ObamaCare deadline marked by enrollment claims, site outages

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," March 31, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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

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

(MUSIC)

GUILFOYLE: It's a deadline day for ObamaCare, just seven hours until the window closes for this year's open enrollment for President Obama's signature health care law. Well, in a fitting term, the Healthcare.gov Web site crashed several times today for those trying to beat the cutoff. Now, despite the technical glitches and dismal popularity, the White House spin machine claims more than 6 million Americans have enrolled so far, and former Obama senior adviser David Plouffe claims the numbers are actually much higher.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PLOUFFE, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: The law is working, and this was a seminal achievement. If you're going to have -- by the way, if you count people who are going directly to private insurance companies, Medicaid, children's health care, you're talking well north of 10 million people who have health care. Tens of millions more have security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Wyoming Senator John Barrasso doesn't see eye to eye with the enrollment claims, something Obama's team disputes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R), WYOMING: I think they're cooking the books on this. People want to know the answers to that.

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If we're cooking the books, don't you think we would have done it in October and November?

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, HHS SECRETARY: People who are not very enthusiastic about having the law worked, haven't done outreach to their constituents, haven't given accurate information, are now suggesting that the enormous interest in enrolling in health care is not existing. It does exist. We did pass the 6 million mark this week of individuals who had enrolled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: How fun. I love it, 6 million. Magically, they hit the number, Eric.

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: So -- I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about this, because on the right, you had everyone saying the books are about to be cooked, you're being lied to. On the left, they're saying, look, what a success. And I realize, at the end of the day -- banned phrase, sorry.

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: That's OK.

BOLLING: You have to follow the money. You have to follow the money trail.

We don't know how many people have signed up. We have to take people's word for it. We don't know how many paid, we don't know how many are invincibles, the young people between 18 and 35 who are healthy.

And most importantly, we don't know how many who have signed up are actually signing up for Medicaid. The bottom line is ObamaCare is a fiscal belly flop. We're going to find out after the midterm elections, and that's where the plain politics garbage goes down, you'll never really know until after the midterms, but I would bet a fortune on the fact that number one, the numbers aren't as good. And number two, another fortune I would bet that the numbers, the cost of ObamaCare, will probably double or triple from the original estimates or more, and it's going to be a disaster.

And they will blame someone. It won't be their fault. It will be something else they'll find to blame, a scapegoat.

GUILFOYLE: What do we know, Dana? What do we actually that we're relatively certain about?

PERINO: I don't think they would have said 6 million enrolled if they didn't have that number, but I do think that the American taxpayers who are funding this effort deserve to know if the people who have enrolled have indeed paid and who they are and how to move forward.

I think on ObamaCare, as with any big effort, it's probably not as bad as its worst critics say and it's definitely not as good as its stronger supporters say. It's interesting to watch Secretary Sebelius take a victory lap. No matter how much he's limping. They were going to get to this day.

They extended the deadline for two weeks. OK, fine, now we have that. Even the more difficult pieces are yet to come. The cuts to Medicare, the changes in Medicaid, and in addition, I take a little bit of objection to David Plouffe's comments that the people who are signed up, the 6 million, are more secure than they were before, because the big number that matters a lot is that the whole purpose of ObamaCare was to get those who were uninsured to be insured. But it turns out, the 6 million, you can't tell how many were uninsured before and how many went to Medicaid, and how many of these people who had plans that got canceled --

GUILFOYLE: Yes, got back in.

PERINO: -- then were responsible people who figured out how to work through the Web site and get it done.

GUILFOYLE: I think that's the basis of the most strong criticism, is how do we know the numbers, accounting here? I find questionable it's interesting, they projected, OK, 6 million, all of a sudden, they magically hit the number.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: I'll accept 6 because it was 9, and then they changed it to 7, and now we're supposed to celebrate 6.

GUILFOYLE: I guess 6 million if it's actual signups would be cause for celebration.

Mr. Beckel appears to be smiling and somewhat in celebratory mood.

BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Well, I'm just smiling, but you all have stolen this illusion that this is going to go away. It is here. It's there. It's going to be the law of the land for hundreds of years.

It could be changed, there could be things that would be better, but I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 7 million by tonight. That thing has not crashed except for yesterday -- excuse me -- today because so many people were trying to get into it. It is true that premiums are going up in many cases but they're getting much better insurance companies.

McKinsey and Company, which is probably considered one of the best analytical companies in the world, said 75 percent of those who have signed up for insurance have paid and 27 percent have never had insurance before. I'll take them to the bank before I take the White House or the Republicans, certainly the Republicans.

BOLLING: How many are young people, Bob?

BECKEL: That figure they don't have.

BOLLING: And how many of the, quote/unquote, "paid" are actually Medicaid recipients? Because they would probably count --

BECKEL: They said 75 percent of those who signed up for private insurance paid their bills.

