This is a rush transcript from "The Five," February 14, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Hello everyone, I'm Dana Perino along with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld. It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."
A major shakeup in the first weeks of the Trump administration, National Security Advisor Mike Flynn resigned last night after only 24 days on the job. A load of new developments to tell you about today, let's begin with the explanation from the White House of what prompted General Flynn to step down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We got to a point not based on a legal issue but based on a trust issue. With the level of trust between the president and General Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change. The president was very concerned that General Flynn had misled the Vice President and others.
He was also very concerned in light of sensitive subjects dealt with by that position of National Security advisor like China, North Korea and the Middle East, that the president must have complete and unwavering trust for the person in that position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: Chief White House correspondent John Roberts joins us now with the very latest on this big scandal for the administration. John, we're just 25 days in. How did the day go?
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: Can you imagine? Well, it was a difficult one no question for the White House which spent the entire day deflecting an onslaught of attacks from Democrats who insisted that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the National Security Advisor, must have done something illegal in those telephone conversations for him to get fired.
But they also wanted to know, did the president know about it and even did the president order Flynn to do that, to talk about sanctions in those calls? The White House dismissed the idea that Flynn had done anything illegal by talking with Russia's ambassador to the United States about sanctions, insisting the White House counsel's office undertook a thorough review of the matter and interviewed Flynn a number of times about it.
Sean Spicer today said what cost Flynn his job was not coming clean about those conversations and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about it just before Pence went on television to talk about it all. The White House would not say, and I asked this question specifically, what evidence the White House counsel, Don McGahn, weighed to determine if there was nothing illegal in those phone conversations.
But the FBI is known to have transcripts of electronic intercepts of those conversations. Now the White House is hoping to make this all blow over quickly by announcing a strong replacement for Flynn. The number one candidate right now is retired Navy SEAL, Vice Admiral Robert Harward. He was the former deputy commander at CentCom under General James Mattis, who you know is running the Pentagon.
He was named the Honor Man during SEAL training. This guy's got a reputation as being a real tough cookie. The Honor Man is the SEAL candidate during training who show so much grit and tenacity and strength that he inspires other cadets, other candidates to keep going where they might otherwise have quit. So the White House is saying if you're looking for a tough guy, he's your guy.
PERINO: All right, well, the White House probably have answered a lot of other questions. Thank you, John. We'll keep following the story. We're going to have Catherine Herridge later in the hour to talk about the FBI questioning of Mike Flynn.
In the meantime, we'll talk about how this all went. Eric, one of the things is the timeline. And so, you have this first broke in the news by columnist David Ignatius on January 12th. That's also when you start to find out that the Justice Department goes to the White House and says you might have a potential problem here but nothing happens until it becomes more public yesterday afternoon and then it all happened so quickly.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: It happened very quickly, in fact, on Thursday night, I think the "Washington Post" published the nine -- the fact that they had nine sources confirming what David Ignatius had talked about. I mentioned yesterday that it was less about what General Flynn is accused of doing and more about the fact that he misled the vice president.
He let the vice president go out on the Sunday shows or whatever the show -
- I think it was the Sunday shows -- and allowed him to think that there was no conversation, and allowed him to say that he thought there was no conversation.
PERINO: About the sanctions.
BOLLING: About the sanctions -- with the Russians about the sanctions. If you listen to the press conference today, it was an amazing press conference, you learned a few things. Number one, Sean Spicer said that General Flynn, it was -- he called it evolving and eroding trust and that it was all built around the trust.
He also said that he had misled the vice president and others. He was asked about it later and he said including himself, Sean Spicer, he said that the president did not instruct Flynn to discuss the sanctions. I think that's very important. That shields the president at least for now from any sort of implication into this discussion.
He also said, and I think this is brand new, that the president asked for Flynn's resignation. Now, it had been out there that Flynn resigned but this says that the president asked for his resignation. And I think that's good. So, I'll sum up with saying that it's the process happening and unfortunately it's happening very, very early in the administration.
PERINO: So Kimberly, on this question of asked for the resignation or accepted it reluctantly, which was the initial posture late last night, which was -- it was a long news day yesterday. Up until 11:00 p.m., we're still like getting breaking news (INAUDIBLE) the dog show. Asked or accepted, do you think it matters in terms of showing the president being in control of the staff?
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Yes, I think word choice, semantics do matters in this situation and at first, then you saw the tweet from Flynn basically saying (INAUDIBLE) being, you know, the scapegoat, that essentially he's falling on the sort. I think the whole problem here is that if he had told the truth that I think he still would've been backed up by the administration and by the president.
At least that's what they're hanging the hat on because in terms of the law, I agree with Charles Krauthammer, like I said yesterday, that there is no specific law that was broken in terms of the conduct, but it was the cover up like we see in so many situations that really was the problem here that nailed the coffin.
And you saw also earlier when his choice was denied security clearance by the CIA for the NSC's senior director for Africa. And that was sort of the writing was on the wall like, OK, something's going on here. And then I was hearing reports about three people that were going to be coming in, Petraeus in particular. One of them at a time coming to do an interview this week and that was already like three or four days ago. So, it was kind of like the writing was on the wall, I think. But I'm hearing Mr. Petraeus is not going to take the position of --
PERINO: Looks like John Roberts had a little, maybe a little information -
-
GUILFOYLE: Harward, yes.
