President Trump signs an executive order to protect free speech on college campuses

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President Trump signs an executive order to protect free speech on college campuses

Holly Turner, David Burstein and David Grasso weigh in on President Trump’s decision to sign an executive order protecting free speech on college campuses.

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," March 21, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: All right, no free speech, no free cash.

You're looking live at the East Room, where the president of the United States is about to sign an executive order that he says will put brakes on federal grants on colleges accused of stifling free speech.

Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto.

And how is all of this going to work?

Let's go to Kevin Corke at the White House with the very latest -- Kevin.

KEVIN CORKE, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Always good to be with you, Neil.

Keep this in mind. The president has made this clear for some time. If you're getting federal dollars in your college or university, you better be offering free speech and fair speech, or else.

Let me take you back to 2017, for the people who sort of haven't been following this story for quite some time. The president going all the way back then made it clear that he was very disappointed in one school in particular, the University of California, Berkeley.

He said: "If U.C. Berkeley doesn't allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view, no federal funds?"

Well, it's a viewpoint, Neil, you will recall, he echoed once again a few weeks ago during an address to the Conservative Political Action Convention right here in Washington, D.C. In fact, there, he previewed today's executive order.

Now, all this, by the way, comes after the now infamous assault that occurred last month on the Cal Berkeley campus, when a Turning Point USA recruiter was viciously attacked.

I just want to share some of the highlights from the executive order the president is laying out today. He wants to promote free speech. Colleges could be denied certain federal research and education grants if they don't comply with federal standards.

Data transparency. He wants to require the Education Department to publish information on earnings, debt, default rates and loan repayment rates to colleges, creating sort of a scorecard, if you will.

And, lastly, risk-sharing. That would require the Education Department to submit policy recommendations about institutions sharing the financial risk of student loans.

Here's the president just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: Under the guise of speech codes and safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans like those here today.

It's great people. All of that changes starting right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORKE: Changes now.

Now, to hear White House officials tell it, Neil, this has real teeth, because it has a mechanism now to punish universities that don't offer free and total access to competing voices. You have seen on many college campuses, if you think a certain way, you're not allowed to speak, or they say, well, the security, it will cost too much. We can't have you come.

That all ends today. And that's the White House's aim here -- Neil, back to you.

CAVUTO: But how would the government enforce it? What litmus test would they use to enforce it?

CORKE: A couple of things. That's a great question.

The number one thing they're going to do here is, they will look at the metrics. They are going to actually try to look at what the schools are doing when speakers try to come. Are they shutting them out specifically?

And if they are, if there's a paper trail, and you could imagine, my friend, there will be a lot of people watching this carefully, they can run afoul of federal dollars, and we're talking about into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Neil. I don't think you want to mess with this if you're a college or university.

You want to make sure that you're informing your -- not only your institution, but in particular your security personnel, be careful, be fair, offer access, and, most importantly, and this is crucial, protect the people when they come to speak -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, on both sides of the fence.

Kevin Corke, thank you very, very much, my friend.

CORKE: You bet.

CAVUTO: So we're monitoring that in the East Room of the White House right now.

But there are a lot of people who are saying the president can be legally challenged on this with this executive order.

Let's get the read from Republican strategist Holly Turner. We got Democratic strategist David Burstein, and last, but not least, GenBiz spokesperson David Grasso.

Holly, for the president, can an executive order settle fairness on college campuses?

HOLLY TURNER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look, Neil, any time an entity is accepting federal dollars, they're going to be some strings attached.

And I think what the president's doing here is putting those schools on notice that, hey, we're not going to tolerate what you have done in the past, maybe made too many excuses for not letting other voices be heard on your campuses. I mean, it's a well-known fact that nine out of 10 liberal -- college professors are liberals.

So providing this other conservative voice, another point of view is important on campuses. So the different departments and agencies are going to put some enforcement mechanisms in place. We don't know what those look like yet. And there are some serious questions around that.

But, first of all, it's putting everybody on notice and we're having a good conversation about it, which is important, I think.

CAVUTO: You know, David Grasso, then the issue becomes how you implement something like and how you force that issue. How do you?

DAVID GRASSO, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think this is thought leadership. You know, it's going in the right direction.

And some of the some of the things that are buried in this executive order include a lot of student loan reforms, not only a scorecard on am I getting a good value for my education? What type of debt have I financed my education with?

Because people don't realize that all student debt isn't created equal. There's subsidized debt. There's unsubsidized debt, et cetera, et cetera.

CAVUTO: There's debt for the engineering student vs. the philosophy.

GRASSO: Exactly.

