One-on-one with Heidi Cruz
Wife of Ted Cruz discusses her partnership with the presidential candidate, career, Donald Trump's attacks in a 'Kelly File' interview
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," April 12, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight. The RNC and Donald Trump ramp up their fight. Speaker Paul Ryan says you can count him out for the 2016 race. And the candidate's wife comes forward in an exclusive interview to break her silence on what the media dubbed the wife wars.
Welcome to a special edition tonight of "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. 2016 is in focus this evening. In moments, we will get to Brit Hume on what has become a delegate death match on the Republican side of the White House race. But first to a "Kelly File" exclusive, in the age of the modern political campaign, spouses and children often play a key role, not only supporting the candidate but helping to carry the message. The unwritten rule, however, is that the families should be off-limits from political attacks.
That rule was broken a few weeks ago, when Melania Trump was attacked in an ad by an anti-Trump Super PAC. And then days later, the wife of Senator Ted Cruz, Heidi Cruz, found herself the target of an unflattering tweet in what became a campaign controversy that lasted for days. But Heidi Cruz is not a political novice, she met her husband while working as a political advisor on the Bush for president campaign back in 2000. She is currently on leave at the managing director at the banking firm Goldman Sachs in Houston, Texas and she sat down with yours truly earlier to take questions about her husband, his campaign, and the clash that recently made her a household name.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Thank you so much for being here.
HEIDI CRUZ, WIFE OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TED CRUZ: Thank you, Megyn. Great to be here with you.
KELLY: So, let's talk about you. You were raised in California. The daughter of two missionaries. How did it change you? How did it affect you to be raised by such devout Christians?
CRUZ: Well, my parents are incredible people, and it's so important to have parents who teach you things and who give you principles to live by. And my parents are people who practice what they preach. My dad is a small time dentist, my mom is a dental hygienist. And they always believe in the -- just the view that we're here for a short time in the surf and that we really live for others and that we can make a big difference in this world if we our live for others.
KELLY: It is true that when you're in fifth grade, you knew you wanted to go to Harvard Business School?
CRUZ: Well, I was raised in a small town on a small farm. And my parents really instilled enough the value of hard work. And I do remember when I was out, we did a lot of corn, we picked a lot of berries. And when my brother and I were young, we wanted a little bit of pay for that work. And so we asked my dad if we can be paid a little more. And he said, you know, if you want to make some money, why don't you start a business?
And so when my brother and I were six and eight, we started a bread business, we had it for over 10 years and we compete it. We started our own companies. My brother bought me out for a period. I figured out it was better to work for yourself that for someone else.
(LAUGHTER)
So, I loved business from a young age. But the things that you learn when you have a business as a kind I think are really invaluable. It got me interested in business and then my parents exposed us to a lot of things and I was interested in business school at a young age.
KELLY: And amazingly, you wind up there, you went to Harvard Business School, you have an MBA from Harvard Business School. And then shortly after that, you met your husband, Ted Cruz, while you were both working on George W. Bush's presidential campaign. What first attracted you to Ted?
CRUZ: Well, you know, Ted has a very rare combination that I spotted immediately which is, he has a deep, deep intelligence, but at the same time, he's a lot of fun. Ted has that incredible command of pop culture, too much (INAUDIBLE) probably, he's a big movie buff. He loves to play games. Ted will stay up all night if he's playing a card game or he's playing chess and he's really good. And it's fun to be around someone who is so smart and so intelligent.
KELLY: What? Do you remember a specific moment where you started to think, uh-huh, he might be the one for me?
(LAUGHTER)
CRUZ: Well, Ted and I both say, and we said it at the time, it really was love at first sight. And I'm not a big risk taker, so I was sort of surprised to fall in love with someone so quickly. But I saw in Ted somebody who had the qualities that I just described but who also questioned the status quo, who sees possibility where others don't. And I knew this is a person who, like I described my parents, was going to have a real impact.
KELLY: Uh-hm. Did you know that? I mean, at the time, did you think, this could be a future president of the United States?
CRUZ: I didn't think this could be a future president of the United States, but I thought this is going to be a person that is doing to be a doer.
KELLY: Now, you know that people will say, oh no, but he's ever like Ted Cruz, people in law school didn't liked Ted Cruz. And they don't like him in the U.S. Senate. Did they have friends? Did people like him?
CRUZ: Well, I am glad that you asked that question. Because I want all of his friends here to hear on your show that one of the things that attracted me most to Ted Cruz was all of his friends. When you meet someone and you meet their friends and the people they associate with, and even more deepens your conviction if this is the right person for you. So this likability thing really is I think a misnomer for people who aren't getting much done.