PERINO: -- about Harward. Let's take a listen, Bob, to the Democrats who are demanding more information on this and investigations and all the rest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: This obviously begs a lot of questions about whether those conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador were sanctioned by the president himself or others in the administration and why those who were knowing did nothing to correct the record when the American people were told otherwise. All of this merits investigation.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, D-MD.: Do you hear the silence? This is the sound of House Republicans conducting no oversight of President Trump.
We are in a fight for the soul of our democracy.
MINORITY LEADER HOUSE NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: Deadly, deadly serious what's happening now and there's a chance to write the course but right now this is a raging example of a president who is incompetent, reckless, and strategically incoherent.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
PERINO: There is actually an investigation Bob that the Senate Intelligence Committee was already conducting in a bipartisan way about the Russia -- the potential for Russia connections, but do you think the Democrats have something to write home on?
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Listen, I never take any solace in this and when somebody goes like that, he's a human being (INAUDIBLE) lifetime serving his country. On the other hand, it seems to me that comrade Trump is spending more time worrying about vetting people coming in from Syria than vetting his own White House staff. I mean, you know, the guy -- this is -- fundamentally (INAUDIBLE) the question --
BOLLING: He is a three-star general, Bob.
BECKEL: So what?
BOLLING: He's a three-star general.
BECKEL: So he's not to be vetted?
BOLLING: -- perfect service. I mean (INAUDIBLE) vet about --
BECKEL: Excuse me, can I just finish what I'm saying here? The FBI investigated him --
BOLLING: -- on General Flynn or vetting of General Flynn.
BECKEL: The FBI talked to him in January. He must have known by then that they had the tapes of the conversations, as any idiot would have known if they were talking to --
GUILFOYLE: And who's leaking all of that by the way to the press?
BECKEL: Who cares?
GUILFOYLE: Well, it's inappropriate. It's not on national security will be leaked to the press.
BECKEL: Listen, the last time anything serious happened was -- Iran Contra when Ollie North gave information out which was inappropriate. The question about whether Flynn should be investigated -- there's no question about that. The bigger question is, in a White House staff like that, a lot of people knew this. A lot of people knew it before the vice president went on TV so somebody screwed up. A lot of people screwed up.
GUILFOYLE: Who do you think knew it?
BECKEL: I think the president of the United States knew it.
PERINO: Well, we don't know that, Bob.
GUILFOYLE: We don't know that Bob.
BECKEL: Well, all right.
PERINO: What do you think about the leaks issue and from the blaming of the leakers?
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: OK, what kills is that, OK, I have been fired three times and whenever you leave a position, you still leave behind loyalists. When I go from one job to the other, there are at least two or three people that are still there at the company who will do whatever I ask. And so what you have in that White House --
GUILFOYLE: You're a powerful man.
GUTFELD: No, at the White House, you have Obama loyalists who stayed behind and they are the ones that are responsible in my mind. You've got Democrats, you got deep state Democrats that are doing the leaking, I think.
So what Trump failed to do was -- he's got to figure out the main loyalists to the previous guy and take his head off. I mean literally, like move him to Nome, Alaska. The fact is, one of his Secret Service agents could be Valerie Jarrett in a fake mustache and he doesn't know it. He's got to find out who those people are and then get back to policy.
Right now, Trump is being nipped at the heels by a pack of dogs, and those dogs are the Democrats, the deep state Democrats of different agencies. It seems worse than the past because when there are similar scandals among Democrats, there is no pack of dogs. There is no media chasing Obama over the IRS, over Solyndra, over Obamacare. There's only one dog. Fox News was the only dog.
BECKEL: But now you have Clinton and his dalliance and the Oval Office didn't have a pack of dogs on him?
GUTFELD: After it became obvious. I mean he had to go through great, great extent.
BECKEL: That's 25 days, this will be obvious and they knew it six days in.
Not that they knew it before that.
BOLLING: I don't think -- there's no indication of that. Bob, you're speculating.
BECKEL: No, I'm not. The Obama CIA director said -- went to the White House and said --
PERINO: Justice Department.
BECKEL: -- he could pass this --
BOLLING: Sean Spicer today said the president had no knowledge of this -- had no knowledge of this.
BECKEL: Yes, but Sean Spicer has got about as much credibility --
BOLLING: Oh, stop it. Now, you're like making leaps and bounds.
BECKEL: Excuse me.
BOLLING: But he's what they need to do. Honestly, the president -- look, you get a pass. It's been a month. You're an outsider. You don't know the ins and outs of D.C. You don't know the ins and outs of working with the intel department. You get a pass, but it's time to clean house, number one.
Plug the leaks. Don't talk about plugging the leaks. Plug the damn leaks and then go full steam ahead with the agenda that the American people elected you guys on. Go for it. And remember, the Democrats aren't your friends. Half the Republicans aren't your friends and certainly the media aren't your friends. So knowing that -- you got the tall press but we and they elected you for that.