PERINO: In addition, how many people who had insurance before who do now have low-income subsidies and that actually had insurance before? I think that American taxpayers who are against funding this deserve to know.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Tom, what do you think we deserve to know?

TOM SHILLUE, CO-HOST: There's too many numbers in this. I think people who are against ObamaCare have been focusing on the wrong thing from the very beginning. First, it was the Web site, and that was going to be fixed, and obviously, that is fixed so that's off the table.

Now they're focusing on -- are they telling the truth about the numbers? Well, eventually, they'll get to the numbers.

I think the thing to focus on is young people. The whole purpose of ObamaCare -- young, healthy people are going to pay for old, sick people. Say that over and over again. That's what's happening.

And then you can say, yes, it's here to say unless you vote for me. Vote me in and I will repeal it. That's what they have to repeat.

I think this is the gift that's going to keep on giving for young people because they're going to realize that ObamaCare stinks because they're covered until they're 26 and they get out and they realize, why am I paying --

GUILFOYLE: For Bob Beckel.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: Tom, just get it out of your head. They're not going to repeal it. It's not going to happen. The numbers are too big, too many people involved in it.

But let me tell you something, young people have been paying for old people for years.

SHILLUE: I know, and they're tired of it.

BOLLING: Why should they be required to do it? For years, they had a choice not to do it. Now, you have to, if you don't have a choice.

BECKEL: Because we've got to pay for it when they get medical attention.

BOLLING: Look, Bob, here, let's say that the 24 number that, which is the percentage of young people who have actually enrolled in the program, they have estimated through October, November, December, January, every month it's about 24 percent.

Let's say that's the actual number. You know what that's going to do to the cost of health care in America?

BECKEL: I'm assuming --

GUILFOYLE: Right. I want to talk about that, Bolling.

BOLLING: Yes, why are young people -- why, all of a sudden, young people are going to have the lightning moment, oh, my gosh, look, that's so good. I'd rather pay $3,000 a year instead of the 200 bucks --

BECKEL: That's because young people know they'll be covered until they go to the emergency room.

GUILFOYLE: All right. You guys are you're hitting on a point that I think is important here. Let's listen to the Cleveland Clinic CEO, because this got a lot of play today, saying that three quarters of ObamaCare sign ups have actually higher premiums. Tell it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOBY COSGROVE, CLEVELAND CLINIC CEO: Well, people who have signed up, about three quarters of them, find their premiums are higher than they had been previously with other insurance. Now, what we do know is that it's going to have major effect on health care providers. We know for example we're going to get paid less for what we do. Medicare is making about $415 billion out of Medicare expenses over the next ten years. So hospitals are going to be paid less for what they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: This is really important. Not that the premiums are going up, that the hospitals, the actual provider of health care, which is this is what this is all about, are going to be paid less from ObamaCare, from the insurance providers, which means when it trickles down to the actual patient, these people, these insurers are going to say do you really need that heart surgery? Maybe you can do without it. Do you really need the hip replacement? Maybe you can go six months or a year --

GUILFOYLE: They're going to have to be more selective to cut cost.

BOLLING: In order to cut cost, guaranteed this is your future.

BECKEL: That was selectively edited as usual. The guy went on to say the insurance policies are much better. They're higher premiums, but they're much better.

Those insurance policies at the low end were terrible. I mean, people were not getting income. Now, they've got preexisting conditions. They've got all kinds of advantages under ObamaCare they never had before.

GUILFOYLE: Dana has all the answers. You're in a pink top or a pink --

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: I know, I'm all coordinated. I just reject the government telling me what is a good plan and what is not. And I reject them saying I'm too stupid to get online to figure it out myself. I am just against government control of every part of individual life. I think the market could do a very good job with backstops for low income people.

But my big concern from the beginning on this, on the bigger picture, Tom, that you were talking about, is how it exacerbates income inequality, and it will actually end up hurting low-income people a lot more, because as we have seen in the last few weeks, you have more and more doctors deciding not to take insurance at all and not to take Medicaid patients. And they're not going to be told they have to.

So, who is going to pay for them? Rich people, who will be able to afford private doctors. That's where all of this is going. You can see it happening right across the pond in the U.K. And my concern is actually that we are -- I'm going to use another banned phrase, a Pandora's box of negativity that will see us and dog us for years to come because Bob is right, it will be difficult to repeal it. Once it's baked in the cake, another banned phrase -- I'm on a roll.

GUILFOYLE: You're on a banned roll today.

SHILLUE: But it's going to turn young people against liberalism. This is a great stark example of how it doesn't work.

BECKEL: Oh, yes.

SHILLUE: And it is, it's going to be a great recruiting tool, Bob.

BECKEL: Good for you, Tommy.