KELLY: Was it a happy time? You were young. You were newly married. You're building your careers.
CRUZ: It was incredibly happy time. We were great newlyweds. You know, one of my favorite stories that I do tell, because it says a lot about Ted is, Ted is a very low key person, he's a man who is easy to live with. The night we got married, he came home from our honeymoon, and he went out and bought 100 cans of chunky soup and stuck in the pantry. Well, I grew up on a farm where you make your own pasta. Right? So, this was not happening. So I, the next morning loaded 100 cans of soup back in the car and returned them all.
KELLY: Why did he want 100 cans of soup?
CRUZ: Because he can eat a can of soup for dinner. Our potential next president of the United States might have a can of soup for dinner. This is a person who is very easy and so he said, well, unless you're going to cook, and Megyn, I'm a terrible cook, I've tried. And I burned most things. I doing three things at the same time.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
CRUZ: So I did have to go back and buy those cans of soup again. As others said, if you're not going to cook every night, you should let the man do.
KELLY: He became solicitor general for the State of Texas which is basically the chief appeals lawyer, he goes into court and argues on behalf of the state when they get in the jam. So he moved down to Austin. He has to go to Austin, Texas for that. You have a thriving career in Washington and for a time you lived apart, right?
CRUZ: We commuted. We saw each other almost every single weekend.
KELLY: Okay. And that got old?
CRUZ: It got old. Yes. It was hard.
KELLY: So you decided you're going to move down to Texas to be closer to Ted. But you didn't go to Austin, you wanted to go to Houston where you, to the job with Merrill Lynch because that's where the best offer was. Those are only three hours apart, Houston and Austin.
CRUZ: Right. Two-and-a-half.
KELLY: Like, people say, why didn't you go to Austin?
CRUZ: Right, exactly. Exactly.
KELLY: You described that as a rough patch for you and there was some news made about how rough it was for you at the time. Do you feel like it was humbling? Here you are, Harvard Business School, worked for the Bush Administration, hot shot in the investment banking industry, making it as a woman in a man's world, married to a powerful guy, solicitor general of Texas. And yet even somebody like you can go through a tough time where you feel sadness and, you know, you struggle.
CRUZ: Absolutely. It was humbling. And the thing that I want to convey to people in this country, to Americans but to women specifically, but really to men professionally, is being humble is so important. And if you go through different transitions in your life, if you're willing to start over sometimes, if you're willing to always work hard, no job is too small, no job is too big, and you see possibility like Ted does where others don't, it can be a much smoother path. And so it was -- it was -- what was humbling for me was in my spiritual walk.
It was so humbling to know that God has an incredible plan for my life. And regardless of what your beliefs are, what your religion is, if you believe that there's a reason that you are placed on this earth and there is a long term plan, you can follow that and not need to control everything. And what was really humbling was to realize that my ability to contribute and to serve others was not oriented towards the geography, it oriented towards developing the talents that God had given me in my partnership with Ted.
KELLY: And then you had two young daughters, you have two children on top of that. So how did two busy professionals like you and Ted at that time manage all of that at once?
CRUZ: One thing is that I think is so important is to recognize that if you have a lot going on in your life, you need to ask people for help. And our families were incredibly helpful.
KELLY: Do you ever have working mother guilt?
CRUZ: You know, what's been interesting is someone told me this and it's so true. If the parents are happy with the tradeoffs they've made, there's not a lot of working mother guilt if your kids are happy.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
CRUZ: And I found that when, you know, as Ted and I have been really -- we communicate a lot and as we've made deliberative decisions about the tradeoffs that we've made, that our kids are really happy because they know the parents are happy.
KELLY: So now, Ted comes home one day and says, I have this great idea, I'm going to run for U.S. Senate and he runs and wins. And then a day came in the future when he came home and said, I have another great idea, I'm going to run for president. How did that conversation go?
CRUZ: You know, Megyn, it was so interesting you might go through this with your husband. When you're doing something for your spouse only and you feel like you've already done a lot for your spouse, and vice versa, Ted has been so supportive of me as well. But you start to think about those tradeoffs and if you're feeling to do it for them, and I did feel a little bit itchy. You know, I just wasn't sure we had just gone through a Senate race. Things were kind of settled.
KELLY: Your career was thriving.
CRUZ: At that time, we were in the groove, and our girls were young. And it hit me one day, if Ted could even be a voice in this election for constitutional freedoms, for economic growth, and for greater security for our families, that we should be part of this. Ted is just too talented to be out of the debate.