And what the administration is proposing -- and this is a far-reaching executive order -- is kind of looking at a scorecard and being like, hey, this school gets a B. Maybe you should consider an A school.

And to me, while a lot of this is hard to enforce, like free speech, I agree with you 100 percent. I think it's thought leadership and it's a step in the right direction. We have to take a stand. And I think this should be bipartisan and popular amongst all people.

Well, so far, it is not bipartisan.

CAVUTO: So, David Burstein, one of the things that has come up is, a lot of conservative speakers who are invited to go to these colleges, there are demonstrations against them. The colleges nixed it, they say, for the students' safety, but, again, it tilts the guest list for those to speak at these schools.

The president is trying to address that by -- with a mechanism that will make sure they're able to speak and the schools don't cancel them. But how do you do that?

DAVID BURSTEIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think that's a big part of the problem here, because, frankly, I don't think any -- well, I will say, for myself, I believe that students on college campuses, actually, there's a lot of research on the brain that actually shows it's really important for people have access to diverse viewpoints.

People can always choose not to go, right, so there's no way to force people to listen.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: So, when you see uprisings on the left against conservative speakers, is that an anomaly? Or do you just -- do you wince at that?

BURSTEIN: I am concerned about it across the spectrum, because there are also liberals who think that certain people are not liberal enough who are liberal who they don't want on their campuses.

CAVUTO: Are you describing the Democratic presidential race?

BURSTEIN: Well, exactly, right.

(LAUGHTER)

BURSTEIN: I mean, and you had this incident at Yale where -- and you have had a number of these where professors are extremely liberal have run afoul of students and their -- and their personal views.

So I do think there's a real problem here, because the enforcement is the question. It's the same question of how do you enforce these questions about what speech should be allowed online or not that we have been talking about.

You can't just sort of say, we're going to do this, because it really gets into really fundamental philosophical questions.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Then it gets into something that conservatives typically wince at, and that is the government coming in to rectify the situation.

And I'm wondering, as the president signs this executive order to enforce this, whether that will be the tricky part.

TURNER: Well, but, again, they're getting billions and billions of dollars of my money that I worked really hard to earn. And I want to make sure that my money's being spent in a way that promotes lots of different views.

So the president is representing the base of America who's paying taxes, working hard. They don't want their tax dollars going to support far-left, left viewpoints all the time. We need some diversity. We will see what the enforcement mechanism...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: But how do you enforce diversity in college?

I think it's fair to say that -- this is not disparage anyone -- that college campuses are liberal bases, right?

GRASSO: Yes. Sure.

CAVUTO: So where do you take the line between a professor, a series of professors who lean to the left, maybe a lot, and then trying to rectify that by hiring more conservatives?

GRASSO: It's a really tough thing, it's a really tough case to sell.

And in a lot of cases too, you have to look at it's not only instruction. There's also research -- $40 billion a year goes into research. And there's ways -- there are tangible ways to make research more bipartisan. I 100 percent agree with that.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: The only thing I think they can do is here is just to let conservative speakers, or if there's going to be a conservative protest, allow it to go without people getting unhinged, and I guess the occasions on the left that happens to allow that to happen, so there could be a free debate at these schools.

GRASSO: There are conservative campuses in America.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: You're absolutely right.

GRASSO: So, this has to cut both ways. It has to be a free and open forum.

CAVUTO: Just not a hostile environment.

BURSTEIN: At the end of the day, it's about accountability.

CAVUTO: You don't want someone clocking you for your views.

GRASSO: Of course not.

BURSTEIN: But, if you get into, it really is -- this is what conservatives are supposed to be against, getting into this level of specificity about regulating what people can and can't do.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: You notice this whole thing lacks specificity, which I'm wondering -- it begs the point.

BURSTEIN: Right.

So, if the president wants to make a statement about it to his base, which seems like -- which is mainly what executive orders do -- they have said the details on this are going to be forthcoming.

But how do you even just define conservative? How do -- from a legal perspective, how would you define what makes something conservative vs. liberal, right?

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Not what you see on most colleges?

(CROSSTALK)

BURSTEIN: Right, but that's not a legal definition that could actually hold up.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: They're not -- but conservative is not even -- doesn't need to be defined here. It's just, are you refusing to allow someone to come and speak on your campus, when there's a group of students that wants them to come?

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: They settle that, and kids on both sides can freely exercise their point of view, without being clocked or anything else, left or right?

(CROSSTALK)

GRASSO: Not seeing what we saw at Berkeley recently. I mean, it's very straightforward. We can kind of tell when something's going on amiss.

CAVUTO: Right. And those are anomalies, I like to point out, but still maybe a step in that direction.

Guys, I want to thank you all very, very much.