GUILFOYLE: OK, Tom, speaking of funny business, let's look at "Saturday Night Live." I think they have summed it up perfectly. Whenever you're curious why something is happening, or how it really works, call in Kim Kardashian.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's bring in Kim Kardashian, Harry Styles, a cat dressed like Princess Elsa from "Frozen" and Batkid --

(CHEERS)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love history, you know. Hey, you're the president, right? Oh, my God, are you like on money? Why did you take my phone away from me?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure about this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God. Good news. OK, Instagram has saved 152,000 times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: I mean, does it get better than that?

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: What?

PERINO: Nothing. Nothing.

BOLLING: Psaki?

PERINO: No, not Jen.

GUILFOYLE: Interesting. Tom, what do you think?

SHILLUE: It was a great. That was a great sketch. But you know what was interesting about it, the thing they left out is they made Obama look like an unwitting participant in this.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

SHILLUE: But that's not what he really is. He's really into this stuff. You can bet he wanted to do Funny or Die, and it was great. I mean, he's good at it. He's great at this stuff. It's not good at the other stuff.

So, I mean --

GUILFOYLE: Like running the country?

SHILLUE: `Saturday Night Live," again, they're kind of making -- they always do this. They're supposedly making fun of the president, but they're really trying to make fun of his handlers and saying it's too bad Obama is like running with this social media stuff. He's not caught in the mess. He's into it.

PERINO: Creating the mess.

BECKEL: You are -- a great achievement of the comedic world. I assume that line about young people are going to turn Republican was a joke, right?

PERINO: He's right.

BECKEL: That's not going to happen.

PERINO: Did you miss the Pew report last week?

BECKEL: I saw the Pew report last week.

PERINO: I think -- it's not that they're going to sign up for Republicans. That they're a long way from that, but more double-digit number of millennials have turned against the Democrats and unregistered from the Democratic Party since Obama took office.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: But their positions are still the same on social welfare.

PERINO: You shouldn't be making fun of Tom, because he's not -- he's making a point that is actually true.

BECKEL: I wasn't making fun of Tom. I was trying to support --

PERINO: Yes, you were. I'm protecting our guest host.

BECKEL: Oh, you're protecting your guest host --

GUILFOYLE: Now you made the mama bear mad. No, you didn't.

Tom, you can stay, because up next -- is your retirement money being squandered by Wall Street pirates? I always thought so. All right. We're going to show you an important investigation you can't afford to miss.

And later, Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow ignites a firestorm against working moms. We'll tell you what sparked the heated mommy war. That's all ahead on "The Five."

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECKEL: All right. Is the U.S. stock market rigged? According to Michael Lewis, author of the new book "Flash Voice," the disturbing answer to that question is, big surprise, yes. Lewis spoke about the dark world of high frequency trading in "60 Minutes" investigation last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE KROFT, "60 MINUTES": What's the headline here?

MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR: Stock markets rigged. The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.

KROFT: By whom?

LEWIS: By a combination of the stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and high frequency traders.

KROFT: Who are the victims?

LEWIS: Everybody who has an investment in the stock market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECKEL: One of the heroes of Lewis' book is a former trader from the Royal Bank of Canada who felt he had an obligation to reveal this truth to investors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWIS: A trader at the Royal Bank of Canada, a young Canadian man named Brad Katsuyama realized that the market that he thought he knew had changed. The market seemed to be willing to sell stocks, but the minute he went to buy it, someone else bought it. The stock went up.

KROFT: You were determined to get to the bottom of it?

BRAD KATSUYAMA, FORMER TRADER: Yes.

KROFT: Why?

KATSUYAMA: Because it didn't feel right. It didn't feel right that people who are investing on behalf of pension funds and retirement funds are getting bait and switched every single day in the market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECKEL: All right, let me talk to my brother, an expert on this.

Eric, is this true?

BOLLING: OK --

BECKEL: And how does it work?

BOLLING: Let's go through the nuts and bolts very quickly. So, there's a routing system. Electronic trading -- humans are out of the whole system. It's all electronic. There's a routing system that sends a trade to a system, kind of like the first stop on the trade.

What these high-frequency traders realized is if they can see what's coming into that system, they can buy stock everywhere else in the planet, the same stock that this big company, Royal Bank of Canada or hedge funds want to buy. They buy the stock everywhere else so Royal Bank of Canada and hedge funds have to go to them to finish the order they want to finish.

BECKEL: Because there's not enough stock --

BOLLING: Because they didn't get enough at the first clearing house, to get to their stop. OK, that's how it works.

Now, it's illegal? Yes.

Here's the free market libertarian in me who says survival of the fittest. These guys spent a lot of money to be the fastest car in the race, the fastest horse on the track or the fastest runner on the track, and they have done that.

The problem is what they have also done is they have alienated the retail investor, the guy in Iowa who wants to buy IBM stock, who realizes he can't compete with the speed of these trades. They're far faster than any human being can do it. I used to do it for a living. I realized computers were taking over. I got out of the business because I realized I can't compete with the computers.