KELLY: What about, you know, when you're actually out on the campaign trail, we've heard obviously Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. There's not a lot of love loss there these days. And he's taken to referring to Ted as lying Ted, lying Ted. How does that wash with you?
CRUZ: Well, if there's one thing that's true about Ted is that, he always tells the truth.
KELLY: So, you can just brush that stuff off?
CRUZ: I brushed that because I think these attacks on character are a distraction.
KELLY: Recently, Donald Trump sent out an unkind retweet about you comparing your appearance unfavorably to that of his wife, Melania Trump, who is a retired model. How did that retweet first come to your attention?
CRUZ: Well, one great thing about me, Megyn, is I don't tweet.
(LAUGHTER)
CRUZ: So, I have an ability to completely ignore it and, you know, I think we have a pattern of behavior here that when Donald Trump is falling behind, you know, it's interesting the timing of that was right before Ted's sweep, sweeping victory in Utah.
KELLY: But that's a dodge. I'm wondering whether, like who told you about it and how it made you feel.
CRUZ: You and Carly, my dear friend Carly and myself have been the object of some of Donald's criticisms. But I will tell you, I know why we're running this race, and it's not for Donald Trump, it's for the voters of this country. And when you have a husband who is standing by you that is so strong and so unflappable, it really gives me a lot of strength. And so, I really have to honestly say, it didn't impact me in the least.
I have one job on this campaign, and that is to get out and tell the voters who Ted Cruz is. And when telling the truth about who your husband is, is your job, it's pretty easy and it's been great for our marriage. So, because I don't tweet, because I know what my job is on the campaign, and because I know that every time the Trump campaign starts to lose, they throw in distractions. A personal distraction.
KELLY: Donald Trump, in his defense, he was upset because he felt that his wife had been hit in a Super PAC ad that featured Melania that Ted Cruz has very clearly had nothing to do with it. But he was upset. That was --
CRUZ: Well, I will say, our campaign never will, never has engaged in the politics of personal destruction. If you know the PACs structures, we don't coordinate. It wasn't even a Ted Cruz PAC. We've said that many times. That PAC attacked us.
KELLY: It was an anti-Trump PAC.
CRUZ: And that PAC attacked us. So I think that has been cleared.
KELLY: One last question on Trump. He also sent out a tweet threatening to spill the beans on you. Do you know what that references too and does that bother you?
CRUZ: So many things that Donald Trump says and engages in have no basis in reality. I know my track record. I know my life record pretty well. Didn't bother me a bit. I think a lot of things he throws out there that have no basis in reality and it's kind of fallen off there.
KELLY: Ted says, there are no beans, but we have found out tonight there is soup. So, just FYI, there's a soup and there's a lot of it apparently.
(LAUGHTER)
Things have gotten unfortunate more than once in this campaign, including a nasty "National Enquirer" story about Ted allegedly engaging in extramarital affairs. I asked him about it directly. He says it's absolutely false and went after the "National Enquirer" and its publisher. Do you want to comment on that?
CRUZ: It's garbage. It's just garbage. This is another example of Donald Trump engaging in the politics of personal destruction, using his henchman to go out and try to destroy others when he's losing. And I think, you know, these silly barbs and made up stories did not come out earlier in the campaign because he felt he was doing okay.
KELLY: You know, for the record, Trump has made clear he was not behind that report. He says he has nothing to do with it. And although that report cites Roger Stone, who is a Trump adviser at one time, he's no longer with the Trump campaign in any official capacity.
CRUZ: Well, I have no doubt that these things are made up in a certain place for a certain reason. And so, we don't spend a lot of time talking about it on the campaign, because we still have 16 states to win.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
CRUZ: We have two long months. We're halfway through the calendar and more than halfway through the delegate count.
KELLY: What kind of First Lady do you think you would be?
CRUZ: As I described to our daughters when we took this step last March to run for the presidency, I had to tell them that I would be taking a leave of absence not going to the office every day, and they asked what is the First Lady? And I said, you know, it is an opportunity, it is the wife of the president. And my daughter Caroline said oh, mom, come on, come on, what is a First Lady?
(LAUGHTER)
And I said, well, it's an opportunity to serve alongside the president and do great things for others. And so I think that I -- I would aspire to be a partner with Ted but to do things for children, for entrepreneurship and for school choice. But in a partnership format.