PERINO: But what about the -- this is a little bit of a pushback but what about doing the right thing from the beginning because General Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, so it's not like he didn't know what the intel world was like in Washington, D.C. I don't think that's a fair excuse for lying to the vice president about what he did. And they knew about that weeks ago.
BOLLING: Again, so what he did -- what he did probably has been done by every single incoming transition team of every --
BECKEL: Oh, come on. How do you make blunt (ph) statement like that?
BOLLING: You pick up a phone call -- you pick up a phone and say, hey, here's five of our -- here's five people we're unable to (INAUDIBLE) with.
BECKEL: This is the National Security advisor to the United States. He's gotten 25 days, what does that say? Talk about incompetent White House.
BOLLING: It tells you that yes, he shouldn't have done what he did but I
will also tell you that if there was full transparency on other administrations, you would have the same thing going on. Again, he lied to the vice president or misled the vice president where he got himself in trouble.
BECKEL: A lot of other people in that White House knew, from the Justice Department and including the --
BOLLING: And if he said, look, I did this but you know what I did it in the best interest of the American people, you think he'd be fired? No.
BECKEL: You damn right he would.
PERINO: I mean, how was calling the Russians about sanctions in the interests of the American people?
BOLLING: Our good friend Charles Krauthammer agrees that it's highly unlikely that this would be deemed illegal.
PERINO: Right. I'm saying that I don't think an excuse about not understanding Washington is fair in this case and that General Flynn has served his country admirably for many years and was head of the DIA doesn't know how the intel community works?
BOLLING: I didn't suggest he didn't know how the intel community works. I suggested that when he lied to or misled the vice president, that's where his mistake was.
BECKEL: No, he lied to the vice president and he lied to a lot of other people to and the people at the White House who knew it from the Justice Department. They were told.
GUTFELD: I would say this though, Trump is facing a standard that an inexperienced senator from Illinois never had to face.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: I mean, Benghazi is a great example.
GUTFELD: Are you kidding me? No. I'd go back to the pack of dogs theory.
The pack of dogs chose not to chase President Obama over his --
PERINO: In particular on Benghazi when there were calls for an investigation and a hearing, the Democrats, and coming to predictions, locked arms and said we are not doing it.
GUTFELD: If I hear, you know, what did he know and when did he know it, one more time, I'm going to throw up because no one ever said that about Obama, about Benghazi. Nobody said, what did he know, when did he know, when we knew it wasn't a video --
BECKEL: What did he know and when did he know it.
GUTFELD: Yes. Everybody says that now and it's just such garbage and you want to throw up.
GULFOYLE: Keep saying it.
GUTFELD: I can throw a projectile bomb.
GUILFOYLE: Can you throw up on it?
PERINO: All right, we got to run. More fallout from the Flynn resignation ahead but first, one of the loudest critics of President Trump's immigration agenda is sounding off again. Univision's Jorge Ramos went head-to-head last night with our own Sean Hannity on the recent wave to round up criminal and illegal immigrants. Stay tuned for the fiery interview up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: Welcome back. The left in the mainstream media are in all-out hysteria over President Trump's attempt to secure our borders and deport illegal immigrants who pose a threat to our safety. Nancy Pelosi calls the president's agenda "hateful and destructive." Chuck Schumer calls the recent ICE raids deeply disturbing. Jorge Ramos, the so-called journalist from Univision was also very upset about the raids when he appeared on "Hannity" last night.
(BEGIN VIDE CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, HANNITY SHOW HOST, FOX NEWS: Do you agree with me? Should every criminal illegal immigrant be thrown out of this country?
JORGE RAMOS, JOURNALIST, UNIVISION: If they committed a crime --
HANNITY: Any crime.
RAMOS: -- a real crime, absolutely. But the problem is how do you define a crime?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Yes, how do you define a criminal? Perhaps the Homeland Security Department can help you with the definition, Jorge. Sevent-five percent of those rounded up in the raids were murderers, rapists or committed other illegal acts. Ramos and his dramatic style went on to argue our president is tearing families apart.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAMOS: The majority of undocumented immigrants in this country are not criminals, are not terrorists, are not gang members. Now is my turn.
Guadalupe Garcia, she's been in this country for 22 years. Look what Donald Trump did. This is what Donald Trump did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Very dramatic, Jorge. Yesterday I talked about a political article from January 4th, 2016. Here it is. It's entitled "Obama Administration Kicks off Family Deportation Raids." And Greg, I'll just read this one line for you right here. "This past weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, engaged in concerted nationwide enforcement operations to take into custody and return at a greater rate adults who went to this country illegally with children."
GUTFELD: You see, Jorge and the Nancy Pelosis of the world rely on our amnesia or our stupidity to not remember the past, but it's -- the great thing about Google is you can just find these things and make them look like idiots. They also operate as you can see on emotional and not factual information.
But here's what I don't get. If you are fine with illegals who are criminals being here and free, then you should be OK with citizens -- citizens who are criminal and free. If I were an American felon right now, I'd be pretty pissed off. I would actually file a lawsuit saying if there are sanctuary cities for criminals, why am I in jail? Why should I be -- that is actually an excellent legal argument and I will represent you for free.