Real quick peek at the corner of Wall and Broad here. There is a growing optimism right now that this market, despite all the tweets and the disruptions and everything else along the way, continues to raise higher, on optimism about technology, optimism about Apple, and optimism about the economy moving forward.

No one is worried about any rate hikes this year. Everyone is saying it's economic nirvana. And they're drunk with power. That's what's going on there.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, now the FBI is involved, after two deadly crashes of these Boeing 737 MAX jetliners in just the past six months or so.

The FBI is now investigating not what happened with the crashes, but how these planes got approved by the United States government, in other words, how the FAA wrote off on it and how it passed all the government checks to become a vibrant choice for so many who are now at the point of looking at thousands of orders worldwide over the next few years.

Now, that could be in doubt, this as Southwest pilots are saying they need a lot of extra training on these planes , particularly after the latest proposed software update, and so many are unaccustomed with the planes in the first place.

Former acting FAA Administrator Barry Valentine.

Barry, what was your reaction when you heard the FAA -- or the FBI was looking into how these got readily approved?

BARRY VALENTINE, FORMER ACTING FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATOR: Well, the secretary of transportation asked the inspector general of the Department of Transportation to do an audit of the process by which this airplane was certified.

That's a very complex technical exercise. And the Department of Transportation has fairly limited resources within the Office of the Inspector General, so it doesn't surprise me that they may have asked the FBI to provide support for them in going through this process.

Also, it's one that I think everybody is interested in seeing addressed in a timely fashion, so the more resources, the better for being able to complete the full audit process.

CAVUTO: Do you think that this particular model was rushed through or that authorities trusted Boeing?

I mean, it has and still really has an impeccable safety record, and then maybe just by default said, all right, well, Boeing did this, did this, check, check, check, and away we go.

VALENTINE: I would hope that the process by which it was certified was one in which all of the normal steps were taking -- taking place. I don't have personal knowledge of that certification process.

CAVUTO: Oh, I understand that, Barry. And I didn't mean to put that burden on you.

I guess what -- what do they look for when they go through the approval process for any plane? Obviously, there's a rigor they go through. What is it?

VALENTINE: Oh, it's huge, because the FAA basically sets the standards for design, for construction and full performance of the aircraft.

And then the manufacturer has the obligation of proving to the FAA that it, in fact, has met the design construction and performance standards that are required. And that is a collaborative effort between the FAA and the manufacturer, again, not just with Boeing, but people who make engines, people who make propellers, people who make helicopters, all kinds of craft, go through this same process of demonstrating that they meet the standards that are required.

CAVUTO: Were among those standards more training to learn the jet, to learn its unique character, not so much here, where I didn't think it was as big an issue as it was abroad in places like Ethiopia and Indonesia?

VALENTINE: You raise a good question.

And I should mention that I over the last many years have worked with a number of foreign civil aviation authorities to see that their version of the FAA is in fact providing adequate safety oversight of their airlines. And the training is an airline obligation. That's not the manufacturer's obligation.

That's the obligation of the operator of the airplane to see to it that the crews, the people who fly and are on the airplane are qualified and trained to be doing the jobs they're doing.

And I will say, candidly, that the degree to which that is done varies from country to country. I will put it that way.

CAVUTO: Yes, I hear you.

Barry Valentine, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

VALENTINE: You're very welcome, sir.

CAVUTO: All right.

Our Maria Bartiromo just wrapped up an interview with the president of the United States. The John McCain issue came up, but it's what the president had to say about the fuss that generated even more news -- right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: Why did he do it? Why did he stress so much about John McCain?

Our Maria Bartiromo had a chance to sit down with Donald Trump and ask him just that.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, ANCHOR: You spent a good portion of your time in Ohio the other day trashing John McCain.

Senator John McCain is dead. Why you doing this?

TRUMP: So, it's not a good portion of my time. It's a very small portion.

But if you realize, about three days ago, it came out that his main person gave to the FBI the fake news dossier. It was a fake, it was a fraud. It was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. They gave it to John McCain, who gave it to the FBI, for very evil purposes. That's not good.

And the other thing, he voted against repeal and replace. Now, he's been campaigning for years for repeal and replace.

I'm not a fan. After all of this time, he's -- he's -- think of this. Repeal and replace. We would have had great health care. Millions...

BARTIROMO: But, Mr President, he's dead. He can't punch back. I know you punch back, but he's dead.

TRUMP: Well, no, I don't talk about it. People ask me the question. I didn't bring this up. You just brought it up. You asked the question.

BARTIROMO: Well, you talked about it this week.

TRUMP: You asked me the question.