KELLY: You are a Harvard MBA, managing director at Goldman Sachs, former Bush administration official, devout Christian, loving wife, loving mother. A lot of people are going to be saying, Heidi Cruz for office. Will that ever happen?
CRUZ: Oh, no. I have one role in this campaign, and that is to help Ted win. And as I've gone through it, I've reflected on that time in my life where I was trying to find my role in the next chapter. And it is such a blessing to enjoy so fully the part that you play at this time. And I don't know what God has in store for me or for our family in the future, but I do know that right now I feel very fulfilled.
KELLY: Good for you. Thank you for being here.
CRUZ: Thank you, Megyn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: We're taking your thoughts on that on facebook.com/thekellyfile and on Twitter @MegynKelly.
Also tonight, we will have a revealing look at what Senator Cruz was up to in college. Hmm, what was up with this picture? Check him out on the left. When his very famous Harvard Law professor joins us to dish about why young Mr. Cruz was off the charts. In what way, Alan Dershowitz?
Plus, some conservative critics are now suggesting that Secretary John Kerry has set the stage for the United States to apologize for dropping the bomb on Japan. Governor Mike Huckabee and former Obama White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton are here on that.
But first, Donald Trump tonight is ramping up his fight with the RNC. How the party bosses are now handling this race for the White House.
And Brit Hume is next on what this means for the Republican hopes of winning the White House. Stay tuned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The Republican National Committee, they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this kind of crap to happen. I can tell you that. They should be ashamed of themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight. The RNC and Donald Trump ramping up a white hot fight over delegates. As we get a series of new polls suggesting that a majority of Republicans are now siding with Donald Trump in this fight. For weeks, Mr. Trump has argued that the candidate going into the July convention with the most delegates should become the GOP nominee, even if he doesn't quite have a majority. But the party rules say a candidate must have a majority of delegates, period. Now in the latest McClatchy Marist poll, 52 percent say that if Donald Trump wins the most delegates, even if he falls short of that magic number, 1237, he should win the nomination.
We asked a similar question in our Fox News poll, and 59 percent agreed that the one with the most delegates should win. And then the latest Bloomberg poll, a whopping 63 percent say the candidate with the most delegates should win, even if he doesn't have the majority. All of this comes as we've heard a growing chorus of GOP voters suggesting that party should look around for a candidate who might prove more popular than Trump or Cruz or Kasich. And today, one of the names that gets mentioned a lot is the white night who might swoop in at the convention held a news conference to say, count me out. Just in case you're wondering whether it will be me, it won't be. Tell me what movie that's from. Nicely done, Jess. Here is -- it wasn't actually Charlie Bucket, it was Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I simply believe that if you want to be the nominee for our party, to be the President, you should actually run for it. I chose not to do this. Therefore, I should not be considered, period, end of story. I just think it would be wrong to go any other way. So let me say again, I am not going to be our party's nominee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Brit Hume is our Fox News senior political analyst. Great to see you. So, this is really -- this is not letting up. Trump and the RNC are really fighting it out, Trump saying the system is rigged. He said they should have had elections in Colorado instead of just having delegates make the decisions. And that these are dirty tricksters, the RNC, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, they're not dirty tricks, Megyn, those are the rules. They've been in place for some time, Colorado is selecting its delegates basically the same way it selected its delegates the last time out. And the campaign that was more up to speed would have been all over that, and Trump really didn't make a big effort in Colorado at all. And Cruz did. And the result is, Cruz worked the system according to the rules, and he won fair and square.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
HUME: Now, I certainly understand why Donald Trump was disappointed, but it's silly to claim that it's dirty tricks or illegal because it's not.
KELLY: It may not be illegal or dirty, but it's weird. See how it strikes people as weird that not a single voter went to the polls in Colorado and yet Ted Cruz won the state?
HUME: Well, in some places, they have primaries and in some places they have caucuses, in some places they have kind of a hybrid of the two or a state convention. This has been true for as long as I've been covering politics.
KELLY: But he didn't know.
HUME: There are many more primaries now Megyn than there ever used to be. It used to be these kind of state-level delegations were chosen by, you know, the party itself and kind of an internal process. And those were the delegates that went to the convention. The primaries are much more common now and their effort to democratize the process. But the states have autonomy.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
HUME: You know, the Republican National Committee is not the place to complain about this. The states have the ability to decide how to select their delegates.
KELLY: Right. You're going to go back to Colorado.
HUME: You know, the Republican National, you know, the party is really 50 state parties.