GUILFOYLE: That would also be another crime, to practice law when you are not an attorney.
GUTFELD: I will represent myself, thank you.
BOLLING: And if that's either one --
PERINO: Well, as Bob pointed out yesterday, the raids that are taking place over the past week were planned by the Obama administration and then carried out by the Trump administration. So to me, that shows a good transition from one administration to the next, and so I don't know if Mr.
Ramos would have complained had it been a third Obama term.
I would also point out that on the other hand, stories do matter. And so from a social media standpoint, what you might not see on your TV screen right now, just know that underneath all of that, there are stories that are going around, whether true or not, about family such as this being ripped apart because of these raids, and that can have a powerful effect on the populous.
BOLLING: Robert, one of the other things that they got into an argument about last night, Jorge Ramos and Hannity was whether or not illegals commit crime at a higher rate than the general population. And they do. We did a little research. Illegal immigrants represented only 3.5 percent of the country, the population. Take out immigration offenses, they account for 14 percent of offenders sentenced for federal offenses. So almost four times the rate than the general public.
BECKEL: Well, you know, think about how many of them are in the drug business. I mean they come over the border to do drugs and so they're automatically criminals. But I'm glad to see you finally discovered something positive about Obama on his deportation because you always said he didn't deport anybody. Here's the problem, and Nancy Pelosi may have done one thing right today, and that is that in the Hispanic --
GUILFOYLE: Say that again.
BECKEL: What?
GUILFOYLE: She may have done one thing right?
BECKEL: One thing right. I'm going to jump on one play (ph) here in a second, but, the fact is, within the Hispanic community, the Republicans do not need this. Republicans have (INAUDIBLE) for eight years of trying to break in to the Hispanic community and this is the very kind of thing that every activist Hispanic is going to take that picture and holds it and you're exactly right, you're going to see that picture and other families and it's going to just -- it's going to scare the Hispanic community.
BOLLING: See that picture right there?
BECKEL: Yes.
BOLLING: That's Jay Johnson. That's Obama's secretary of defense.
BECKEL: Now, I understand that. That's not the point.
BOLLING: That's who started this program.
BECKEL: I understand that, but the point is that right now the Hispanic community, who doesn't like Trump anyway, is going to be -- they're not going to give him 15 percent net time. They're going to give three.
BOLLING: KG, where do you come down on this?
GUILFOYLE: These take months of preparation to do these large-scale raids.
This is President Obama's raid. So Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi want to whine and complain, then they should pick up the phone and call him. They could also pick up the phone and actually get the facts and the information because they are the only people terrifying the illegal immigrants by saying that Trump is doing something that is illegal, that he's ripping apart families, and they can do all the little staged phony stuff like Jorge Ramos did, ripping it in half but it's just not an accurate reflection of who is the basis of the raid.
BECKEL: Are you prepared to document Obama for getting rid of these criminals?
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
BOLLING: Quick thought.
GUILFOYLE: And for the drone strikes --
GUTFELD: I just don't know what they expect ICE Agents to do? What do you expect, they hand out lollipops to the gang bangers? Let them do their jobs.
BOLLING: Jay Johnson said this should come as no surprise. He said, "I've said publicly for months that individuals who constitute enforcement priorities including families and unaccompanied children will be removed."
Jay Johnson. All right, we'll leave it right there. Next, we turn to the dam disaster in California. Nearly 200,000 people were forced on their homes. It's now safe to return but could it have been prevented? Ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: So California's Oroville dam is in crisis, I wonder. Where was Jerry Brown? Sorry, let me rephrase that: Where the hell was Jerry Brown? Was he watching the Grammys with a box of Kleenex? Hillary Clinton is more visible than this Yeti and she doesn't run anything but a lame Twitter account.
Imagine if out-of-town Brown were a Republican. During the Flint water crisis everyone wanted the Republican governor to go to jail. But no one is doing that to Jer-Jer Binks, which is odd when you consider officials were warned about problems with the dam years ago.
Which is why Trump should get ahead of this. Have people on the ground, even if it's to hand out blankets. As Rahm Emanuel once said, never let a crisis go to waste, and Trump saving the asses of incompetent bureaucrats who put sanctuaries before security -- it's just too rich. Especially since the press already blames Donald Trump anyway. You've got to check out this headline: It reads "The Oroville Dam Crisis Exposes the Flaws in Trump's Infrastructure Plan."
Only in a left-wing loony bin like California can a massive disaster that's been building for years under bloated, incompetent state governance be blamed on a guy who's been in power for 24 days.
What's next? How Trump's hair incited Pearl Harbor?
The good news is authorities have lifted the evacuation order for 200,000 residents, Dana, so they're safe to return home. So, disaster might be averted but I still admire the fact that they're blaming Trump's future actions. This is like a political media version of "Minority Report."
PERINO: Immediately you saw calls for -- that the wall is ridiculous when you actually have projects here at home that you need, but guess what, just last week California submitted to the federal government a $100 billion -- with a B -- wish list of infrastructure projects to Trump for federal funding.
