This is a rush transcript from "The Five," October 13, 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, Jesse Watters, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld, it's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."
The CDC today said its reviewing procedures for controlling the spread of Ebola, after a nurse contracted the virus while treating the first Ebola patient in America, as concerns spread, political blame is also spreading, a series of new ads of blaming Republicans for the outbreak.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(UNKNOWN): The CDC says its discretionary funding has been cut by $585 million since 2010.
(UNKNOWN): Cut less government, cuts.
(UNKNOWN): Cuts.
(UNKNOWN): The attack.
ANTHONY FAUCI, RESEARCHER: Our budget has been slabs since to 2003, responding to an emerging infectious disease threat, this is particularly damaging.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GUILFOYLE: And on the other side, some Republicans unhappy with how the government is handling the crisis. We begin with Dana Perino, Dana, how are you today?
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Thank you so much, I'm glad to be here. OK, so the ad, to me it's obviously is one of desperation, the Democrats waste no time, right to figure a way to help themselves Politically, Bob over here, loves the ad and I think, is it not typical? to love an ad like this right before the midterms, which actually, that is -- one it's a -- provably false. And two, it totally it takes -- tries to take the heat of the congressional Democrats like Harry Reid. If they were so concerned about Republican budget cut, which again, that is provably false, but if they were so concerned, why didn't they say six months ago to say something.
The Ebola threat is not new, and the president was on the defensive in August, when Dr. Frieden of the CDC finally went to Liberia. He came back with firsthand experience, since that we've got to do something, health care workers across the world at the U.N. and its World Health Organization doctors, without borders, that the United States has been very slow to act. The United States also, they put the western worlds in that category but to me that they may be United States because we have to be in the lead, we're now the global leader.
But this to me is -- the Democrats are mistaken something. This Mother Nature is in charge, here. And this Mother Nature's world and we are living in it, and we have to try to manage it, we have to try to trust the CDC. Dr. Frieden, as I think been doing a fairly good job as trying to keep people informed up until today. I don't know whether he who is just running in ragged or what? His comments today led to an NBC headline that, we have to rethink our Ebola infection control.
Just last week, they told us that we were -- not to worry about anything, and I want to trust the CDC, because I've like I said, I don't think that we have a choice. We've got a lot of theory, a lot of practices -- I got to participate in a global pandemic exercise.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Whoa.
GUILFOYLE: Yeah, I did, it was very fun.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Was it Pilates?
PERINO: It was amazing -- in 2007 and it was fascinating to see how does it happen, how does it start to spread, how -- and what do you do to try to keep everybody calm and keep them informed. I think the CDC is playing a little bit of catch up and I hope that they are able to use something sooner. We assure people that got it under control.
GUILFOYLE: (inaudible) Greg, what -- you got comment, I see you nodding your head a little bit in disagree.
GUTFELD: Well, before -- let's be clear here, Mother Nature, a bit sexist.
PERINO: OK. You know Mother Nature?
GUTFELD: Yeah, (inaudible) is we are now -- we're now living in an age of pestilence and roving a hoards. I mean, it's amazing that President Obama has brought the middle ages to the 21st century, it's incredible. But I have to say that -- this is ideology as a sport, it's not just -- the Democrats did this with hurricane Katrina, remember that somehow Bush killed all those people, but at the lefties blame, Rick Perry and the sequester. The right also blames Obama for spreading Ebola. We have somebody on this very network who said that -- he's name rhymes with Pablo, were right? Keith Ablow.
(LAUGHTER)
Anyway, so this is -- there was it.
GUILFOYLE: And in fact his name.
GUTFELD: Anyway, so this is -- there was it's the different sides -- different sides of the same coin, we are both guilty of this and we should probably avoid blaming people for tragedy. However.
PERINO: Quite were welcome here.
GUTFELD: However, to left is better at it because they have had more practice with Katrina and also any disaster happens to be our fault because you link it to global warming. So if you're -- if you are global warming skeptic, it's your fault for every storm. Terrorism, 9/11, ISIS is also our fault because of our Middle East policies.
So there's always -- the left always has a tendency to blame people for things that often out of control and that's wrong. But blaming budget cuts is absurd and it's disrespectful, it's disrespectful to the taxpayers who have to handle over billions of dollars to the NIH, who then see a tiny percentage of that money going to building facilities, when it goes condos, what else? It's not about funding, it's about being responsible -- the responsible use of the funds.
GUILFOYLE: Alright. I'm gonna get to Jesse, and then Bob will talk about -- begins Bob about the midterms.
JESSE WATTER, GUEST CO-HOST: I mean, this really is cut right out of the Democrat playbook. Whenever there's a problem the federal government, the Republicans are racist and the Democrats need more money and they need it right away, and I'm not surprise.
PERINO: And then they would spend it wisely.