KELLY: Now, what about this, you know, it's interesting, because the way it's looking now and the voting doesn't stop until June 7th, no candidate will emerge with the magic number of delegates to secure the nomination on the first vote at this convention. Trump could do it. He's pretty much the only one who could. But it's looking more like an open convention. And you can see from those numbers Brit that in a Bloomberg poll, 64 percent of the Republican Party says he should get it. If he goes to that convention and doesn't have 1237 but he's got the most, then he should just get it. So, what will it mean if he doesn't on that second ballot?
HUME: Well, Megyn, it's perfectly understandable to me, the people asked whether the personal and most votes should win, I got to say, yes, I mean, it's almost -- the question almost kind of answers itself. Of course, under the rules you have to have a majority. And once we get to the convention Megyn, and you're past the first ballot, the delegates are sovereign. It's up to them. It's not up to any party bosses. There are no party bosses anymore worthy of the name. It's just not worked that way anymore.
So the question of those delegates that we're facing is this, they're looking at a poll with a distinct majority saying that Trump ought to get it if he has the most delegates and they're going to be, you know, they're going to be affected by that. But they may also be looking at other polls as well and they like, they will, such as general election polls, and the general election polls where you obviously you got not just Republicans but everybody included, do not look good for Donald Trump. I mean, his negatives are --
KELLY: Right. But you know his argument on that. You know his argument - -
HUME: I understand --
KELLY: He got months to turn that around. He hasn't been even going after him.
HUME: I understand that. I know that. But he keeps saying that he's going to transform himself into this presidential figure that is, someone who is going to appeal to people, that have been watching him now for the better part of the year and have been turned off by him. I mean, we're not talking about a candidate with sort of bad numbers on this. We're talking about a candidate with atrocious numbers on that.
KELLY: But he's going to drive her negatives up, too. Even though she's beating him in a lot of this general election match-ups. He is going to drive her negatives up.
HUME: Well, he will certainly try to do that, Megyn. But Hillary Clinton is a pretty known quantity. And people have pretty much I think to great extent, made up their mind what they think about her. And I don't think any, you know, broadly speaking, the electorate is going to go to the polls excited to elect her. This is going to be a campaign of which the lesser of two evils is in play like you've never seen before. But his negatives are terrible. And Republicans in Washington and around the state, they're looking not at just the White House, which many of them I think Paul Ryan is included I think is lost. They're looking at -- they're worried about the Senate, which is going to, they might lose even if they won the White House, and they're worried about the House of Representatives.
So, that is what they're going to be looking at. They're also looking at state level races where the candidate on top of the ticket could really hurt them. So they'll going to be looking at the polls and say that Trump ought to get it, but they're also going to be looking at polls that say if he does, they're in trouble. This is why I think we have nothing in store for the Republicans this year but a train wreck. If Trump doesn't get it, even though he has a, you know, distinct majority of the delegates, a lot of his people that would might otherwise have voted Republican will not.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
HUME: On the other hand, if he does get it, a lot of the Independents and some Democrats that Republicans need to win, won't turn out for him either. So it looks like lose-lose. So that's what I'm thinking the delegates are going to be looking at when they get to the convention.
KELLY: Well, so, then, well, if that's true, why did Paul Ryan say, I'm out, forget it, not a chance?
HUME: Well, because look, if it's lose-lose, why do you want to be in on that?
KELLY: You know, isn't there the vision of underdog coming in to save the day?
HUME: No. Megyn, it just doesn't work that way. I mean, it's possible, it's conceivable, that on some -- after a series of ballots in which neither Trump or Cruz can win, somebody who is already in the race, Rubio or John Kasich or somebody, might be turned to by the delegates. I mean, nothing like that has happened in a very long time, but it is possible. It's highly unlikely, but it is possible. But I think it would never work for somebody who hasn't been in the race at all to try to come in at the last minute and be the nominee. I think that would be most unlikely.
KELLY: Pastel Brit, it's always a pleasure. Good to see you tonight.
HUME: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: Also from the campaign trail tonight, new fallout from an incident involving Hillary Clinton and the mayor of New York City. And a skip that included an awkward joke about race.
Plus, after Secretary John Kerry called for President Obama to visit Hiroshima, critics began to suggest that an American apology might be next.
Governor Mike Huckabee and former Obama White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton are here in moments. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRY S. TRUMAN, 33RD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. And the end is not yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Well, as Secretary of State John Kerry wraps up a visit to Japan, several conservative critics are now suggesting that he may have set the stage for a United States' apology.
Trace Gallagher explains why. He reports tonight from our West Coast newsroom. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, John Kerry thinks President Obama should visit Hiroshima. But the Secretary of State also refuses to say whether Obama would visit before leaving office.