When I went out yesterday to the scrum, they asked me the question. When they ask me the question, I answer the question.

But you people bring it up. I don't bring it up.

I'm not a fan. He was horrible, what he did with repeal and replace. It was -- what he did to the Republican Party and to the nation and to sick people that could have had great health care was not good. So I'm not a fan of John McCain. And that's fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: All right, just for the record, the president brought it up in Ohio on his own. No one asked him about it in Ohio. He brought it up on his own.

Be that as it may, Lee Carter is with us right now, pollster extraordinaire.

Lee, this whole back and forth on John McCain -- now, of course, there was always bad blood there. That's not new. The is president entitled to his point of view. They didn't like each other. He's being consistent with that in life and now in John McCain's death.

LEE CARTER, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: Right.

CAVUTO: But should he be even raising issues like this?

CARTER: No, he shouldn't.

But the problem is that he doesn't have any -- there's no real problem or retribution that he has when he does these kinds of things. His base stays loyal. People defend them. Then when everybody starts going crazy saying, how can you possibly do this, and everybody still digs in their heels and gets even more protective of the president.

So the bottom line is, he gets away with it. It doesn't change things. And so he's not going to change at this point. And so I think he just needs to move on. This is one of those things that a lot of people accept the president because of his policies and forgive his personality quirks.

And I would say this is even more than a personality quirk. This is a deficit, but he gets away with it.

CAVUTO: Yes. And it works for him.

But I do think that we're trying to say here, whether you give the president credit for the economy and the markets, I think we would be blaming a president if it were just the opposite. This does get in the way of that otherwise fine message, right?

CARTER: It absolutely gets in the way with it, because there's a lot of people who won't even give him credit or give him a chance to hear his policies or the stories or the things that he's done well, because they're so distracted by this stuff, and with valid reason.

There's a reason why leaders act leaderly and why we want presidents who act a certain way, and...

CAVUTO: But they're afraid to take him on, aren't they? I mean, even the case of Kellyanne Conway, a loyal aide as you could look at, the president really rips her husband a new one. She comes out on TV to talk about the president and not her husband.

I just thought that was a little weird.

CARTER: I find that one mind-baffling. I cannot imagine what would happen in my marriage if that were the way that I entered into the conversation by talking about protecting the president, rather than my husband, and letting all this go on.

I just -- I can't imagine the conflict that she feels and her husband feels, and all of that it's got to be...

CAVUTO: But this would not be the first president who party members are afraid to take on. This one will go a little farther, though.

I guess they sense, if I challenge him, he will tweet bad things about me, it's just not worth it.

CARTER: No, there's no question.

I mean, if you looked at the 2015-2016 election cycle, he systematically, one by one, every person who went after him fell. And they looked bad in so doing, because it wasn't in their character.

When you looked at Jeb try to take him on, it was almost sad to watch. When you watch Marco, when you watch Ted Cruz, when you watch all of these people, it made them look like they were -- they were stopping below who they were.

CAVUTO: So, they don't know how to challenge him. That might be a conundrum for all this Democratic army now running to take him down.

And I wanted to get your thoughts. I tend to follow, Lee, the money folks and where they're heading or where they're going.

CARTER: Sure.

CAVUTO: Beto O'Rourke gets a lot of buzz because just the sheer number of dollars he raised.

And now reports that I guess it's Mark Gallogly, a former Obama top fund- raiser for him in 2008 and '12, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, is going to do the same for O'Rourke. What do you make of it?

CARTER: I make that Beto O'Rourke is -- he's a fascinating character, because, on its face, I don't necessarily understand what the appeal is.

I'm not sure what his experience is. I'm not sure what he brings to the table. I put him out to testing and people go crazy for this guy. They think he's authentic. They think that he is optimistic. They think that he's calm, cool and collected. He represents a lot of things that is missing from the debate today.

He doesn't seem angry. And that's really refreshing to folks. And then, when you talk to people who are in the room with him, they say there's just something about that guy.

And I can tell you, almost every time when you're on the campaign trail, you feel it. There's an electricity around a certain candidate and you know it. And last time, it was Trump. Before that, it was Obama. And you feel it.

And from what I understand -- I have never been in his presence, but from what I understand, he's got that thing. And a lot of Obama's people apparently are lining up behind him. You have got that story.

CAVUTO: I'm wondering how the Biden folks feel about that. If he is an Obama loyalist or veering towards other than Joe Biden, is Joe Biden worried? Should he be worried?

CARTER: I think he should be a little bit worried, because I'm sure -- he hasn't obviously put his hat officially in the ring yet.

We don't know the type of campaign that he's going to run. Biden...