WATTERS: And they're gonna spend it wisely this time and I'm not surprise the Republicans will politicizing death. I remember your friend Allan (ph) Grace and on the floor the U.S. House, couple of years ago and said, "Republicans, want you to die." But let's look at what they actually said, they said there's been cuts, OK. The NIH, under President Obama spent $1.5 million on studying obese lesbians, obese lesbians, and now all of a sudden they don't have enough money for Ebola. I think they got $3 billion to fight these things like Ebola and he said if using it for that purpose, they spent I think, 6 percent on that and the rest of it was spent on urban gardening, and bike paths and neutering pets. So I don't believe anything when they say the CDC budget's from cuts actually up 35 percent over the last 10 years.
GUILFOYLE: Alright, Bob, so respond to Jesse and not so comment.
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: You know I -- I just quickly responded, I find -- I find the fact that the Republicans are jumping in saying the government wasn't prepared to this. The same people who said that the government should be much smaller, instead the only worry about the defense sense, so just -- you know, whatever we will follow get to a defend and say, "Why a general (ph) better government response to this", is the same as trying to take government apart.
So I -- I don't -- I don't take much into it. I do agree with this, if I were the Democrats, I probably would not play with this issue. But let's face it, this stage of the game -- they need something in the form of a Hail Mary pass, this year each of this -- each state's responsible for their own health care. And the only time the CDC is supposed to get at this, is if it's a foreign invasion which is this. But Texas is responsible for the Texas, and obviously Rick Perry and his Texas Health Club, board has not a very good job.
WATTERS: Thought you're running Rick Perry for this really well.
BECKEL: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: You got that talking point for John Walsh.
WATTERS: Right, and did you want to play politics, so that we can play politics with it. Obama basically had this in front of him, the in-Bush and the Clinton administrations, they both had a bio terror adviser under each presidency, Obama got rid of it. And in 2010, because the ACLU pressured him, he got rid of regulations saying that they could quarantine guys on flights and could report their status to the CDC. He got rid of that, actual Republican regulation.
BECKEL: I'm glad to see you're now against the cutting jobs in the government and in the regulations, you think the regulation is too -- the regulations bad too.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: I think Bob, they spent -- a billion dollars on the CDC funds, they took a billion dollars from that to spend on the HealtCare.gov Web site it.
WATTERS: Wow of it.
PERINO: A billion dollars of it. So I think, it is in the fact a government -- they always will say more government, more government, and then when you look at the prioritization that they put the highest premium on, they would screw up and then they say it was because of cuts. This happens across the board, and then you could look at little things and say, "Why do they have the street lamps study, at the CDC, at the Centers for Disease Control, why would you have a street lamp study?
WATTERS: Why do the.
BECKEL: Why do the Republicans -- I was just gave a suggestions (ph) why do Republicans think that in government ought to be more involved in this when they're so much against government involvement?
GUTFELD: Because this is -- because believe it or not, we actually do care, we actually do care, because this is A, our money and we hate on going to things like, slender which helps Obama's chronies, well in fact, maybe, that could have gone to a vaccine too. I'm the using the same argument that the Democrats use like, the money could have gone there instead of there.
PERINO: Right, Meanwhile.
GUTFELD: But the fact is -- I'm a guy whose money goes to the government and I would like to see it actually go to something that's worthwhile.
GUILFOYLE: Hold on to that -- I would bring you in there but, I wanna get a play a little bit of sound here, this is from USA Today, Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page in a time about election, midterm election, Obama and Ebola. Take a look at it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN PAGE, USA TODAY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Both these stories, the Ebola virus and the threats from ISIS are feeding into a sense that a lot of Americans have that, the world is not only a dangerous place, but that the government is not competent to handle them. I think that's a very serious thing for President Obama in the sense that there's a mystery (ph) he's not confident to protect the American people that is the most fundamental job of the U.S. president. I think it's a big factor in the midterm elections.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: I mean this is the same government and saying, "Don't worry rules, we got this Ebola training under control." They couldn't protect the White House from a knife wielding man running in, they couldn't protect the CIA compound in Benghazi, I mean they wastes a billions of dollars on Web site that doesn't work, they let gums walked all over in Mexico. So no one trust this is government, especially as compounded by the fact that the president, whenever there is a screw up, uses incompetence as a defense. And he says, "We're strong" yeah, you know what? 8 percent of the country distrusts this federal government.
BECKEL: Yeah.
WATTERS: And those people probably working in the administration and it's - - it's the reason why.
GUILFOYLE: And they use the IRS as a political source about that to the last, Dana.
PERINO: I think -- they look today at the Gallup poll that came out that looked at the top five issues that people are considering when they're heading into the midterms. In the top five, for the first time in a long time, Republicans lead in terms -- in the public opinion as to who would do a better job. The first thing is the economy and the second thing is the way government works. So I don't think the people gonna go to polls to vote on Ebola in particular, but they might a factor the response of Ebola into their thinking as to who would do a better job of governing and does the president need some sort of a checks and balance system like divided government, and will they -- that lead them, the few independents that are left to make the decisions to vote for Republicans.