So, they want their sanctuary cities. They want to be left alone, but they really want federal government money to pay for things like oh, you could go down this whole list, well, one of them being high-speed rail.
GUTFELD: Yes. High-speed rail. Now, Eric, it was projected in 2008 at $33 billion. Now, it's up to 80 billion and it is still on blocks.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLLING: Vice President Biden loves that idea.
GUTFELD: Yes, exactly.
BOLLING: And where was it going, from San Francisco to L.A.? Is that what it...
GUTFELD: Yes, and I think they've built, like, 3 feet of it.
BOLLING: Not going.
GUILFOYLE: So far.
BOLLING: You forgot Moonbeam.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BOLLING: And I was going to ask where that came from. Mike Royko, the columnist in 1976 said that Mr. Brown appeared to be tracking the moonbeam votes with his...
GUILFOYLE: That has stuck with him forever. And they put him in again.
BOLLING: And for a good cause. I mean, did I get that straight? He's blaming Trump for this?
GUTFELD: No, it was a newspaper. It was a newspaper. I can't remember the name of the newspaper.
BOLLING: Got you.
GUTFELD: But it was...
BOLLING: All clear on that thing now, though?
GUTFELD: Yes, yes.
BOLLING: Everything is OK?
GUTFELD: Everything is OK. Kimberly.
GUILFOYLE: So this is a state dam, so it's their responsibility; and they were derelict, to say the least, in maintaining it properly. They knew this was a problem, and they acted in conscious disregard of a known risk.
And now they want a federal bailout on it, which of course, is going to have to happen if it's a disaster situation. But it just goes to show you the gross mismanagement under the Democrats and liberals which have a strong hold on this date, and they chose not to take care of the situation, as usual, with them. Like sanctuary cities, it becomes everyone else's problem.
GUTFELD: Bob, still Trump's fault right?
BECKEL: No. The -- first thing I'd say is this is the tallest dam in America.
GUTFELD: Right.
BECKEL: So one, you probably should pay a little attention to it.
GUTFELD: Exactly.
BECKEL: That runoff that you see there is off of another dams for a spill over.
Now, the thing that worries me about this is that -- that Brown, whatever you think about Brown, the bureaucrats and the rest of it, is that this is only one of hundreds and hundreds of dams across this country...
GUTFELD: True.
BECKEL: ... that are eroding rapidly. Now, you can try to blame Democratic liberal bureaucrats for that, but most of it has because of financial constraints. And states cut back, particularly states where there's a lot of Republican legislators who don't like infrastructure spending. And in fact, Trump's infrastructure idea is a good one. But he's got opposition from his own party on that. It's not the Democrats.
BOLLING: Say that again, the first part of that. Trump's infrastructure spending idea is a good one.
BECKEL: It is a good one. I think it's an important thing to do. This is an example we are going to see more and more and more.
GUTFELD: All right.
BECKEL: Remember when the...
GUTFELD: We've got to go, Bob...
BECKEL: ... going to Oakland?
GUILFOYLE: You know who never -- I had no idea that Bob was an expert on dams.
GUTFELD: Well, he says "damn" a lot.
PERINO: "Damn" expert.
GUTFELD: All right, a series of leaks that led to the resignation of Mike Flynn as national security advisor. The question is, who's leaking the leaks? A live report next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC: FRANK SINATRA)
BECKEL: The Chairman of the Board.
Back now to the resignation of Mike Flynn as the national security advisor.
Leaks out of Washington suggest Flynn tried to cover up talks with Russia before the Trump administration took power. President Trump says the leaks are the real story here. Flynn himself agrees. More now from chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge.
Catherine, we have a lot of questions for you, but let me start with this.
Is the -- does the president really believe that the story is the leaks when you've got someone as big as this? I mean...
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Well, OK, I get the question. I certainly can't speak for the president, but I can tell you people who work within the intelligence community are raising the alarm over these leaks, because, Bob, this information comes from some of the most sensitive programs. This is called compartmented information. It involves sources and methods, monitoring the ambassador of a foreign country, and a conversation with an American citizen. That has to go to an intelligence court to unmask who the American is. So this is really high- level stuff, and it would have to have been approved by the Obama administration, because these phone calls went down in December. So leaking that is a very big deal.
BECKEL: Eric, you've got a question?
BOLLING: Catherine, so these oversight committees -- obviously, there's going to be some oversight committees, probably both Senate and House, they don't really -- we don't really learn very much from these things. It seems to be a lot of congressmen and a lot of senators getting on TV.
HERRIDGE: They've been watching too much cable news.
BOLLING: Well, here's the thing. Unless the intel community shows up and testifies, and by the nature, they can't. Am I right? Or what are we going to end up seeing?
HERRIDGE: Well, the -- you're right in the sense that there are really kind of two chapters to this story. There's the very public chapter.
Democrats today called for Mike Flynn to testify publicly about his connections and relationship with the Russians and those phone calls with the Russian ambassador.
And then there's that investigation that goes on behind the scenes, where you have people coming in and they testify in a classified setting. The public can't see that. And generally speaking, when that information is declassified and made available to people like you and me, it's heavily redacted or, in some cases, it's just not available, because it reveals too much of the sources and methods.