CAVUTO: We do know we hear whisperings that he might pre-announce his running mate, Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate.

What do you make of that? There's a risk with that, isn't there?

CARTER: There's a huge risk with that, but in some ways I think it's genius, because it overcomes almost every obstacle he has.

He's an old white guy. He's obviously got a female running mate. His got -- she's African-American.

CAVUTO: But that can give them a lot of time to look into her and everything.

CARTER: It could give a lot -- but there's an energy around her, that there's a Teflon-ness I think around her that says that she's almost protected.

There's a movement around her of people who really want to see her succeed.

CAVUTO: What if they all start naming their running mates now?

CARTER: I don't think it would be necessarily a bad idea, because when you look at the whole slew of them right now -- and I say that the ones to look at right now all have the last name that start with B, except for Kamala -- you have got Biden, Bernie -- well, not last names.

So you have got Biden, Bernie, Beto.

(CROSSTALK)

CARTER: And I think that they all have some baggage associated with them, because they are exactly what the Democrats say that they're not, as the party of white guys.

And so I think they'd be very wise to start saying, these are the kinds of candidates I would be looking at and looking at the Cabinet. We said the same thing about Trump. it would help him back in 2015-2016 to say what would it look like, who's he going to be with that is going to give him some stability?

And I think that the Democrats are going to have the same challenge. Now, are they going to necessarily do it? Because I'm not sure that all these candidates are going to narrow themselves down yet and say, I'm going to be your V.P.

CAVUTO: As you often remind me, it's early.

All right, Lee Carter, GOP pollster extraordinaire.

All right, when we come back, the big business leaders who had a chance to meet with the leader of the free world and tell him what they think about the economy and where it's going -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: Their jeans are blue, but they made a lot of green today. Iconic jeans maker Levi Strauss debuting on the New York Stock Exchange, get this, up 32 percent. How's that for a how do you do?

More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, they're called the Business Roundtable, a couple of hundred of the most successful CEOs on the planet.

And they have been making money hand over fist, as you know, with the tax cuts, cuts in regulations. So they had a big powwow, invited the president to stop by. And they sort of gave their assessment here even ahead of meeting the commander in chief to say, while things are going hunky-dory, they're not going to be as hunky-dory. Things are going to slow down. They're even slowing things down.

Blake Burman at the White House with more on that.

Hey, Blake.

BLAKE BURMAN, CORRESPONDENT: Neil, this is one of these meetings that me and you somehow have to work our way into one of these years. This was a who's-who in the business community meeting here in Washington, D.C., with President Trump earlier today for a discussion with the Business Roundtable

Just to give you a few names that the commander in chief sat down with, for example, President Trump meeting with Jamie Dimon, Craig Menear if Home Depot. Josh Bolten is the CEO of the Business Roundtable, by the way. And Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple there as well, along with the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, the top trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, other members of the administration.

Trade, I am told, Neil, was a focus of the of the discussion. The president talking about, I'm told, China with this group, the USMCA deal that's now in the hands of Capitol Hill, along with a possible trade deal with the E.U.

As it was put to me, the president made the case for his negotiating style, i.e., tariffs. Now, it was also described to me that many within the room praised the state of the economy. However, the Business Roundtable as a group also revised its GDP forecast downward for the year from 2.7 percent to 2.5 percent.

There was a concern among some that maybe some of the -- some of what we're seeing overseas with the global economy could present a headwind to the economy back here at home in the U.S.

Just a little while ago, our friend Maria Bartiromo sat down with President Trump over here at the White House, interviewed him, and asked him about some of those slowdown concerns. And the president used it to once again criticize the Fed chair, Jay Powell. Watch here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And you're right. The world is slowing.

But we're not slowing. And, frankly, if we didn't have somebody that would raise interest rates and do quantitative tightening, we would have been at over 4, instead of at 3.1.

BARTIROMO: And the Fed said this week actually, signaling that we're not going to see any more rate hikes this year.

Do you think you influenced that decision partly?

TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, look, I hope I didn't influence, frankly, but it doesn't matter. I don't care if I influenced on it.

I -- one thing, I was right. But we would have been over 4 if they didn't do all of the interest rate hikes. And they tightened. I mean, they did $50 billion a month. I said, what are we doing here?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURMAN: Neil, when you look at GDP projections -- projections for the year, the Fed has it at 2.1 percent for 2019. The Trump administration has it north of 3 percent at 3.2 percent.

And the folks here within the business community right in the middle of that at about 2.5 how, they say, Neil. That's their opinion -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, Blake Burman, thank you very, very much, Blake at the White House.