I also just want to mention, and I don't have a picture on the side, but I'll try -- I'll post it on my Facebook page.
GUTFELD: Who?
PERINO: I heard from -- do you remember last year I did that fund-raiser for the African Dream Academy.
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: It's in Liberia, it's run by Rev. Samuel Anders. And they -- so they're in Liberia, they've sent me this picture, they've got everybody together, the school shut down by order of the government. They are trying to do everything that they can to a faith based organization with donations from the United States, to try to keep their people safe in the middle of this epidemic, and the crisis where the people are dying every day. And I understand in America, it's serious, but I -- I want to put up this picture because I want people want to realize that these are live on the line that they are -- that is happening as we speak and they don't have anything that we have. They don't have a million dollar treatment, they don't have electricity, they hardly have any way to feed themselves and those countries are absolutely disintegrating and Liberia in particular, and I believe that the United States has a particular obligation to continue to help Liberia.
GUILFOYLE: Now Greg.
GUTFELD: I think to -- the Jesse's point. There's -- the problem here is the perception that if America worked hard the president is behind the steering wheel, texting instead of keeping his eye on the road. If you look right now John Kerry on Thursday said, "Like as you'll know it would end if we ignore climate change." He didn't say ISIS or Ebola, he said climate change. Even as the studies are showing that they've exaggerated the threat. We have a president today, a president tweeting on today on climate change, also tweeting on minimum wage today, so this really isn't the priorities of an administration, it's a priority set by a teacher's lounge of grad school activists.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: No, but it's true, the Obama -- this tried -- the things that they care about, are things that belong in an elitist institution, is not what America is worried about.
GUILFOYLE: Exact same proof today.
BECKEL: The thing -- is it is -- there is just a difference here.
GUTFELD: I get it.
BECKEL: I mean, we.
GUTFELD: No, I agree.
BECKEL: I have to believe -- I have to believe that climate change is the single biggest threat to this country. You don't agree to that, but to Jesse's point -- a Jesse's points, there were about 100 of them, any get all of them. But.
(CORSSTALK)
GUILFOYLE: Well prepared.
BECKEL: I'll try to be well prepared so I can address you all.
PERINO: OK, let's get Bob.
BECKEL: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
BECKEL: Just let me say one thing about the elections. To the extent Susan Page stumbled on one thing, this probably act it --that is the -- the people expect the government to protect them and so every time you have a case like this, it does -- according to the administration, let's also keep in mind, we have got three cases in the United States, that's it, and we got 318 million people. I mean, we all ought to just get this off our top story line and get it where it belongs which is in its perspective.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: I want to say that they were able to pull-up with that picture from the African Dream Academy. I just want to show you that -- let me just put faces to the story here, I think that they have the picture of African Dream Academy, is it going to have it, there they are. You have -- go on our Web site, they actually try to keep it pretty up to date and they'll give you some real time information on the ground.
GUILFOYLE: Alright, there you go, very good discussion you can all say this is fantastic. Next is on The Five. The White House keeps saying ground troops aren't going to be necessary in the battle against to destroy ISIS, but the U.S. military or they`re saying the otherwise. You're gonna hear it from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff coming up. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: With ISIS advancing more than two months after our bombing campaign began in Iraq, there are a lot of concerns, over whether an air campaign alone is enough. Will grounds troops need to be send then, there's conflicting messages from Washington, the president national security adviser, let's know.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUSAN RICE, UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: There has been no recommendation.
(UNKNOWN): No official ask.
RICE: Military commanders either on the ground or here in Washington that the United States put in any ground combat forces into Iraq. President has been very plain, that this is not a campaign that requires or even would benefit from American ground troops in combat again.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says likely, yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(UNKNOWN): Would we be more effective against ISIS if we had U.S. troops on the ground spotting targets, if we have those grounds?
MARTIN DEMSEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Could be at -- there will be circumstances when I answer that question were right --- will likely be yes. Most of us all likely be the decisive battle in the ground campaign at some point in the future. My instinct at this point is that, that will require a different kind of advising and assisting because of it complexity of that fight.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: NBC's Richard Engel said the administration -- inability to get on the same page as all my hampering the effort.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ENGEL, CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: There are enormous contradictions in the U.S. strategy that are becoming more apparent every day. Let's start with Iraq. The Iraqi army is in no better shape now than it was when it collapsed. In Syria, there are no allies on the ground, there are some Kurdish malicious (ph) but we're not fully backing them.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: Alright, can me let start you. So why not give yourself, if you're the White House, give yourself a little wiggle room for some flexibility, that is the -- if it does occur to them, to be adviser, that they all come together and say, "we should maybe do more Mr. President." Why wouldn't they give themselves that wiggle room.
