standing for socialism, Ocasio-Cortez, women who are far left, women who want to abolish ICE, women who are open borders, women who are abortion extremists.
And frankly, I don't think that message is going to resonate with the majority of the voters. The majority of voters are somewhere in the middle. And so I hope that I'm correct that these young women, attractive, good-looking candidates, aren't necessarily going to get a vote in November, but that depends on Republicans to field people with better ideas.
INGRAHAM: I don't care what party you like or if you don't like Trump, you like Trump, you have to like this economy. If you don't like this economy, I can tell you this. It's not going to get better than it is right now. It might get marginally better, but this is a great time. If you want a job in the United States, I can't think in my lifetime of a better time to be an American citizen. We really appreciate both of you joining us.
HAYES: I think it's a continuous flow. Actually, it wasn't bad with Obama. It wasn't bad.
INGRAHAM: I didn't say it was bad. I said right now --
DHILLON: It's terrific now.
INGRAHAM: It's a 4.1 GDP, taking China to task. I mean, this is a factual argument at this point. The American people give him very high marks on the economy, thankfully, about 55 percent, and that is a good thing. It's good for all Americans. Whoever was president presiding over these policies, these are good policies for the American people.
I really appreciate both of you joining us tonight. Harmeet and Pam, thanks so much.
HAYES: Thank you.
INGRAHAM: And still ahead, Herman Cain on the brewing battle between the president and former president Obama, Glenn Greenwald on President Trump versus the old world order, also. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: You know that old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If the enemy is President Trump, it sure seems so. The neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Center for American Progress recently joined forces to publish a report blasting President Trump's foreign policy. That's a shock. You heard that right, President Trump has both sides of the swamp so riled up they are not collaborating.
Joining me now for reaction, Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at the website "Intercept" who has written about the recent alliance between the Bush era neocons are liberals. Glenn, it is good to see you tonight. This is wild, but for us conservatives who took a step back after the Iraq War, said this is a mistake, we've got to be much smarter on military interventionism, I guess it is not all that surprising but it is just now out in the open, what we thought is now true.
GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST, "THE INTERCEPT": Yes, I think it is one of the most under-covered stories of the Trump era, this ideological shift. When I started writing about politics in 2005, the root of all evil for liberals was the American Enterprise Institute. John Yoo and Bill Kristol and the Kagans, Danielle Pletka. And these are the people who are now joining with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party to defend this very militaristic, internationalized, institutional assertion of military force which they see President Trump, in a lot of cases, rightly, as well as people on the left, as opposing.
And this predates for Trump. A lot of neocons were preparing to support Hillary Clinton before Trump even became a candidate because they found her brand of hawkishness, she criticized Obama a lot for being insufficiently belligerent, quite attractive. And this shift is really quite profound.
INGRAHAM: He's doing it in other ways, too. Trump has blown up a lot of old alliances. The Koch brothers, you are seeing that split. Richard Trumka, he's not ruling out supporting Trump in 2020. I think it is good to mix all this up. All these old alliances, didn't deliver that great a result, at least on foreign policy, and a mixed result vis-a-vis United States versus China on the economy, and Trump is like, well, I'll work with anybody who will work with me, and I guess his enemies are saying the same thing.
GREENWALD: Absolutely. The view of Trump, for example, that I will meet with any leaders without preconditions was Barack Obama's flagship position in 2007 that horrified Hillary Clinton. And especially on these international trade agreements, like the World Trade Organization and NAFTA and TPP, opposition to those, which has become Trump policy, was orthodoxy on the left for a long time, and that, too, is driving the establishment wings of the Republican and Democratic Party's crazy because they are financed by the same banking interests, the same corporate interests, that love is globalized industries that have been terrible for the American worker but great for American hedge funds and banks. And that, too, is causing a remarkable shift in a lot of coalitions that I think will endure long after Trump is gone.
INGRAHAM: I think the old order is forever disrupted. I don't think that is ever coming back, as much of the kick and scream. And speaking of unholy alliances, Glenn, I want to get your thoughts on something else. "The Intercept" has written about former "L.A. Times" writer and current NBC darling, intelligence reporter, Ken Dilanian. Tell us more about the relationship with the CIA and why we probably see him on TV so often, Dilanian as a "L.A. Times" reporter, and what he used to share with the CIA?
GREENWALD: Well, it is really amazing because we at "The Intercept" did a FOIA request where we asked the CIA to turn over there communications with reporters which they can't refuse to do on national security grounds because they're communicating with journalists. And they turned over emails that had all kinds of communications between the CIA and Ken Dilanian where he would say, I'm about to report on you, here's the draft that I want to say. What do you guys think, what should I change?
And we published all those emails, and lots of liberals said Ken Dilanian is the worst. He's a servant of the CIA. He got pushed out of the "L.A. Times," but ever since then he's kind of fell up the ladder, and he's now the star reporter at MSNBC and NBC, where that is all he does is just blindly and mindlessly repeat what the CIA tells them to say. He gives them anonymity, and he's essentially their puppet and their mouthpiece, and that is called journalism over at MSNBC.