He's right. The problem is when all these high-frequency traders are the last game in town, they're just going to be picking each other's pocket for money, and there's no more new money coming in. Very quickly, like a casino, big betters make a lot of money, but they need the small betters to come in and lose a lot of money. Nothing illegal about it.

BECKEL: Dana, let me ask you, the lowest tolling of stocks by average Americans in a long, long time right now. I think it's 50 percent or something. You think, I mean, they think -- had an instinct it was rigged?

PERINO: Well, I think the issue of risk aversion in everything that we do, especially there's a big gender differences. Women and their investments very different from men's decisions because they tend to -- women tend to hold back a little bit.

So do I think that people after the 2008 financial crisis were sort of worried about being involved in the stock market? Yes, and then you talk about income inequality.

Well, one of the ways to make good money is to invest and to risk in the stock market. That's what a lot of rich people have been able to do, and other people are more concerned about doing that. Now, to Eric's point, if you are risk averse and you think that there's no way you can actually make any money anyway, you might hold your money in a bank where it doesn't make as much of a return, and then our whole system, which counts on money coming in and out, starts to hurt.

BECKEL: Kim, you said something in the break, that you thought this was no big surprise. That you thought this was rigged all along. Is that because of this? I mean, obviously, we didn't know much about this.

GUILFOYLE: No, I read the tease, I didn't say it in the break, but nevertheless. I mean, no, that's not my personal viewpoint. That was the tease for the block.

But I think this is the way of the future. I don't know how you're going to get around it. I'm concerned about the smaller investors, like Eric said, that can't compete. It's like an unfair advantage. It's like a human going up against a robot. You're outclassed.

BECKEL: Were you making fun of my tease?

GUILFOYE: No, it was your tease. It's my tease.

BECKEL: Oh, it's your tease?

GUILFOYLE: I read it.

BECKEL: That's right. You did. I'm sorry, I have a very short-term memory.

Tom, you may go to the bigger investors in this area, what do you think?

SHILLUE: Well, look, am I the only one who doesn't feel bad for the guy in the story? This is like -- we all know that we get kind of skimmed by Wall Street when we buy stock, our brokerage firm takes fees. Even when we do the discount brokerages online where we kind of take control of our own stocks, we have to pay every time we trade.

So, that's what happens with the medium-sized banks, then these banks get a little bit skimmed by these banks. And then we have this guy here who is the top -- he's like the 0.01 percent is getting screwed by the 0.001 percent. So, I don't really feel bad for this guy. We're getting skimmed on every level. And we've always known it.

BOLLING: But look at it this way. So, the top bank gets skimmed and the intermediate banks are skimmed more. By the time it gets down to the retail investment, it's been skimmed four and five and maybe six times over.

So, if we all had the same idea to buy a stock at the same time, the bank gets it at x price, and the retail investor gets it --

GUILFOYLE: How do you avoid getting burned?

BOLLING: Sometimes, that's the only amount of money you want to make on this stuff.

GUILFOYLE: How do you avoid this from happening? How do you fix the problem? That's the point.

BECKEL: Listen, a lot of this money is going into pension funds. So there are a lot of people, average people, getting hurt by this. The big banks try to buy big blocks of stock with pension funds, and they end up paying more for it.

So, it does affect people on down the line, particularly those who have pension funds.

All right, I hope I understand that. I thought that was the clearest --

GUILFOYLE: You were almost going to say "One More Thing."

BOLLING: No, I didn't.

I thought that was the clearest block we've had in a long time on a very complex subject. Thank you, Eric.

Coming up, what happens when you mix baseball, Taco Bell, and Chris Christie? You get a lot of damn food. Eric reveals the wild results of this fastest seven next on "The Five."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLLING: So what do you get when you mix a breakfast burrito, a dodger dog, and Chris Christie? Nothing a little Pepto-Bismol couldn't cure. Better yet, you get a fastest seven to write home about, three meaty stories, seven minutes, one mercurial host.

It's opening day across America, and kids are ditching school and hanging out -- heading out to the ballpark. Baseball is hugely popular. Millions upon millions of viewers, fans, and experts, but is baseball still America's sport. As a pro/ex-pro ball player, you may be surprised where I come down.

Let's go around the table, though.

K.G., America's sport, America's pastime -- baseball?

GUILFOYLE: I love baseball. That was my first favorite and I used to go to the doubleheader games. I would even go early at candlestick where it's extremely windy and cold, but I didn't care. I wanted to be there to watch batting practice of a doubleheader game.

What does that tell you, folks?

BOLLING: You're a junky.

Bobby, football or baseball?

BECKEL: Football. I mean, the NFL clearly now is the dominant sport in America.

But baseball has made a comeback. They were starting to lose people. I like to go to baseball games, too. They have done some things to speed the games up, which they had to do, because you could go to watch a game and not get out until the next day.

BOLLING: They also put in a rule this year, they're going to do instant replay. It's like a speed matchup.