GUILFOYLE: Because they're uncoachable. They know better than anyone else, they seem to have an inability to not be able learn from their mistakes, so they repeat the same thing over and over again. And then we're in a position where we play catch up. Where we should have done this to begin was, we wouldn't be in this position. Obviously the strategy is not going well, they wouldn't be taking Kobani. It wouldn't have this promise in mosul (ph) we wouldn't be (inaudible) in the Baghdad airport. This isn't working right? Because we're not doing it in the best way that we could. We should be making more specific targets, increasing the air strikes, and the only way you do that, it's like trying to tie your shoe with one hand. You need the other hand to help out, to say, "quilt (ph) the loop right here." That's what it means when you say put some intelligence troops on the ground to tell us exactly where we need to be hitting so we can actually hit some more of these militants and not just bomb the ground and say, " OK. We're slowing them down because they had to wait for the light before they made a left into Baghdad."
PERINO: Should Bob on that, last week in David Ignatius column. He courted Steve Hadley, he was his national security adviser in the second term for President Bush. He said, "We need to be patience here, they're putting us still in the oven and has not enough time to cook", but as you see other cites fall, like Kobani and then you see the pressure on the Turkish border and additional pressures, and hits in the mobile area also possibly in Baghdad. So that -- do you still think the pudding is the right mix that we have got in the oven?
BECKEL: Well, I don't know, I don't know exactly in (inaudible) was Kimberly.
GUILFOYLE: At the top.
BECKEL: What we did was, as our want here, we edited out to go some important thing that Mr. General Dempsey said which was, "We do not need troops there at this point." Which was the military is said, and you -- now you should be head of the Joint Chiefs in order to happen. But right now the military is saying we do not.
GUILFOYLE: Do they doing better? BECKEL: Well, then you say the military doesn't know what they were doing.
GUILFOYLE: I didn't say that the military.
BECKEL: Well, Well.
GUILFOYLE: Don't put words in my mouth, I didn't say that, I said that the strategy is lacking in the specific ways, and that was I point it out. I love our military.
BECKEL: Can I just have a chance here.
GUILFOYLE: You can.
BECKEL: What I said was what General Dempsey said which is we do not now.
GUILFOYLE: He knows the truth.
BECKEL: OK. Well, he says, "If we don't need it." So I take his word. Kobani, by the way, they've been pushed back for Kobani by about 10 kilometers. And the other thing is the Baghdad airport, this is the most ridiculous thing, I mean, there was a group of them that came within eight miles of the Baghdad airport. I was that.
(CROSSTALK)
GUILFOYLE: He's not reading this stuff or seeing this, because Bob, if you did you would know that these are inaccurate statements, and according to a guy name Bob Beckel, just a couple of weeks ago, this was joke, it will be over this.
BECKEL: Now listen.
GUILFOYLE: And look, we're still talking about it.
BECKEL: I don't consider it a joke. Now listen, I know that they have got the forces gathering at the Delaware, New Jersey border and you know, you have to be worried about that.
PERINO: Let me -- I only have two minute clock. When can I get other two in here. Greg, let me ask you, if they decide -- if they were to authorize, they need to authorize some sort of special elite forces to go in after Baghdadi, that guy who runs ISIS, like we did for Osama bin Laden, are those are kind of boots on the ground that everybody could accept. Will that gonna fall into the category?
GUTFEL: I think they're all -- well, they're all really are, little time (ph). They're there, there and.
PERINO: Boots on the ground? I mean -- why they box themselves in?
GUILFOYLE: It is.
GUTFELD: The only strategy is to win, then you have to work backward from that, and basically that's going to -- I believe it's gonna mean invading troops on the ground, you drive them into a certain area, and then you nuke the hell out of them. If you want to lose, you can work back, back from that and you will find the current strategy, which is equification and confusion and fear. And -- but if you don't want to win, then you should leave. Because the worst -- the only way you can win is if you want to win, my fear is that we have -- the administration has what I call American derangement syndrome. All of our White House's actions are derived by our sins as a country, which is why and they misses big picture and they have the fear of going into these countries and doing the business that needs to be done. They suffer from an intolerance phobia, with they fear that they're gonna look mean and insensitive, if they actually do the right things. So in fact what they're doing is aireoke, which is air strike karaoke. An then maybe -- maybe it will be better, but they -- I think the fact is you have to go in there and kill them all.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: You cannot say anything here Bob, you don't have 30 seconds left. Jesse, I want to add, you could talk about anything that you want.
WATTERS: Ok. Great.
PERINO: How about that? But.