INGRAHAM: But he's an expert. They hauled him out as a real expert Brennan, Clapper, the whole crowd. And so he speaks with authority because he covered for that much time. But until you do that FOIA request, I don't think anybody, no one knew the backstory.
GREENWALD: Yes, I think American journalism in general for a long time, it has been a critique of mine going back to the Bush years has been far too deferential to these intelligence operatives who operate in the dark. They give them anonymity. That was why we got the Iraq War. But I think Ken Dilanian take this horrible practice, and he is kind of the world champion of benefiting his own career by just acting as a stenographer for the intelligence community, and he has become a hero of Democrats and liberals who watch MSNBC because now the CIA, remarkably, is the agency that they venerate and revere more than anyone else, and therefore a journalist who is their spokesperson is kind of a TV star for them. It's really a remarkable and bizarre and surreal turn of events.
INGRAHAM: Oh, my goodness. It's wild. Thanks so much, we really appreciate it.
And by the way, President Obama is returning to the political fray in a big way. Herman Cain joins us next to break down the heavyweight matchup between Obama and President Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Former president Barack Obama is back in the political fray with endorsements for 81 Democratic candidates ahead of the midterms. Interestingly, though, he did not endorse Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, or even Beto O'Rourke, Ted Cruz's challenger in Texas.
Obama's political involvement didn't help Hillary Clinton get elected, but will it help Democrats in the midterms? And they miss him a lot. So joining me now with answers, Fox News contributor, former GOP presidential candidate himself, Herman Cain. OK, Herman, President Obama is a rock star for Democrats. They love him. You see all those bumper stickers, "I miss Barack," it's kind of sad. He seems to be having fun in retirement. But he's wading back in. Will this make a difference?
HERMAN CAIN, FORMER GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No. And that's because president -- former president Obama is a lightweight. He presided over the nation. President Donald Trump is a heavyweight. He's leading the nation. That is the difference.
And if you compare the results side-by-side, even though President Trump isn't even two years into his leadership yet, the results are startling. So former president Obama's endorsement won't mean a thing in my opinion.
Now the list of people that you said he endorsed that are Democrats, and the ones that he left out, here is the difference. He endorsed closet socialists, but he did not endorse open socialists. That is the difference, and I don't think it's going to make a difference.
INGRAHAM: I think with the Democrats are trying to sell this time is you are undoing all the great progress of Barack Obama. Environmental regulations, that's going to be big in places like California. They are really going to sell the abortion issue, that we lose another seat on the court, we don't but a real roadblock in front of Trump, it's going to be goodbye to abortion and that is going to threaten women's reproductive health. You can hear it already building, but it's environmental, it's women, it's the animals. That is kind of where they are going. Clean air, clean water, he's going to poison your kids and your dog.
CAIN: That is where they are going, Laura. But that dog ain't going to hunt. And I know from the people I listen to every day like you, the people there to support Donald Trump are not leaving Donald Trump. The Democrats that are believing this malarkey, some of them are believing it, but some of them are saying, maybe I need to take a second look.
And here is what Donald Trump is really going to pick up ground, with the independent, correct thinking people in the middle. All of the noise that has been generated by the liberal noise chamber, the liberal news chamber, it's the narrow lens of the media. And as one of my callers said today, it feels like they are talking about the twilight zone. And that is exactly what they are talking about, because they are not talking about the America that you hear every day on your show, the people that I hear from every day, they are not listening to those. They are creating their own narrative that is not in touch with reality. You've got a lightweight, a former president, versus a heavyweight who is leading the nation, versus someone who was presiding over the nation.
INGRAHAM: Herman, I want to get quickly your reaction to this other story that's causing liberals to go absolutely bonkers. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka reportedly has not yet ruled out endorsing President Trump in 2020. Quick reaction?
CAIN: The union leaders do this every election cycle to try and squeeze more out of the Democrats, the liberals, and the progressives. They would never do it, but they threaten it to see if they can squeeze a little bit more.
INGRAHAM: All right, so you are not buying Trumka?
CAIN: I'm not buying it.
INGRAHAM: I knew I would get the truth from Cain. Thank you, Herman.
When we come back, "Vogue" will feature something coming up in September. You won't believe it, or maybe you will.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: We mentioned on the show how the thin, glossy magazines have completely ignored featuring Melania Trump, a woman known for her grace, sophistication, let's face it, she's gorgeous, her intellect, once again snubbed, this time from "Vogue's" vaunted September issue. But they are featuring a peculiar choice, porn star Stormy Daniels. That's right, "Huffington Post" telling us Annie Leibovitz taking the photo. It's just - it's so typical, so disappointing, but not surprising at all. Melania Trump, gorgeous, Stormy, well, god bless her.
We have a great show on tap with Shannon Bream and the 'Fox News @ Night' team. They're going to take it from here.
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