I think the thing to watch here is going to be the FBI and the Department of Justice and whether there really is an aggressive prosecution of the individuals who were behind these leaks. Because again, this is some of the most sensitive programs within the intelligence community. And once you start leaking information about them, you burn the source.
BECKEL: Dana.
PERINO: Catherine, I have two questions that I think are related.
GUTFELD: Ha.
PERINO: Thanks, Greg.
So The Washington Post reports that they have nine sources on this, so it's not -- well, if that's correct, then they don't just have one leak. There are multiple leaks. And President Obama got very frustrated about leaks and took measures in order to try to stop them. Is there anything that the previous administration did to try to put in place mechanisms to identify leakers that could help President Trump track them down?
HERRIDGE: Boy, I'm not sure that there really is anything in place that's more robust than what we've seen in the last eight years. But I think you're onto something important here, because the universe of people, of government officials who would've access to this information is extremely small.
And when I say "small," I'm talking about a national security advisor in the last White House, a deputy national security advisor like Ben Rhodes, former CIA director, intelligence officials, even the director of national intelligence, James Clapper. That's how high up the information would go.
So it's actually not a big pool of individuals who would have access to that information and who would've made it public.
GUILFOYLE: You know, Catherine, many people are wondering. General Flynn is a man of distinguished service to this country, someone who was in charge of the intelligence agencies and also, you know, a counterterrorism expert. Seems to me that he wouldn't say something in one of those conversations in one of those conversations that would jeopardize the United States and would be careful to know what would be appropriate and what wouldn't.
Is it your understanding there isn't going to be any follow-through prosecution on General Flynn? There's no law that I'm aware of that's been broken or violated. So going forward, really, the focus of any investigation is just who leaked this inappropriately.
HERRIDGE: Well, there's a leak, but I also -- we were able to confirm tonight a story that was first reported in The New York Times, which is that General Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his conversations and interactions with the Russians.
As you know, as a career prosecutor, the jeopardy there is if there was a lie or a misstatement to the FBI. I'm not saying that was the case but that would be a violation of a Martha Stewart Law, USC 1001, which is lying to federal investigators. So that would be the jeopardy there. So there's nothing through my reporting that suggests that was, in fact, the case.
GUILFOYLE: OK. Thank you.
BECKEL: Greg.
GUTFELD: I -- when I was in the company, if you wanted to find out a leak, you told ten people ten specific different things.
HERRIDGE: So smart.
GUTFELD: And you waited to see which one would reach the media, and that would be your person, and then you would fire them. That's how you did it.
GUILFOYLE: Well, then they need you at the White House. Please hurry there.
GUTFELD: I'm -- I will be there. I have short legs. It will take me a while to get there.
Do you think this is an actual -- going to lead to a shakeup, or is it just one guy? I know the Democrats, they're frothing right now. They think this is the beginning. Like, he's the -- he's the amuse bouche of the meal.
HERRIDGE: I think, based on our reporting today from Capitol Hill, that the damage may well go beyond General Flynn. That's the view of the Democrats, and we may even get another name this week. So I would stand by for that.
BECKEL: OK. Well, thank you, Catherine.
HERRIDGE: You're welcome.
BECKEL: I don't know what an amuse bouche is, but whatever it is, we're going to lighten things up a little bit, because it's Valentine's Day. I think Kimberly has some sweet treats to give us and all her former husbands. Special treats, I hear. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUILFOYLE: There you go. Love is in the air. Can you feel it? It's Valentine's Day, and you know what? It's time for...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUILFOYLE: Kimberly's Food Court, Valentine's Day edition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Wow.
GUILFOYLE: Well, you all know how much I love food, so I thought I'd take a moment to investigate some of America's eating habits on this romantic holiday. So now, there's apparently a big difference between what singles eat on Valentine's Day as opposed to couples.
According to Grub Hub, people in relationships are most likely to order Indian food or sushi today, OK? That's that there, in case people are confused. We have props.
PERINO: There's a lot of sharing.
GUILFOYLE: The singles turn to comfort food like potato wedges or a bacon and egg sandwich, which is incredibly funny, because before this segment, I started eating this. All right, Bob. Don't molest the sushi.
GUTFELD: Don't molest the sushi.
GUILFOYLE: Also -- can I tell cookies? Oh, that's later. OK, good.
PERINO: Wow, Bob.
GUILFOYLE: There goes the MRSA sushi.
PERINO: Ease up there.
GUTFELD: Just take your time, Bob.
GUILFOYLE: Cupcake Market is in New York city is selling Ryan Gosling and Justin Bieber cookies just in time for Valentine's Day. But that's not all. They do custom cookies.
BOLLING: They should guess which one's...
GUILFOYLE: Well, they look like Bobbsey Twins.
GUTFELD: One has his mouth open. The other one...
GUILFOYLE: I think that is -- I think that's Bieber, and then that's Ryan Gosling. OK, fine.
So guess what, guys? I have a Valentine's present for each of you. And Bob, no, it's not a kiss. Dream on.