GUILFOYLE: No.

BOLLING: Our resident expert in sports, what's America's pastime?

PERINO: Anybody who can save me for this moment.

OK, I think by tradition, baseball, and I still think families love to go, love to get together, and still a lot of kids are playing baseball. I'm always nervous to go to the game when the ball gets hit into the stands, because you've got to pay attention.

GUILFOYLE: You've got to bring a glove.

PERINO: But as a viewer, I don't like to watch baseball on TV. I don't go to that many games. I like to watch football on TV.

BOLLING: What about you, Tom? What is America's pastime?

SHILLUE: I think in the future, baseball is going to be only more popular because the pace is slow. I like a slow baseball game. Some of my best memories are in the summer, sitting around, listening to the ball game on the radio and doing nothing. As our culture gets more and more about fast and immediate gratification, baseball is a time-out, it's a breather. It's beautiful. Like track and field and chess all in one. It's great.

BECKEL: Chess? Chess?

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: De Blasio is going to throw out the opening pitch at the Mets game.

All right. Taco Bell has been eating McDonald's lunch lately, and now they plan to bite into their breakfast, too. Taco Bell entering the breakfast wars with a loud, big, and effective shot at the big dog in fast food breakfast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: To show you just how much people are loving Taco Bell's all new breakfast, we asked some very special people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Ronald McDonald.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am Ronald McDonald.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Ronald McDonald Jr. and this is Ronald McDonald III.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Ronald McDonald.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really good. I was surprised at how good it is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love the new a.m. crunch wrap.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm Ronald McDonald.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ronald McDonald.

CROWD: I'm Ronald McDonald and I love Taco Bell's new breakfast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: All right. Now, I start with Kimberly on the first one. She's our foodie, though. Let's start with Kimberly and go this way.

GUILFOYLE: Why, why are you putting me in this quandary?

BOLLING: Taco Bell breakfast.

GUILFOYLE: Yes, I'm into it. I mean, let's not kid around. I love egg McMuffins. You can be my friend if you show up with one of those and a latte.

Now, Taco Bell, I'm a fan because I like the price points, 39, 59, 79, yo quiero Taco Bell, I'm feeling that, too. So I'm looking forward to this.

BOLLING: Right.

GUILFOYLE: Immediately, and I thought we were -- we must have a budget problem, because where is the food?

BOLLING: Budget problems.

Hey, Tom, Chipotle is extremely popular, out of control popular. They're pulling market shares from McDonald's left and right.

Where are you? Taco Bell, Chipotle --

SHILLUE: Chipotle is a great restaurant, I love it, but it's late night food. For breakfast, the thing is that these fast food restaurants need to learn, the people who like breakfast food the most don't wake up until 11:00.

Guys like me, you know, we work clubs on the road, and you wake up at 11:00 and you want that breakfast and you can't because they shut it down at 10:30. That's the shame. Serve breakfast all day.

BOLLING: This has to go against everything you stand for, breakfast burritos.

TANTAROS: I used to love at the White House, you could get it from the mess, you could get the breakfast tacos. If you knew it was going to be a crappy day, you could just get one of those and start your day off.

I have to say, being older and wiser, I would never eat this. Just like a personal choice. I don't care what anyone else wants to eat, but I would rather not eat anything than eat that because I would feel terrible.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: I can't imagine anything for breakfast with sticky bean crap they throw in the middle, but McDonald's has led the way. They were the first to get in the breakfast business, and now people are coming in --

PERINO: Oatmeal.

BECKEL: Yes, and they sort of lead the way, and the other guys take advantage. I thought it was a brilliant ad and I think that they're going to do very well as a result.

BOLLING: All right. Let's do this one. Last November, Chris Christie was the front runner among GOP 2016 hopefuls. Then hurricane Sandy hit. In its wake, a walk with President Obama on the Jersey shore unaffectionately became known as the bear hug, a barrage fire from the right drained Christie's political capital to nearly bankruptcy.

Megyn Kelly asked the New Jersey governor about the aforementioned bear hug.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS HOST: They felt you hurt Mitt Romney a week before the election in what appears to be at that time to be a very tight race. Did you?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: No, and the best source for that information is not me. It's Mitt Romney. And I have seen him publicly say over and over again that it had absolutely no effect or role in the race, either subjectively for the way he felt or objectively in terms of what their polls look like at the time. So, the answer is no.

KELLY: Like he was gracious about it, but it doesn't necessarily mean the voters will be, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Let's do a very focused fastest seven question. Can Chris Christie survive or come back from the bear hug?

PERINO: Survive to do what? I mean, he survived. And will he run as president? I don't know. I do think that it's wishful thinking for anybody who believes that Chris Christie caused Mitt Romney not to win. There were many structural flaws in the campaign we need to own up to and stop blaming Chris Christie.

BOLLING: Let me go to my politico here. Can he come back from that?