You did catch that in that exchange with Maria Bartiromo, the president throwing up his hands enough to say, if things slow down, don't put this one on me, put this on the Federal Reserve.

Why a lot of the president's critics are saying that's a pattern -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, in that interview with Maria Bartiromo, the president indicating that, maybe had the Fed chief not been so busy hiking rates and quantitative tightening and all that other stuff you hear about, the economy would be doing much, much better.

Gary Kaltbaum is with us on that, Danielle Shay also joining us, Max Ferris.

Gary, what do you make of that?

GARY KALTBAUM, CONTRIBUTOR: I think the economy be would be right where it is. I don't think the Fed really affected much.

I think they affected markets more than anything. I think the president's looking for the boogeyman at this point in time, just in case things had south. But I got to tell you, I look at the bond market, I worry we're in recession. I look at the stock market, it looks like we're going to accelerate.

So conflicting signals right now. I think we're OK. We're probably in the mid-2's at this juncture.

CAVUTO: Danielle, there's a lot of thought to the hikes themselves and the fact that the Fed has just reversed that, and now kept rates, and all but telegraphing they're going to stay the same, maybe all this year, that maybe the president was right, maybe the Fed did move too aggressively and we're kind of paying for that now.

What do you make of that?

DANIELLE SHAY, SIMPLER TRADING: I do think that the president is right on that factor.

I mean, the entire reason why the market started this tailspin to begin with was because of the aggressive rate hike schedule, coupled with the situation with the trade wars with China. And so the fact that the Fed is now coming around and reversing course, I think proves that, I think proves that fact.

CAVUTO: I'm looking at all this, Jonas Max Ferris, and I'm wondering if the business titans in town telling the president that, look, we see a bit of a slowdown coming, not a contraction, just things are going to slow down, our own spending is going to slow down, our own hiring spree is not going to be as hiring spree-ish, then does the president need to worry?

What do you think?

JONAS MAX FERRIS, CONTRIBUTOR: He needs to worry a little.

I mean, these CEOs runs these giant global companies dealing with countries that have much slower economies than the U.S. right now. So they're a little more downbeat than a U.S.-focused person would be.

I mean, it's very likely our tax cuts basically kick in as a sort of economic stimulus plan, or we would be in the same boat as many of these European countries. It's also true, as the president noted, that rates went a little too high too fast. We weren't in that hot of an economy.

I personally think short-term rates should have been 2 percent. That's it, and they should let longer-term rates be at 3, and kept up some of the quantitative tightening. That would have given everyone the confidence of a normal yield curve. Right now, we have this issue of it looks recessionary, to Gary's point, and that in itself is scaring people.

But, again, I think the tax cuts word a good time, coincidentally perhaps, and the president was right. Rates went a little too high in a not-that- strong global economy.

CAVUTO: Gary, do you like where we are, this market up better than 216 points? I know a lot of that was a very good reaction to the Levi Strauss IPO and, of course, what's been going on with Apple and Micron helping technology. What do you think?

KALTBAUM: Neil, for a lack of a better way of putting it, we have a melt- up in technology right now.

And as I have studied markets going back to 100 years, when technology leads up, it is a darn good thing for the market. The worst thing I can say is, it's getting a little bit frothy out there. There's a little bit of rampant bullishness going on.

But, overall, on a daily basis, I continue to see a clear lack of institutional selling. And on a day like today, I got to tell you, it's one of the best days I have seen a long time. It was almost like the Dow could have been up 600 points today.

I think Boeing is what's keeping it down. So, so far, so good. I will take a lot more days like today

CAVUTO: Do agree with that, Danielle?

SHAY: I do agree.

I'm very bullish on this market, especially with the changed rate hike schedule. Looking at the way that the market acted today and yesterday after the announcement, really, the situation we were in is, we were stuck up against resistance at 2850. And once the market was able to push through that level, carried higher by industries, particularly cloud computing, cyber-security, you know, companies like Microsoft, these companies are leading the way higher.

CAVUTO: All right.

SHAY: And they're going to take the rest of the market up into 3000, I think.

CAVUTO: All right, we shall see.

Guys, I want to thank you all very, very much.

All right, the president declares ISIS has been defeated. A commander who says not quite -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: That was a Mueller sighting there is. We don't see that very, very often. It's like a "Where's Waldo?" moment here.

But the fact that matter is, the president wants that Mueller report that apparently is just on the verge of coming out to be open to the public when it does come out. Congressional Democrats are ramping up their own investigations. So it seems impervious to what the final report will be anyway.

Anyway, attorney Lisa Kuharksi joins us, former federal prosecutor Jon Sale.

Lisa, to you first.