The G-7 summit is in Central Japan next month. Hiroshima is in Western Japan, a short plane hop away. And while there reportedly is growing sentiment inside the White House for the president to make the trip, today, the press secretary was noncommittal. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He obviously will be in Japan for the G-7 summit there, and I don't know at this point whether or not any side trips will be on the president's itinerary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: The White House is keenly aware that a presidential visit would be interpreted by opponents as an apology. Many republicans believe in the early years of his term, President Obama went on a world apology tour and followed up with a feckless foreign policy.
The bombing of Hiroshima killed 140,000 people, but many Americans still think it was a necessary evil to end World War II and save the lives of thousands of U.S. troops. Historians also point out that America and its allies gave Japan ample opportunity to avoid the devastation.
Listen to Harry Truman on the day of the bombing. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMAN: It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July the 26th was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders rejected that ultimatum.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: Seventy years later, President Obama would certainly use a trip to Hiroshima as a symbolic gesture to push his goal of nuclear nonproliferation, but it comes at a time when Japan surrounded by a rising China and nuclear North Korea is now pursuing its own self defense policies underscoring the fact that's East Asia remains a very volatile part of the world. Megyn?
KELLY: Trace, thank you. Joining me now with reaction, former republican candidate and Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, and former White House deputy Press Secretary under President Obama, Bill Burton.
Good to see you both. So, let me start with you on this, Bill. Do you think is it likely that President Obama will go and will consider an apology and should he?
BILL BURTON, FORMER U.S. WHITE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, for starters, this wasn't an apology by Secretary Kerry. They said it emphatically. Secondly, you know, I heard the president talk about the bravery and the courageousness of the men and women who won World War II, and I don't think he's in the mood to apologize for winning that war.
Nuclear proliferation is an issue that's very important to him. That's why he's started and has annually had a nuclear security summit. And there's not a lot of places where you can go and talk about the devastation that nuclear weapons can do than Hiroshima.
And, you know, I think that if the president goes there, it's an opportunity to talk about that. I don't think it's an apology just if you were to show up.
KELLY: Governor, what do you make of it? Because there was a Wiki Leaks leak that reportedly had seen in 2009 September White House cable in which President Obama was already considering an apology, but then the U.S. ambassador to Japan said it's not a good idea. Is it a good idea?
MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's a terrible idea, Megyn. And I think the reason he didn't do it in 2009, he had already issued about 10 apologies in the first four months of his presidency, 10 from everyone to Europe, for Guantanamo, to the Muslim world.
It was an embarrassment for America and maybe in eight years he's learned that an apology for the things we've done to protect Americans is inappropriate. Look, we didn't start World War II. Pearl Harbor was not our doing.
And I think the great reminder of what President Truman said, it ended World War II, it didn't just save countless thousands of American lives but thousands of lives of Japanese people, as well.
It was a horrible thing, but we don't need to apologize for it. Japan needs to apologize for ever putting us in the position where he had to take drastic action to save as many people as we could.
KELLY: Even the thought, Bill, of President Obama going over there and visiting this museum, the Hiroshima memorial where Secretary Kerry was, the first Secretary of State to do that, is controversial. Nancy Pelosi has gone, Jimmy Carter went after he left office, but no sitting U.S. president has gone and visited this which shows terrible states of affair.
I mean, it's what happened there after the nuclear bomb was dropped. And there's a real question about if President Obama goes there, he should -- he should tour this memorial and what message that would send.
BURTON: I think the message it would send is that nuclear bombs cause devastation beyond anything else we've thought of and we ought to focus ourselves on getting rid of them. It's something that President Ronald Reagan wanted.
And the fact that conservatives are so far away from that central tenant of President Reagan's nuclear strategy just shows that they've come a long way since the days of their ideological head.
I think that the president is serious about ending nuclear weapons and, you know, stopping their proliferation. And whether or not he goes to Hiroshima, I think that that is the case. But if he goes, you know, I think it's obscene to say that he shouldn't honor the dead of the war, that one that we won, frankly.
KELLY: I know. But, you know, Governor Huckabee, what the critics say is it lacks the context of why we had to drop those bombs. We didn't start World War II. We don't want to be in World War II. We got attacked. And we only dropped the bomb to stop the war. That, I mean, our president was saying, more people would have died if we hadn't done it.
HUCKABEE: Well, if President Obama is really interested in stopping all nuclear capacity, then why on God's earth did we make the deal with Iran? And we know exactly where that's headed.