WATTERS: There are things I thinks going wrong with the strategy here. One, these modern rebels were supposedly our allies in Syria, over the weekend they basically said, "We quit, we don't want to have an alliance you know, all you guys are doing is just helping Assad. This Iraqi military that we poured all these billions of that training and money, they're basically cutting and running, and they leaving humvees (ph) for ISIS to take, it's ridiculous.
PERINOI: So you'll have to tell.
WATTERS: And I remember Obama said that Maliki leaving, that was gonna solve everything. Than they were going to stand up the Iraqi army and then third, these air strikes, this was supposed to degrade and destroy and now they're outside of Baghdad and it takes an NBC news guy to say Obama's strategy is failing.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: Just outside of Baghdad, really?
WATTERS: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: You all have no idea, when I have no idea, there are people on the ground, they are targeting some place -- why are we suggesting that the White House is holding back the air force from dropping bombs? I don't think so.
WATTERS: So you're saying right now we're being just as aggressive as we should be? You don't think we could be dropping more bombs, flying more sorts (ph), targeting more people.
BECKEL: Why don't you tell the air force that, that means that they doing it wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: General including Panetta and all these former guys are saying Obama is doing it wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: Everybody look at my unicorn and take a deep breath. Unicorn, deep breath.
PERINO: Thank you. Ahead, just when you think there's no one left to defend President Obama in what he's knight in shining armor, Paul with the completely straight faces of Obama, that most consequential president ever.
Had this idea that Obama was going to bring in a transformation of America, I thought was being naive, but my God, we got healthcare reform. We got a significant financial reform. We are getting the environmental action. It's not everything you would have wanted, but it's more than anyone else has done for decades.
I think if my ranking of consequential presidents in modern history would probably be FDR, LBJ, Obama and then Reagan, Clinton. He's an incredibly gifted politician.
But in fact, Bill Clinton was not a consequential president. And Obama, although not the natural politician, is a consequential president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Kind of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the studio. So he called him a consequential president. And captain crazy is right. Obama is indeed the most successful leftist ever at implementing progressive ideals, enabling a country to experience the consequences of unbridled government expansion and identity politics in its purest form.
He placed a sixth of the economy in government hands. He's shifted millions of Americans into dependence mode, tethering achievers to create an illusion of equality, further atrophying the muscles of initiative. He recast priorities from global threats to American injustice, a Trojan horse for punishing an evil sexist, racist country.
And everything he wanted, he got. A domestically divided, globally compromised, humbled wreck of a ship. The result, every single Democratic candidate who might lose in November are running from the president like he's the crazy drunk waving a dead cat on the subway.
Funny: when a liberal achieves his objectives, his supporters flee, because his handiwork is so horrifying.
So, yes, when you consider Mr. Obama's achievements, they could be described as staggering, much like how our country is now.
So I think Krugman is right, Jesse, that Obama is a consequential president and he got what he wanted.
WATTERS: I wouldn't agree with you on that. I mean, I think even liberals would agree that he hasn't gone as far as they'd like him to. I mean, listen, let's just go down the list here. He says environmental legacy. He oversaw the BP oil spill. Gas prices are at record highs. The guy put solar panels on the White House maybe. He sunk a half a billion dollars in Solyndra. I don't think that's a great environmental legacy.
Financial reform. That's part of the president's big legacy? I mean, we still have too big to fail. Bush was the one that bailed out the banks. No one went to prison, any of these guys on Wall Street, and the stock market is doing great, but Main Street really hasn't felt it.
And then lastly, Obama care, is he serious? This guy lied to the American people to you could keep your doctor, hospital, and healthcare plan and then he took it away. That was rough (ph). I mean, the trillion dollars that was added to the deficit. I cannot believe this guy even put him ahead of Reagan.
GUTFELD: My point was, is like even though it -- he got it passed. I mean, he got a social program passed, Dana. That's -- you know, that's a big deal for a left winger, to get more government into your life.
PERINO: It also is prioritization. What the country needed at the time was more jobs. They decided to do, instead of doing a big program of tax reform, which I think the president could have gotten done in those first two years with the Democratically-elected Congress. He chose healthcare reform instead.
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: And they've spent six years trying to mop it up.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: But there are people like Krugman. They really do believe that that is the most consequential thing, because they take a much longer view.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: They believe that, in the long run, it is going to work in America's favor.
GUTFELD: Yes. I believe, Kimberly, he's the greatest progressive president ever, because he was able to pull off Obamacare.
GUILFOYLE: Well, I think he is the most consequentially dangerous president that we've ever had in terms of the havoc that he has wreaked in this country in health care. I don't think he's been helpful, like you pointed out, with respect to the economy.
There were a lot of promises made, but pretty much he's held true to his political ideology, the things that he wanted to help accomplish. So again, those weren't even done well. If he cared that much about the healthcare system in this country, he would have vetted it properly. It would have been ready to go, instead of pushing it forward because it was politically expedient.