BECKEL: I think it's going to be easier for him to come back from that than from the George Washington Bridge. But getting a bear hug by Christie at that time in his life, that's almost an assassination attempt.

(LAUGHTER)

GUILFOYLE: Oh, Bob, you're rather funny today.

BECKEL: That's because Tom's here.

I think he's going to survive, I think he's going to run, and I don't think he's going to win.

BOLLING: K.G.?

GUILFOYLE: OK, if I was Mitt Romney, I wouldn't love to look up at the screen and see Chris Christie, my buddy, someone that I really -- in my opinion, would be looking up to, helping me, who was speaking at the convention, giving that big hug during that time. I would be like, oh, no, you're my friend.

It sounds ridiculous, but I wouldn't love it. Do I think he did it to hurt Mitt Romney? No. Do I think that a lot of people talked about it and felt uneasy about it? Yes. Does it seem like he's coming out of this whole thing and getting back into the 2016 mojo? Yes.

BOLLING: All right. Quick thoughts, Tom?

SHILLUE: Bob is wrong. The bear hug is going to hurt him more than the bridge. No one really cares about the bridge thing.

Republicans really don't like that bear hug, but it's not because they don't like bear hugs and it's not because they hate President Obama or they're crazy. It's the desperation. They saw in that Christie was trying to appeal to the moderate voter and that --

GUILFOYLE: Looking out for himself.

SHILLUE: Yes.

BOLLING: We have to leave it there.

Don't forget to catch more of Megyn's interview with Governor Christie tonight on "THE KELLY FILE" at 9:00 p.m.

On deck, want to know how you can have a more happy and productive life? A simple plan that starts with watching "Groundhog Day" a few more times. The rest of the plan after the break.

GUILFOYLE: Oh my God, it's so funny.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

PERINO: Here's an interesting question. Does the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day" hold a secret to living a happy life?

Charles Murray, no relation to Bill, he thinks so. His essay in "The Wall Street Journal" this weekend, he has five tips to young people on how to live life to the fullest.

Quickly, they are: consider marrying young, meaning like 26. Learn how to recognize your soul mate. Eventually stop fretting about fame and fortune. Take religion seriously, and watch "Groundhog Day" repeatedly. In our discussion, we will tell you why.

But let's start with marriage. Tom, one of the things that Charles Murray says when you're considering someone you might make a commitment to for marriage, you should not marry somebody who has annoying habits you're not going to be able to overlook.

SHILLUE: It's so interesting that you start with that point because I agree with everything he says in this essay here, which is excerpt from his book, I guess, except this. And the reason is, doesn't he realize, when you meet someone, they don't have any annoying habits?

PERINO: You don't know about them until later?

SHILLUE: Annoying habits happen after you cohabitate with them for ten years. So, that's one thing.

And the other thing is I don't think it's that important because, you know, my wife and I, we probably annoy each other a lot, but you need to be on the same page with the big things. It's the big ethical issues, the religious issues. Those are the big things, not the little habits because everyone is going to have those. The little things are going to bother you.

PERINO: I can't imagine, Bob, in your marriage that you had any habits that were annoying. I can't imagine.

BECKEL: Well, first of all, the thing that drove me crazy about my ex-wife is she kept moving my stuff around. You don't touch my crap.

Can I make one point about this? The thing I think makes sense, the religion thing is important, but when he talks about stop fretting about fame and fortune. That's exactly right.

So few people live for today. And they get on this fast track and they're looking ahead, always looking ahead. Their mind is taking them ahead.

And they forget -- yesterday is gone. There's nothing you can do about it. Tomorrow, something's going to open up for you or not. It's today you can make a difference. I think that's a very important thing.

PERINO: Did you like any of the tips in this essay, Eric?

BOLLING: I like the religion one. I agree with that. I also like what you said goes to the Groundhog Day. In other words, live every day of your life like it's going to be different. Don't let -- get yourself into that Groundhog Day routine where every day is the same.

But I think his first point, marry young, consider marrying young, whatever, is so off base. Don't marry young -- forget marrying young or old. Marry right. Marry someone you have fun with, someone you can wake up every day and laugh and make every day not Groundhog Day, the opposite of Groundhog Day.

GUILFOYLE: I like that idea.

BOLLING: However, just being happily married doesn't necessarily mean your life is fulfilling and happy.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: That's around 85 percent.

GUILFOYLE: It's not. Hello, that's in your fantasy land because you're hoping to be one of the five.

BECKEL: No, no, I have done it once.

GUILFOYLE: No, no, no. OK, erroneous, I was not married about -- but here's the thing. Yes, marry young -- I like what Eric says because what if you didn't do that. Maybe that's where I went wrong. So, maybe I should marry someone young.

PERINO: Oh, cougarville. I like it.

(CROSSTALK)

BECKEL: Cougarville? Gosh, she's come a long way, hasn't she?