And I just think it's disingenuous, to compare to the times of Reagan when basically we had super powers like the Soviet Union and the United States. We certainly wanted to stop it.
But now with nations like Pakistan, nuclear armed. North Korea, we have some rogue nations with their finger really on the button. And these folks aren't doing it for defensive purposes. There's nothing they're trying to defend. Nobody wants to North Korea so they can eat lawn clippings with the rest of the people over there. So, it's different world.
KELLY: OK. Let me shift gears with you now. Because there was some controversy in the democratic presidential race today. Because Hillary Clinton over the weekend went to this event they have in New York City. They do it all the time. And many mayors have gone, and in good humor embarrass themselves.
This is the one why Rudy Giuliani dressed in drag. Mayor Bloomberg did something funny, while Mayor de Blasio showed with this thing with Hillary Clinton and they made a joke involving the term "C.P.," which is considered a slur, colored people. That's what that C.P. in this context means. C.P. time. Just watch what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I just have to say, thanks for the endorsement, Bill. Took you long enough.
(APPLAUSE)
NEW YORK CITY MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: Sorry, Hillary. I was running on C.P. time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not -- I don't like jokes like that, Bill. It's not...
CLINTON: Cautious politician time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: So, it was a play on words, they say it was scripted. This is, you know, lighten up, it was satire. Bill Burton, Greg Gutfeld on The Five tonight said the left reaps what they sew. They create the hyper sensitive fish call. We live in now and they're going to have to live with it. Your thoughts?
BURTON: Look, I like Bill de Blasio, I gave him money, I wanted him to be mayor. I think that this joke by any stretches awkward. I just hate that they had to drag Hamilton into this. Lamar Odom that actor over there who plays Aaron Burr. I mean, come on. Leave Hamilton alone.
KELLY: You know what they were saying, though? I mean, Gutfeld made a point on that, too, governor. He said if this happened with a republican candidate, they would be calling Lamar an Uncle Tom. They would be killing a republican who made a joke like this.
HUCKABEE: Oh, my gosh. Well, and there would be demands for the mayor, if he were a republican, to step down for being a racist. Look, let me just be fair, I don't think in all honesty, it was a racist joke. I think it was just a bad joke. They have been in poor taste. But I kind of like the First Amendment. I like freedom of speech. I even like it when people say things that are offensive to me not that I like what they say.
I like the fact that I live in a country that they can say it. So, if Bill Maher or anybody else wants to say something outrageous, rather than shut him down rather than be so offended by it all, why not we celebrate that we live in a country that we can do that without getting our tongues cut out. That's all we ought to be celebrating even if it's a terrible joke, and that one was.
KELLY: I just want to make clear that for the record, Governor Mike Huckabee just defended Hillary Clinton. OK. So, that just happened. There you go, enjoy.
HUCKABEE: My career is over.
KELLY: It's great to see you both. And Bill Burton did not.
HUCKABEE: Thank you.
KELLY: He's like my head is going to explode so I got to let them go. It's great to see you both.
Also tonight, we have a revealing look at what Senator Cruz was up to in college. Yes, we've done some investigations. And his very famous Harvard Law professor will join us to talk about why young Mr. Cruz was doing what you see there. Alan Dershowitz is here, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: We go back now to the early 1990s. Beverly Hills 90210 was on TV. I had very big, curly hair and a young Senator Ted Cruz wasn't yet a senator, was attending Harvard Law School.
We pick up the story with Professor Alan Dershowitz, author of "Taking the Stand, My Life in the Law." So, you taught Ted Cruz when he was a young whipper snapper. And what was your impression of him?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR: Well, he came into my class literally his first day in law school with his right hand up, not his left hand up, it's his right hand.
KELLY: Aha, symbolism.
DERSHOWITZ: And everything I said he challenged me. He was one of the best students I ever had, because a teacher loves to be challenged. I used this secrete method. Everything I said he disagreed with. I was against the death penalty, he's in favor. I was in favor of the exclusionary rule, he's against it.
And he made such brilliant arguments that I never had to play the devil's advocate. He was there.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: Even as a law student he was there. He had that sort of thinking.
DERSHOWITZ: He had been a champion debater at Princeton and he and his Princeton roommates sat next to each other. And he was an African-American, a black kid from Jamaica, two of the most brilliant guys at Harvard Law School. And they were inseparable and they had a team tag match. One guy finished, the other guys would raise his hand. It was just remarkable.
KELLY: Did you know what his politics were at the time?