As for Mr. Krugman, I think he just lacks credibility. When you read that article, you see the things that he's pointed out. There's so many holes in it. It seems to me that he's quite partisan, and that he's simply trying to help out the president and reshape perception into some kind of twisted reality to help him out for the midterm elections.
GUTFELD: Bob, here's my theory on this. It's a differing philosophy. If you believe in America's unique greatness, then you think that Obama is a failure. But if you believe that America itself is behind all the other countries in progress, then he's a great leader.
BECKEL: First of all, a couple of things I'd like to clarify, is that just as the -- just as the insurance rates have gone down in the last three years, not up.
WATTERS: No, premiums...
BECKEL: Wait a second, I can't handle both of your questions at the same time. Can I just finish this out for a second?
Obamacare, if you sat in this room six or seven months ago and listened to everybody here except for me say, "This is going to be the biggest campaign issue. It's going to fall apart. It's death to the Democrats."
I don't know of a single race that's going to rise or fall on Obamacare. It is working, at least as well as it could be, but you don't see all these disasters that everybody predicted were going to happen. They have not happened. And, in fact, it is working.
GUTFELD: The context...
GUILFOYLE: You're wrong. You're wrong.
WATTERS: Tell that to someone that's lost their healthcare plan.
BECKEL: How many...
WATTERS: Tell that to someone that's lost their doctor and their hospital.
BECKEL: I've listened to that propaganda for so many months now. It is propaganda. It's not something like the night of the -- never mind, we won't go that far. But it sounds a little bit like a Hindler statement.
GUILFOYLE: You know what, Bob. That is just so inappropriate.
PERINO: Come on, Bob.
GUTFELD: Was Hindler a Nazi? I think he was.
All righty, then. You know, Krugman won a Nobel Prize.
BECKEL: Yes, he did.
PERINO: Busted.
GUTFELD: Yes, I know. But a Nobel Prize is unemployment insurance for a liberal. Because without it, Krugman would be speaking on the street, gibberish.
It's Columbus day in most parts of the country. Two big cities this year have added a different holiday to the calendar, for those who don't want to celebrate Columbus, coming up on "The Five."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATTERS; For most of America, the second Monday in October marks the day we celebrate Christopher Columbus's fateful journey to the Americas in 1492. Some cities, like Minneapolis and Seattle, however, have also opted to commemorate Indigenous People's Day in what some describe as a politically-correct nod to our country's Native American past.
In this special preview of "Watters' World," I took to the streets to get the people's take on this hotly-debated holiday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WATTERS: Do you know what Columbus did?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He discovered something. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Finding the Hudson River.
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conquering America, I think.
(SFX: BUZZER)
WATTERS: What was Christopher Columbus famous for?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For discovering America.
WATTERS: Why do you put "discovering" in quotation?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because there were already people living here.
WATTERS: Now, Christopher Columbus, what country was he from?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was he from England?
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: France?
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: England.
(SFZ: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he from Britain?
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Colombia.
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was Hispanic.
(SFX: BUZZER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get me out of here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATTERS: So you can see the rest of that tonight on "The Factor." Wait till you hear what -- I asked what year Christopher Columbus discovered America. There's some good answers there, so Christopher Columbus, it's a good guy or a bad guy? What is it?
BECKEL: Well, I mean, I think it's a -- he had guts to get on three boats and just go straight out. What do you think, you don't know if you're going to hit something. But just keep in mind, Christopher Columbus did not discover America. The Vikings did. That's irrefutably proved now.
But we celebrate it's Columbus. That's fine. But the indigenous -- the truth is, this land belonged to Native Americans. And we treated them terribly. We put them in reservations. We destroyed a lot of them, because we brought diseases here. The fact is this story has never been told very well. We always pass over it. But the fact is that Europeans, white Europeans, almost completely destroyed indigenous species.
WATTERS: You're white European, right?
BECKEL: Yes.
WATTERS: OK. Just wanted to check on that. And you take Christopher Columbus Day off, usually?
BECKEL: No.
PERINO: We're here. We're working. We're here right now.
BECKEL: I wouldn't celebrate Columbus Day. I'd rather celebrate your birthday. I mean, what is -- what is the big deal? I give the guy credit for doing what he did. But...
GUILFOYLE: I know.
WATTERS: Kimberly, please educate Bob. Isn't it important to commemorate your founding traditions and the history of the country, even if it is sometimes -- no, even if it is sometimes evil, you know, evil, some would say, or that, obviously, the Indians were mistreated by some people.
But what's wrong with celebrating Christopher Columbus...
GUILFOYLE: But everything is Christopher Columbus's fault, who died as a pauper and never even was able to profit off of what he discovered. He made four trips to this country. This is a guy who was doing his job. Now he's become the made four trips to this country, and he was doing his job. Now he's become the devil?
PERINO: Right, right.