PERINO: Yes, I know that that's a show. That's show. It's actually on television. It's real life, not for real. Like a fantasy.

Can I ask you to wrap us up here? Why do you think people should watch "Groundhog Day" over and over?

SHILLUE: Groundhog Day is a great film. And you can, the great thing about Groundhog Day is you almost have to be like Bill Murray and watch the movie over and over again to get the point. But it's like, "It's a Wonderful Life" is about what would happen if you weren't born.

And this kind of takes that philosophy and is like, what would happen if you relived the same day over and over. He starts as a dog, and by the end of the film, he becomes a good person because he can't help it, because he sees what is valuable in life after reliving it over and over again.

PERINO: That's why I came to you.

All right. Directly ahead, the therapist behind Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's conscious uncoupling breaks down the meaning behind the now infamous phrase. That's next on "The Five."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHILLUE: Last week, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's break-up put the phrase "conscious uncoupling" on the map. The term left many wondering what it really all means. Well, the licensed psychobabblist behind the content explained it this morning on "The Today Show."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHERINE WOODWARD THOMAS, THERAPIST: A conscious uncoupling is a breakup that's characterized by good will, by generosity, and by respect. It is a process that leaves both parties feeling valued and appreciated for all that was shared.

You know, the thing about conscious uncoupling is it opens up, just in the language itself, it opens up a new possibility for how we might do this better, and I actually think we're really ready for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHILLUE: Wow. I feel like lighting a candle. Not only did the split make headlines, but so did Paltrow's controversial remarks, citing working moms as having it easier than her, saying, quote, "I think it's different when you have an office job, because it's routine. When you're shooting a movie, you work 14 hours a day. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as -- of course, there are challenges, but it's not like being on set."

It's the way she phrased it.

PERINO: Right.

SHILLUE: OK, the conscious uncoupling thing, that was dumb, OK? But I'm going to excuse that because they're a couple. They're having a divorce and you know, they're looking to their gurus to help them out.

But I'm going to defend Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop site. Everyone calls her a snob and an elitist, but she's just being her. Dana, am I right? She's a celebrity. Don't we want celebrities to be true and not, you know, hide behind this, like, "man of the people" nonsense? She's telling it like it is.

PERINO: You can't pick up a magazine that doesn't have her featured in it somewhere.

But I came up with a different phrase. Rather than unconscious -- or conscious uncoupling, I call it pretentious unraveling.

SHILLUE: And that's what they're doing. They're having a pretentious unraveling.

PERINO: For all the world to see.

SHILLUE: How about an unconscious coupling? That's what Bob used to do in his college years.

GUILFOYLE: He's still doing it.

BECKEL: Exactly. And I would have gotten married and did the same thing.

Listen, this is nothing new. People have worked very hard -- I include myself in that -- trying not to have a dramatic divorce and go to court and try to do it in a friendly enough way the kids don't get hurt by it.

My kids were very young. Look, divorce is going to hurt kids, no matter what. But if you do it in a way that shows respect and admiration for the other person and you make it clear to the kids it's not their fault and you do it in a reasonable way, you're going to be all right.

And about the set -- she works on the set -- set this. The...

GUILFOYLE: All right.

BECKEL: This woman is one of the most obnoxious people I've ever run across. Somebody should take a trailer and put an ice pick in the wheel.

BOLLING: Why are you so angry, Bob?

GUILFOYLE: Why are you so mad?

SHILLUE: She's on a set for 14 hours. Can't she complain about it? Can't rich people complain just like poor people, Kimberly?

GUILFOYLE: Absolutely. I mean, let her complain. This is not easy to do. I feel for...

BECKEL: Oh -- 15 million bucks, it ain't easy?

GUILFOYLE: Money doesn't matter when you have children that have emotions, feelings involved. People talking about their parents because they're, you know, in the public eye. So I wish them the best of luck co- parenting. That's what's going to matter in the end. They can call it, you know, whatever they like in terms of conscious uncoupling. They have to work it out, come up with a plan. They feel it's best to stay in the home and raise their children, Apple and Moses. Right?

BECKEL: That tells you all that you need to know.

GUILFOYLE: Well, you know what? They're doing it their way, and hopefully, their kids are going to be the better off for it. That they can continue -- and at least they have a therapist involved, because I think that is helpful.

And I do like the Goop site. Three ways to cook a meal out of one chicken.

BECKEL: Got to get Eric in here because he's married.

SHILLUE: Eric, is she a snob?

BOLLING: Look, I think it's very difficult to raise a kid when someone's in the public eye the way Gwyneth Paltrow is. And I think it's more than doubly difficult to do it when they're both, the father and the mother, in the public eye...

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

BOLLING: ... when you have two parents that are so, No. 1, on the road all the time, traveling. The kid kind of gets like, where am I? You know, who's important to me?

Look, this sounds bad, but if there's one who's always traveling and one who's home, you know -- OK...