Open it up. Greg, open it up. You can get custom ones made.
PERINO: No way.
GUILFOYLE: I made one for myself, too, which I think is kind of awesome.
Dana.
PERINO: They look great.
GUTFELD: Holy crap, that does look like me.
GUILFOYLE: Eric, look.
GUTFELD: Amazing.
GUILFOYLE: Here's the thing. So here's the interesting thing. Who thinks
-- who thinks theirs looks like them? Anybody?
BECKEL: This looks more like Eric.
GUILFOYLE: OK, well, mine is Ainsley Earhardt, I think, but with brown
hair. Does, it look a little like me?
PERINO: They have to have -- they couldn't do the longer hair or else it would be like...
GUILFOYLE: Is that what it was?
GUTFELD: You look like Marcia Brady.
GUILFOYLE: They made it off of our head shots. So we sent them in. And this was Megan's idea, and Kyle went down to get it.
Have you ever wondered what you taste like?
BECKEL: No.
GUILFOYLE: OK.
GUTFELD: I've always wanted to eat my own face.
GUILFOYLE: Delicious. Delicious.
PERINO: That's so cool.
GUTFELD: I'm going to keep this and take it home.
BECKEL: Can I have some potato wedges? I'm a single guy.
GUILFOYLE: These are so good.
GUTFELD: I'm a single guy.
BECKEL: Thanks.
GUILFOYLE: Don't double dip, Bob. I'm going to freak out on you.
BOLLING: These taste pretty good.
GUILFOYLE: Right?
GUTFELD: I'm saving it for later.
PERINO: Thank you, Kimberly.
GUTFELD: Thank you, Kimberly.
GUILFOYLE: You're welcome.
BECKEL: Very nice.
GUILFOYLE: Happy Valentine's Day.
And yes, and thank you to Cupcake Market for making these incredibly delightful and tasty likenesses of ourselves.
GUTFELD: Why is it that, on Valentine's Day, we give things to people that make them fat and unattractive?
GUILFOYLE: What are you talking about?
GUTFELD: You should give them high-protein, low-carb stuff like raw elk.
PERINO: But sushi is high-protein.
GUTFELD: But that's not a gift. You don't give people sushi. You give people chocolate.
GUILFOYLE: Well, you take them -- no, you go out for dinner. And you're like, "Hey, you want to go out for sushi?" But you should be, like, aware of what their favorite food is, I think, and be sensitive.
GUTFELD: I'm having Chinese.
GUILFOYLE: Oh, my God. Are you choking?
BECKEL: No, I don't think so.
GUILFOYLE: Bolling's giving you mouth-to-mouth, if so. I'm out.
BOLLING: I'll do the -- I'll do the chest pump. You've got the mouth.
PERINO: You like it? You've got the mouth.
GUILFOYLE: Bolling, what are you going to do for Valentine's Day? What did you get Adrienne?
BOLLING: We're going to have sushi. We're going to De Palme (ph) and having sushi.
GUILFOYLE: Are you?
BOLLING: Yes, literally going to do that.
GUILFOYLE: OK, fantastic. Dana, what are you going to do?
GUTFELD: Don't hit your chest, Bob.
PERINO: We're going to visit a little puppy.
GUILFOYLE: Are you OK?
BECKEL: Yes, I'm fine. It's the potatoes that are no good.
GUILFOYLE: What's on your mouth?
BOLLING: He had some potatoes fall.
GUTFELD: Get them away from him.
PERINO: I got Peter a framed picture of Jasper for Valentine's Day.
GUTFELD: Well, that's a surprise. What did you get Jasper? A framed picture of Jasper.
PERINO: Jasper is getting a playdate tonight.
GUILFOYLE: That's cute. I'm going to a fashion show.
BECKEL: I'm going to get a Big Mac.
GUILFOYLE: OK.
GUTFELD: Is that what they're calling it?
GUILFOYLE: Greg, what are you doing, and did you get your beautiful wife, Elena, anything?
GUTFELD: She doesn't -- we do not celebrate Valentine's Day. Because...
GUILFOYLE: Oh, it's an American commercial holiday.
GUTFELD: Yes, so we do Women's Day, which is the communist alternative.
PERINO: What's the appropriate present for that?
GUTFELD: The same. I just don't remember when it is.
PERINO: That's every day.
GUTFELD: It's every day. Women's Day every day in my household.
GUILFOYLE: I agree. The future is female, darling.
GUTFELD: It really is.
GUILFOYLE: All right. I never get to introduce this segment. "One More Thing" is up next.
GUTFELD: Oh, wow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: It's time now for "One More Thing." I'm going to kick it off with this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: Dana's Corny Joke of the Day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: OK. I know you've been anxiously awaiting...
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: ... this next installment. First question: what do farmers give their wives on Valentine's Day?
GUILFOYLE: A hayride.
PERINO: That's actually a good one.
GUILFOYLE: Well, that's what I would do.
GUTFELD: You know, a "Hey" ride.
GUILFOYLE: Hey, yes, ride.
PERINO: A farmer gives his wife on Valentine's Day hogs and kisses.