DERSHOWITZ: Of course. Of course. I had no idea what his views were on social issues. We never talked about gay rights or a woman's right to choose, but on criminal justice and generally political issues, his politics were clear, principled, unwavering, and very intelligently presented.
KELLY: You said he was one of the smartest students you ever had. Is that true or is that hyperbole?
DERSHOWITZ: No, no. It's true. And in fact, I got a lot of criticism from my friends on the left saying why are you saying that? I'm a professor. I have to tell the truth about my students, even if I disagree with their views, even if I'm not going to vote for him, I'm not going to change history and, you know, pretend that this brilliant student was anything else.
KELLY: Now you also had Elizabeth Warren, I just want to name for the record I'm making a political segue just noting for the record. I have to ask you while I have you here. There was this big case involving you. And it was really -- you're a tangential issue to it.
But there was a young girl who claim she had been sexually assaulted by several men. And somehow your name got thrown into the mix that she started accusing you and you denied from the beginning. You had anything to do, you said I've never even met this girl. And now the people who filed that case against you have just acknowledge that it was a mistake.
DERSHOWITZ: Right.
KELLY: The former FBI director, Louie Freeh has come out -- you hired him to investigate the matter said there's been no evidence to support these accusations. He said the totality of the evidence refutes the allegations made against you. Do you feel vindicated?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, it's been 15 very difficult months for me and for my family, my children, my grandchildren. I'm gratified that now I think the world will see that this was a baseless charge. I want to go on with my life. The charges have been withdrawn. And so, as far as I'm concerned this matter is at rest now. And I'm going to go on and hopefully continue do good things, talk about my former students and...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: Right. It's just hell when somebody makes especially an allegation in court against you that you know it's not true. It's hell. And if it can happen to you, it can happen to anybody.
Great to see you, professor.
DERSHOWITZ: Thank you so much.
KELLY: We'll continue to follow it. Also tonight, how a simple remark from President George W. Bush turned into a powerful lesson from one of the country's top political journalists.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: I had to learn to love my boy for who he was, rather than what I wanted him to be. So says senior political columnist for National Journal and The Atlantic, Ron Fournier in a beautiful, tear jerker of a new book "Love That Boy."
What two presidents, eight road trips and my son taught me about a parent's expectations. Ron, thank you so much for being here.
RON FOURNIER, NATIONAL JOURNAL POLITICAL COLUMNIST: Thank you for having me.
KELLY: This is about your son and your journey in getting the know him. He has Asperger's.
FOURNIER: Yes.
KELLY: And your wife after he was diagnosed at age 12 said, you're taking him on a road trip, you need to bond.
FOURNIER: Literally on a way to the doctor's office, she said you spent so much time away from the family what are you going to do with this kid, use this job that kept you away from the family and get out in the country with your son, bond with him, get him out there doing things that we thought were uncomfortable for him. But we learned in the doctor's office were actually unnatural.
Things like shaking hands or looking people in the eye and modulating his voice. And off he went. She called them road trips. I called them guilt trips.
KELLY: You're very hard on yourself in the book. You talked about how your job is an ego inflating career that I often put ahead of my wife and my kids. And you say "the original sin of parenting is the baggage we drag into it." What do you mean by that?
FOURNIER: Well, look, we all love our kids very much and we all have dreams and expectations for them. There's nothing wrong with that. But the problem is we have to be careful that we're not imposing our expectations on our kids and that actually becoming a prison for them.
And, you know, sometimes when we're trying to shape our kids we can be misshaping them and that certainly what I was doing with Tyler. I thought the only way I can connect with my son is if he loves sports the way I did, the way my dad did with me. Well, my boy doesn't like sports. It took me a while to figure out that, you know, I have to bend to him not him bending to me.
KELLY: When you go through and we're going to do two things here because we're going to finish in 30 seconds and we're going to continue it during the break and post it on the Facebook.
But you talk about just the soul crushing moments where you had these expectations of him and then you realized that they said the worst things about yourself which forced you to grow and have a different attitude towards him.
FOURNIER: Yes. There's like a time when we were waiting to have a picture taken with Barack Obama and just before we're walking up, Tyler is practicing, "hello, Mr. President, hello, Mr. President.
KELLY: I apologize, I'm going to stand you by.
FOURNIER: I'm sorry.
KELLY: And we're going to continue this after the break. Stand by.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Well, there isn't a dry eye in the house here because we just finished up with Ron. Facebook.com/thekellyfile. "Love that Boy," folks. "Love that Boy." Buy it now. Amazon.com.
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