What are the rules on releasing all of that? Obviously, you have to be very careful about names and individuals and entities like that, and maybe redact that and all. But what do you think?

LISA KUHARKSI, ATTORNEY: There will certainly be a lot of redacting. I know a lot of information will not be released.

But the rules -- Mueller really just has to release whatever he thinks is appropriate to pursue or decline prosecution. So it could be a one-page report. It could be a 400-page report that he sends to Barr. But we won't really know.

And then Barr then takes this report. And, once again, he can redact it, and he can do deliver certain information. But we do know that he has indicated he wants to be very transparent. But he has also said he will likely take that report that he receives from Mueller and distribute two reports.

CAVUTO: So, Jon Sale, in that case, the White House will get a chance to eye this first. Is that right?

JON SALE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: The White House, I think, has an absolute right to eye it, because executive privilege, it's not some way of hiding things.

CAVUTO: Right.

SALE: It's a legitimate privilege when it applies. And the privilege holder being the presidency, not the president, has a right to assert it.

CAVUTO: So, how long -- can you explain that process, Jon?

The president gets it or his team gets it. Steer me through that.

SALE: Well, White House counsel will review it and advise the president whether or not there are areas that they should assert executive privilege.

CAVUTO: Right.

SALE: If they do that, Barr, the attorney general, has to respect that. And they take -- they can take it to court. Anyone who wants to challenge it gets take it to court. And whether or not executive privilege applies will be determined by the court.

CAVUTO: All right, so, Lisa, I can't help but think, maybe cynically, that this just leaks out, period.

KUHARKSI: Well, let's -- let's be honest, right? The president has said, let's make the report public.

So once he gets it, can now he hide behind his own words? And it does also give more weight to the Democrats saying, we should have subpoena power. What's confidential about the report, now that it's gone to the president?

I mean, he doesn't have an absolute right to see the report. It kind of is -- the authority -- he's obviously the chief of law enforcement in the United States, and he appoints the people at Justice.

And Justice -- he can simultaneously receive the report from Mueller, but really Barr can determine when he releases that. The likelihood that he has had access to conversations, that he has insider information that we don't have is certainly very high. And, as we all know, lawyers have a way of dispersing information without really saying it.

So it's kind of interesting. But I think that it would indicate that Trump is feeling pretty good about what he's been told thus far.

CAVUTO: Do you think, Jon, the president already knows?

SALE: Neil, I'm going to give you a startling answer. Nobody knows.

(LAUGHTER)

SALE: But the only way that this can be a story is if the White House has already had a chance to review it. Otherwise, nothing is going to happen publicly.

I just came back from Washington. I have not seen such media frenzy since O.J.

CAVUTO: Yes, you're right about that.

SALE: But there are other things -- Neil, there are other things besides executive privilege. National security matters, they will be withheld. Grand jury material will be withheld, unless the attorney general at the Department of Justice goes to court and gets permission to release it.

So the transparency may be...

CAVUTO: It takes time. It takes time.

SALE: And it also may be illusory.

I believe the attorney general will do the right thing.

CAVUTO: I want to thank you, Jon, final word on the subject.

Lisa, thank you.

KUHARKSI: Thank you.

CAVUTO: Speaking of the president, he's very confident that ISIS has been put down and the threat is gone.

Let's get the read from David Hunt, FOX News military analyst.

What do you think, Colonel?

COL. DAVID HUNT (RET.), MILITARY ANALYST: No.

I think we have done six years of a bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. We have decimated both those countries for years. And we have taken occupied land away from ISIS, they call the caliphate.

CAVUTO: Right.

HUNT: But ISIS is a worldwide terrorist organization, as is Al Qaeda and as is the Taliban in Afghanistan. Both were not destroyed.

Now, we have done a great bombing campaign. we have taken land away from their ability to call a caliphate, but ISIS is nowhere close to being dead. It's a very effective terrorist organization. We need to hunt all them down and kill them.

CAVUTO: Colonel, they also morph into other entities, right? If you think about the early Taliban, and then Boko Haram, then Al Qaeda, and they morph into new entities, some of which became ISIS itself.

So how do you police the morphing? You know what I mean?

HUNT: We have to have -- look, we have been doing this 19 years now. And what's happened for the war on terror has become an occupation and training foreign militaries.

We have -- we need a world war. We can lead it. Fine. We need a lot more help to do one thing, kill terrorists where we find them, not do occupations like Afghanistan and Iraq, which have not gone well, to focus on what we were supposed to have done after 9/11, which is kill, kill terrorists.

We can bring them to the trial. That's fine. But what's happened is, we have devolved into nation-building, and that has not worked last almost 19 years. So it can be done. Need some help from other places, other countries, but make it a war on terror, not nation-building.