GUILFOYLE: Like grow up. Read history. Understand what's going on before you spout off and take something away on purpose. We've become reckless with this political correctness.
BECKEL: Who was it who said that Christopher Columbus was responsible for doing that to the Indians? Who was it?
GUILFOYLE: You just said it.
BECKEL: I did not. I certainly did not.
GUILFOYLE: You just said...
BECKEL: No, I did not say that.
GUILFOYLE: This is the causal link that you tied together, Bob. It came out of your mouth.
BECKEL: Wait a minute. Wait.
WATTERS: Bob, you're going to have a lot of Italian-Americans very angry with you.
BECKEL: That's fine.
WATTERS: Yes, yes.
BECKEL: Talk about history. I think that's a good thing. We should maybe go back to do a graduate course (ph).
WATTERS: Let me get to you. The indigenous people. I mean, really? Really?
GUTFELD: The Columbus -- the Columbus Day debate is really a proxy battle against America. We all know -- we all know it's true, Bob.
PERINO: It's true.
GUTFELD: We all know that Columbus was no saint. People back then were brutal. They were brutal. We were not dealing with civilized people the way we are now.
But this is about shaving -- shaming, and shaving -- it's about shaming a country, which now -- which we now count as employment for academics and students. The ideology of victimhood keeps you a victim as you victimize others. So you may be able to vanquish Columbus Day and change it to something else. But that is symbolic, and that is not practical achievement.
Practical achievement actually would help Native Americans today, not make activists feel good because they were able to, you know, say, "Hey, we got rid of a holiday." Yippy-doo. I really don't care. That's the thing...
WATTERS: Nobody cares.
GUTFELD: Nobody cares. They just want the stay off.
Yes, but the thing is the left chooses battles because it's what they are trained to do. It's a job to be a pest and to make symbolic gestures. That's all this is.
WATTERS: Dana, clash of civilizations. There's winners and losers.
PERINO: OK. So Bruce Harrell is a Seattle council member who was one of the people who sponsored this resolution in Seattle. And he said it's because he believes the city won't be successful in his social programs and outreach until we fully recognize the evils of our past.
In my opinion, I think that the evils of our present are what we should be more concerned about. And that includes the United States as a global leader in the world has ignored a lot of suffering, poverty around the world, desperate people, innocent people by worry -- trying to worry about things here at home. And ignoring things like Ebola that become a problem here, ISIS that become a problem here. Letting Putin run roughshod over Ukraine. I actually think it's the evils of our present we should be much more worried about.
BECKEL: You're not suggesting -- you don't disagree with the fact that Native Americans were treated terribly.
WATTERS: We want to celebrate Christopher Columbus and the Native Americans on the same day, but let's just keep calling it Columbus Day.
BECKEL: If I were you, I'd be careful how you say that.
WATTERS: What do you mean?
BECKEL: That was very angry on your part.
WATTERS: OK. We got to go, Bob. I don't know what you're saying.
Still to come, a lot of people were appalled by Democrat Wendy Davis's wheelchair ad to attack her partially paralyzed opponent. Today, she defended herself and doubled down, alongside people in wheelchairs. Next on "The Five."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECKEL: Democratic Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis has outraged a lot of people with her new ad that uses her opponent's disability against him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tree fell on Greg Abbott. He sued and got millions. Since then he spent his career working against other victims.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECKEL: Davis isn't apologizing for the ad. She's sticking by it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WENDY DAVIS (D), TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Greg Abbott rightly got his justice. Why doesn't he believe that a rape survivor or a person with a disability or a victim paralyzed forever by a drug-addled surgeon should get justice, too? We need to call this what it is: hypocrisy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECKEL: She was surrounded by people in wheelchairs at the event, and it was held today.
Kimberly, what do you think?
GUILFOYLE: Gosh, I mean, just when you thought it couldn't get worse. It did. You know, I just think this is so insensitive and so grotesque. And this is somebody that just has ambition. She should change her name to ambition. Wendy Ambition. Because she doesn't seem to care much about what's going on here. She uses an ad like that. Then she puts herself using people with disabilities as props herself by having them stand behind her like that. I mean, it's just crazy.
BECKEL: Jesse, there's some people, actually, around Davis who I know who are pretty smart people. At least I used to think they were. Do you think that there may be something here that we're missing, that there's some distraction here?
GUILFOYLE: Some polling.
BECKEL: Yes.
WATTERS: I don't know. Whoever is responsible for the ad should be canned immediately. It kind of reminds me of the person that says something racist and then gets caught, and then says, "Wait, I have tons of black friends." You know, and then brings all the black friends around and insulate themselves. This was terrible. She's a very attractive candidate, attractive woman, giving a great speech, and it kind of skyrocketed her into the big leagues, and she has poor judgment. It kind of reminds me of someone.