GUILFOYLE: Makes sense.

BOLLING: ... Dad's got to travel or Mom has got to travel.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

BOLLING: When they're both traveling, it's very, very difficult to do, and it's especially very difficult to keep the marriage together.

BECKEL: Exactly.

BOLLING: Spending a lot of time. I don't know.

SHILLUE: And she is fantasizing about a regular life. She wants to be a regular mom.

PERINO: I don't think that's what she's fantasizing about.

SHILLUE: She wants to be Joe Lunchbox.

What do you think she's fantasizing about?

PERINO: I would like to know what "Vanity Fair" was going to write and they got scared out of doing it.

SHILLUE: "One More Thing" is up next.

GUILFOYLE: Ha, ha.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: Shake and bake. I love it. OK, you're up.

BECKEL: Shake and bake?

GUILFOYLE: We had a lot of play in the front end of the show. Talk of "One More Thing."

BECKEL: It won't last but for today.

All right. The Final Four are in. Florida is going to play Connecticut, and Kentucky is going to play Wisconsin. Here's my picks. Florida will beat Connecticut. And Kentucky will beat Wisconsin. In the finals, it will be Florida versus Kentucky, and Florida will win.

GUILFOYLE: Bolling, quick commentary on "One More Thing"?

BOLLING: Good. I agree with that.

OK. So let's wish happy birthday to -- ready? Go for it, show the picture. Al Gore turned 66 today. Just so happens this is the last day of March, one of 2,061 record lows in American in March. And a couple quick pictures: Last night in Dix Hills (ph), New York, Jay and Laura got three inches of global warming. You can see it right there. And also the next one in Superior, Michigan, they got just a whole slew of global warming on their front driveway.

BECKEL: You're not going to count all the places that are warm.

BOLLING: No.

PERINO: Do you think that Al Gore is going to sign up for Social Security today at 66?

GUILFOYLE: I want all the discounts.

BOLLING: Sure he has a few bucks put away.

PERINO: I hope he's not going to.

GUILFOYLE: Dana Perino.

PERINO: I had the most helpful e-mail of the weekend, and I thought I would share it with all of you. It came actually from Buzzfeed. It was a list: 15 things you didn't know your iPhone could do. I'm going to tell you a couple of them here that are the best.

Say you're going to take a picture of Eric and you take it like this. You want to take a landscape. You can use the volume up button to actually click the picture. OK? That was very helpful.

SHILLUE: Hundreds of thousands of people saying, "I knew that."

PERINO: You can use your phone as a level to help -- put it on the compass and then you can hang a picture.

And also, this is very helpful. If you put on airplane mode -- your phone on airplane mode and then you charge it, it will charge twice as fast.

Isn't that fascinating, Bob?

BECKEL: It's fascinating. I'll tell you. I'm going to run out and get that...

SHILLUE: That's a good one. I'm going to use that, because I didn't know that.

PERINO: Thank you.

GUILFOYLE: I put it on airplane mode at night. Little did I know I was being savvy (ph).

PERINO: You can also, any time, find out what planes are overhead, all of them.

BECKEL: Really?

BOLLING: Or you can set different vibrations for different people who are texting you.

PERINO: Yes. In case you have people e-mailing you that you don't want anyone else to know about.

GUILFOYLE: OK.

BOLLING: That happens to me a lot.

GUILFOYLE: By the way, that was like a super geeked-out segment, just saying.

PERINO: Just call me Clayton Morris.

GUILFOYLE: You are. And you're like Cliff Clavin from "Cheers."

OK, Tom.

SHILLUE: Well, I'm a longtime barbershop quartet singer. I'm in the Barbershop Harmony Society. And we lost a great one. Tommy Spirito, one of the great barbershop singers of all time, he died yesterday. And I was sad to hear the news. When other kids were listening to AC/DC in high school, I was spinning records of the Four Rascals and the Boston Common. Thank you, Tommy. You taught me how to sing.

GUILFOYLE: Is that true? You're in a quartet?

SHILLUE: Yes. Barbershop quartet.

There's my quartet right there on the screen. Fantastic. Scollay Square.

GUILFOYLE: I don't see you there. Oh, my God, that is you.

SHILLUE: And we model ourselves after Tommy Spirito and the Four Rascals.

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh. We...

SHILLUE: I sing with Justin Timberlake. Look at that guy.

GUILFOYLE: But do you do it as a joke?

SHILLUE: It's not a joke. It's four-part harmony. It's close to my heart.

GUILFOYLE: All right. OK. So let's do something very important. The royals, can we show a picture of the baby? It's so cute. And Bob says they're endangering the child.

BECKEL: They are.

GUILFOYLE: But I think Prince George just looks absolutely adorable at eight months. So we want to wish them all the best and health and happiness. And for you at home, as well.

Don't forget to set your DVR so you never miss an episode of "The Five." We're going to see you back here tomorrow.

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