CAVUTO: Short of that, I mean, these kinds of enemies will always be with us. Right? We can't avoid that.

HUNT: Part of the issue, though, is -- can be helped is a lot of refugees in the world, like 25 million, of which over 10 million are kids.

We have got such unstable countries like Yemen, like Syria, like Iraq, that have to be stabilized. That's not -- that takes a world effort. It can't be, Neil, U.S. vs. the world on terror -- war on terror, the terrorist entities.

We need a lot of help, and I mean big countries like China and Russia. And I mean the E.U. I mean, and not cursory, serious help. Otherwise, you're right. We're not going to be able to get at this.

CAVUTO: Colonel, always good chatting with you, and I learn a lot.

And more, I want to thank you for your service to this country. Incredible.

Thank you, sir.

HUNT: Thanks. You're welcome.

CAVUTO: All right. Detention centers that are filling up fast, and now reports the U.S. Border Patrol is going to be forced to release some illegal immigrants. Then what?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, there's a new report out that claims the U.S. Border Patrol is releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants because the detention centers are packed, they're overcrowded.

National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd.

Brandon, I have heard from others who say, that is not true. They just don't release and throw these people out there. Is that happening?

BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: It is happening. What we're looking at is, we're looking at a crisis that is -- that is larger than any crisis that I have dealt with in my 21-year career as a Border Patrol agent. We're holding more people. Our detention facilities are packed. We're taking more agents out of the field to do essentially baby-sit.

There's a lot of things that are happening. And because of the stress and the stress factor of the number of people that we're currently holding, we're starting to walk them out what we call our front door and we're letting them go. It's the catch and release program again.

CAVUTO: Where do they go, Brandon? In that event, where do they go?

JUDD: Well, from there, they disperse throughout the United States.

We got a lot of people that are going up to Georgia. You got a lot of people that are going up to Massachusetts, to Boston, and they're dispersing throughout the entire United States from that point. And they're going -- most of them will go to the Greyhound bus station and take a bus ticket to wherever they're going.

They're supposed to eventually show up to a future court date in which they have the right to try to prove that they should be allowed to remain in the United States. But the vast majority of these individuals never show up to their court date and they disappear into what Obama termed the shadows of society.

CAVUTO: So the ones that are let out -- and keep in mind -- and I'm sure you're on top of your facts, but others say that this is not happening, so if you will just indulge me.

If it is happening and people are being let go, is there -- is there a pecking order who is let go? In other words, you wouldn't let a murderer go or a rapist, that kind of person in the population?

JUDD: No. No, of course not.

CAVUTO: So, how do you decide who goes in that event?

JUDD: So, the first people that you're looking at is, you're going to look at the female heads of household. You're going to look there first and hope that that's going to alleviate some of the stress.

The family units will then be -- the full family units will then be next. So there is absolutely a pecking order. We don't -- we do not let murderers go. We don't let known rapists go. We don't let people like that go.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Whoever these people are let go, whether they're mothers or anyone, or the head of a family...

JUDD: Correct.

CAVUTO: ... there's no way to keep following them, right? You don't have the resources to do that. So you really have no idea where they end up, right?

JUDD: No. No, we don't.

I mean, they do have to provide us with an address that they say that they're going to. And that's the address that we will ultimately serve their court documents to. But, again, whether or not they actually go there, we never know.

CAVUTO: All right, in the end, would a longer, firmer, bigger wall prevent this sort of thing? The president says yes.

JUDD: Yes, so, what you have to do is, you have to be able to physically keep people from entering the United States.

If they set one foot in the United States, they have the right to claim asylum. Once they claim asylum, they get put through that process. If we're able to physically keep people out, and to monitor the number of people that are coming through the actual ports of entry, which is the legal way to do it, then we can effectively drive down these numbers of people that are crossing the border illegally.

But, unfortunately, it's just not happening today.

CAVUTO: All right, so this emergency, as the president declares it, is very much an emergency to you?

JUDD: Yes, yes, I agree with him 100 percent.

Again, 21 years in the Border Patrol, I was right in the thick of everything in the Tucson Sector when we were -- when we were making more arrests than at any time in the history of the Border Patrol.

Right now, we're dealing with more people. We're on pace to deal with more people than we have ever dealt with before. This is in fact an emergency. It's greater than 2014. It's greater than the early 2000s, the mid-2000s. This is an emergency, and we're seeing -- seeing the effects of it right now.

CAVUTO: Brandon Judd, National Border Patrol Council president, thank you very, very much.

JUDD: Thank you.

CAVUTO: Here comes "The Five."

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