BECKEL: Dana, part of the argument people in Texas have told me who are not associated with her campaign is it clearly is a "hail Mary" pass, and that that -- it looks desperate, sounds desperate, was perceived as desperate in the papers there, which is why she came back out to do this press conference. What do you think this press conference did for her?
PERINO: Not much, and I think that it showed the ad originally. I don't blame the staff. This ad was approved by Wendy Davis. "I'm Wendy Davis, and I approve this message." You have to own it.
And I'm tired of all these politicians being -- blaming campaign staffers or us, saying campaign staffers are responsible. No, it comes from the top. And the tone and the question of character happens there.
I also think that there is -- this is not just an isolated case. HughHuitt.com today writes about the Nevada attorney general race in which the Democrat, Ross Miller, attacks the Republican, Adam Laxalt, who is a Navy -- Adam Laxalt is a Republican, a Navy veteran. And Ross Miller, the Democrat, said, "Well, I don't really think your military service was serious. You were just a paper pusher."
OK, Elise Stefanik last week in New York, 21, she's a Republican young woman, attacked by her Democratic male opponent, by saying that she had never done manual labor. This is a lot of grasping at straws, but I think it does come down to judgment and character. The candidates are to blame, not the staff.
BECKEL: Greg, what do you think. We've got to be quick here.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: ... my share (ph).
GUTFELD: Here's the thing. What if she's right? It doesn't matter, because she comes off looking like an insane person, which actually, she might be. It doesn't matter if you're right, if you're not persuasively correct. She might have been able to point out the hypocrisy of her opponent, but she did it in an insane way that showed that she was grasping at straws. And she's desperate, and she looks terrible. This is what happens when you act crazy. The right should learn from this.
BECKEL: So the -- I dumped all of this on Friday. I will say this about the press conference today. She did get to clarify a little bit, got more publicity on it. The fact is that her opponent did get -- used trial lawyers to get a very big settlement. And he got a lot of trial lawyer money in his campaign. And he did make it, damn near impossible for other people to do the same thing he did. That is the height of hypocrisy.
GUTFELD: But it won't matter, because she screwed up the argument.
BECKEL: Well...
PERINO: That's how stupid it is. To do that ad on a Friday, leave it all weekend, and then do a press conference on Monday to clean it up. That's dumb.
BECKEL: But that's -- you do that. But also how stupid is it to get it direct from trial lawyers to get your money.
And I've got to go right now.
PERINO: I thought you loved trial lawyers.
BECKEL: All right. "One More Thing" is up next, because I can't get a segment in here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUILFOYLE: Hi, it's time now for "One More Thing." Greg, what do you got?
GUTFELD: It's time for...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Greg's Top Forty Music Corner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Yes. Van Hedgehog Zeppelin entered No. 1 on the hedgehog piano charts with this song, "Stairway to Free Bird." Let's check it out.
Look at that. Right now this is No. 1. This is his first album. I think he's going to go very far. He's a hedgehog. There's not enough hedgehogs in music these days.
GUILFOYLE: He has that as a pet? All right, Dana. That was really interesting.
PERINO: I'm going to save my other "One More Thing" for tomorrow. Because this is the thing. I'm a little under the weather, kind of a flu, kind of cold. I'm not really sure. So Kimberly and I are asking if we can get any cold remedies or like preventing a cold remedies or the flu. We don't know. We don't know what we have.
GUTFELD: That is the dumbest idea ever.
GUILFOYLE: No, it's not.
OK. So I'm up next. So I'm calling for transparency, besides cold remedies, because the Army will not release the results of its investigation regarding Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Now understand that he looks at, potentially, hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages. And on the other side, they're looking at it whether he is guilty of AWOL or desertion, very serious crimes, and we'd like to know the results of, yes. All right?
PERINO: Yes, we would.
BECKEL: You know, I follow these elections pretty carefully, and I had -- in my own charts, I had the Republicans up by seven seats in the Senate, which would give them control of the Senate. Six would. I now have that down to six. And I think in the House, there's going to be a surprise here that the Democrats will lose seats, but way below double digits.
GUILFOYLE: All right, Bob, we're going to see about that. We're going to bring back your "Bob's Psychic Corner" prediction thing.
OK. Jesse, hi.
WATTERS: Hi. Texas high school football, big matchup here. You've got Hebron High School, a little on-sides kick here. Trick play. See if you guys can pick this up.
PERINO: I'm sure I'll get it.
WATTERS: See what they did right there?
PERINO: No.
WATTERS: They snuck the 11th guy on the sideline. Couldn't even see him. See him on the left? Right there, along the side.
PERINO: Is that allowed?
WATTERS: Of course it's allowed. Recovers the kick. Great play. Way to go, Hebron.
GUILFOYLE: Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky, but I like it. Winning. That's it for us. "Special Report" is next. Hope you enjoyed the show.
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