GUILFOYLE: Mine was better.
PERINO: Yours was better. I'm going to add that to the repertoire.
Why did the banana go out with the prune?
GUTFELD: Because he had appeal?
PERINO: Pretty good. Because he couldn't get a date.
GUILFOYLE: That was a good one. That was a good one.
PERINO: All right. Last one. What did one boat say to the other?
GUILFOYLE: One vote?
GUTFELD: Boat.
GUILFOYLE: Oh, boat.
BECKEL: Let's find -- let's find that little creek we can go into.
GUTFELD: Nice dinghy.
GUILFOYLE: Eww.
PERINO: You have very good guesses today.
GUILFOYLE: When have you heard that before?
PERINO: One boat would say to the other, "Are you up for a little row- mance."
GUTFELD: Oh.
BECKEL: Whoa.
PERINO: All right, OK. Welcome back, Bob. It's the corny joke of the day. You should laugh more next time.
BECKEL: Yes, that's the first time I've heard that. Well, it's a bit hard to laugh at some of that.
PERINO: Bob, you're next.
BECKEL: OK. In case you wonder how the quarterback of the century, Tom Brady, has cashed in again on the Super Bowl win, his fifth, he now sells autographed photos for -- catch this -- $900. And for helmets and jerseys, it's over $1,000.
Now, here's the -- here's the real key to this. He doesn't sign it for you. He signs it in front of his reps, who will guarantee you that, in fact, Brady signed the deal.
So OK, Tom, cash in again. The question is if you sign footballs, are they going to be inflated or not?
PERINO: No idea. K.G. is next.
GUILFOYLE: All right. Well, that was amazing. Speaking of amazing, I was at Zang Toi's fall fashion show.
GUTFELD: You, too? I didn't see you.
BECKEL: He's Malaysian.
GUILFOYLE: He's Malaysian, yes. All right, anyway. So look at these wonderful photos. This is the fashion show last night. It was really spectacular.
And then I was so excited for my friend, because at the end, when he was coming up, he came up to me, gave me a nice big kiss. He's a sweetheart.
There I am with him, the address he designed for me. You see the group shots and we ran into our FOX friends there, Carol Ault, who was I able to be with. That's me with Zang. And it was really great to see her, as well. It was very, very fun.
This was called the Brilliant Royal Blue Runway Show at Pier 59. It was fantastic.
PERINO: That looked great.
GUILFOYLE: So congratulations, Zang, and to your incredible team. And those are all the models there.
BECKEL: How much do these cost?
GUILFOYLE: Well, it all depends, Bob. A dress?
PERINO: You like the runway?
BECKEL: No.
GUTFELD: While you were doing that, I was eating Chinese food in my underwear.
PERINO: Oh, God. And then you fell asleep.
GUILFOYLE: Thank God you didn't send me a picture.
GUTFELD: Boneless spareribs. Delicious, I might add.
PERINO: Boy, oh, boy. You're next, Greg.
GUTFELD: All right. Let's do this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Greg's disturbing news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Now, if you have children in the room right now, I would ask you that you have them leave immediately. Perhaps go outside. Let them run outside, because this is so disgusting.
Take a look at this Siamese kitten. Siamese kitten got a balloon as a present and refuses to relinquish it, no matter what. The owners are trying to get the balloon from her, but she will not give it away. This went on for days. We had to condense this. And almost lost it there but will not let go of it. And has till this day. This has been going on for
17 months.
GUILFOYLE: No, it hasn't. You're making all this up.
GUTFELD: No, I'm not. It's -- this is from the Cat Institute.
PERINO: That's a resourceful cat.
GUTFELD: Yes, itis.
GUILFOYLE: Well, it just keeps catching it.
GUTFELD: Nicely done.
PERINO: Very good.
GUTFELD: It's the "cat" in "catching."
PERINO: All right, Eric, you've got a long time to fill.
BOLLING: Keep going. OK, so in a rush to trash anything Trump with General Flynn, take a look at this headline. The New York Times, they kind of messed up. They quoted a tweet of General Flynn, saying that "While I accept full responsibility for my actions, I feel it's unfair I've been made the sole scapegoat for what happened." Notice "scapegoat."
Well, Nancy Pelosi took it one step further earlier today. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), I didn't know until I heard from our colleague that the tweet of General Flynn today was scapegoat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: And she went on to elaborate how ridiculous it was. It turns out
-- take a look at this. It's a fake Twitter account.
Now, anyone can get caught in this. But always, if you're going to go and, like, take a shot at someone, especially in the White House, make sure you cross your "T's" and dot your "I's." Fake Twitter accounts.
BECKEL: Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, and to all my friends out there.
GUILFOYLE: Oh, my God, it's so awkward. They know who they are.
BOLLING: Wait, what was that all about?
GUTFELD: I don't know.
GUILFOYLE: You're kidding, right?
PERINO: Is somebody watching? Maybe somebody's watching. I don't know.
GUTFELD: There's an "S" after that, so there's multiple...
PERINO: All right. All of us are on "O'Reilly" later. Set your DVR so you never miss an episode of "The Five." That's it for us. "Special Report" is next.
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