This is a rush transcript from “The Five," August 27, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters, along with Juan Williams, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and Martha MacCallum. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is The Five. A major hour of breaking news, President Trump facing a pivotal moment in his bid for re-election, plus, Joe Biden with his fiercest attacks yet on Donald Trump, we'll tell you just what Biden said in just a minute.
But first, tonight is the night. Just hours from now, President Trump will speak at the Republican National Convention and accept his party's nomination for president. Will he make his case for four more years and is expected to pick up where Mike Pence left off in attacking Joe Biden? Here's the VP last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Joe Biden would be nothing more than a Trojan horse for the radical left. Last week, Joe Biden said democracy is on the ballot. And the truth is our economic recovery is on the ballot. Law and order are on the ballot. The hard truth is you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATTERS: And we have an excerpt from the president's speech tonight. Quote, "we have spent the past four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years." All right, Martha MacCallum, what is the buzz with Mike Pence's speech, and what do you expect from the president tonight?
MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Well, we're hearing that over the course of this week the president has sharpened his dialogue and his rhetoric in this speech, adding to it. I think it's going to be a fairly lengthy speech that you're going to hear from the president tonight. And he will do it in his own backyard. This has been a very unconventional convention, as we've talked about many times.
It was originally supposed to be in Charlotte, then in Jacksonville. And you know, it seems like the president -- once those two states fell through, they sort of just embraced the whole idea of taking advantage of the bully pulpit. And, you know, Fort McHenry last night, the White House tonight, so anybody who is, you know, concerned about the Hatch Act, which has been raised.
And there's even discussion about an investigation. They clearly believe that they're on good legal standing, and they have, you know, sort of gone whole hog at using this backdrop to its fullest extent. And I think you're going to see a big, big show tonight, Jesse.
WATTERS: Yeah. I think, Dana, the Republicans are very pleased with not only what Mike Pence said but how it looked, because that was a lot different than a lot of the visuals that we saw during the DNC. What does the president need to say tonight, and how does he attack Biden and also defend his record and lay out a vision?
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, that would take a long speech. And that's what you might get tonight, as Martha said. I loved the line that you read in the intro, Jesse. That it took us four years to dismantle what they've been -- Biden has been doing for 47 years. What that does it robs Biden from the opportunity to call this a change election.
Because that's what you want to do when you are looking to upset an incumbent. Incumbents are very hard to beat. Part of the reason, as Martha just pointed out. You have the trappings of the White House. So that is the people's house. And I do understand why some people would be niggled about it. However, by the time they have an investigation, this election's going to be over.
So it doesn't matter. Like, the president wouldn't be here if it weren't for the pandemic. Joe Biden wouldn't be in Wilmington for his convention if it weren't for the pandemic. So I think we have to set that aside. I also feel like what they did tonight is put to some more meat on the bones of that second act. You know, Karl Rove has been talking about this the past two weeks.
Actually for about -- for several months, saying that when you want to run for re-election, you have to lay out a clear vision for what you want to accomplish in the second term, and it's not good enough to talk about all of the things that you've done. So those are important, but you have to say -- and if you give me another four years, here's what I plan to do for you.
And so I think you'll probably see that tonight. I had this idea that he should have done some sort of, like, surprise, like, on the Bachelor or something. And to have this all set up here at the White House, but actually done the speech from Lordstown, Ohio, where he could have said -- I know he's going to be in Washington tonight, but I changed my mind. I wanted to come here.
Because when I was here in 2016, I told you I would bring jobs back, and I did. And if you give me another four years, I will do it again, because I don't care about Washington D.C. I care about you. But I think it's too late for that.
WATTERS: Yeah, probably. Well, Greg, Dana said it's going to be a long speech. That means past 11:00, are you going to be OK?
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: I here it's a confident speech. So confident, he pre-recorded it in 2014. He had it in a can in case he decided to run in 2016 so he didn't have to worry about it. I think he does have to address the millions who are legitimately worried right now in America that our American idea is no longer guaranteed once you dissolve the thin blue line of law and order.
So he needs to reassure us that he can kind of, like, lead us out of this confluence of misery. And no matter what he says, the media is going to eviscerate him. So there's no need to make the media feel comfortable or even good about the next four years. So you have got to present an up beat future to America that is safe and secure, free from anxiety and anarchy and mobs and cancel culture. But I want to talk about last night real quick.
WATTERS: Sure.
GUTFELD: No one has mentioned the great Sister Byrne. I think when she came on. You know, millions of Catholics experienced the simultaneous memories of a ruler whacked on their knuckles in grade school for holding their pencil wrong. But she was great. I mean, here's a woman, 30 years in the military. She's a doctor and a surgeon in Afghanistan and Egypt.
She served the poor in Haiti, Iraq, Sudan. I mean, she truly is the voice of the voiceless. And you don't -- you see none of that at the DNC. And I dare anyone to question that person's compassion when she speaks about abortion and the right to life. I mean, how many millions of lives are snuffed out and there ain't no riot for that.
So just -- you know, it's just like Republicans create a lot of tough customers. And she's a tough customer. And you think about those other guys. You know, Burgess Owens, Jack Brewer, and that's a great name, Jack Brewer. And Herschel Walk -- there's just some tough people. And so when you watch the Republicans, you go like OK.
These are the adults. These are the people that will shut down the idiocy. And I think that's a really good, strong message.
WATTERS: Juan, I know you disagree with that. But looking back to last night, was there anything that you, Juan Williams, did any tingle go down your leg? Did your heart start fluttering? Was there one moment that even you could say wow? That was good stuff.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, I think the people who produced the Apprentice and had a hand in producing this did a fine job. So when I was looking and I thought boy, look at that setting. How glorious, Fort McHenry. You know, it's Baltimore. So I had to think, oh, where is the rat- infested sight? But, you know, I thought they did a really good job of the setting.
I thought it was pretty good. Now, for tonight, Jesse, I think we know what is coming. Trump is going to bash Biden. That's been the whole theme of this convention, is to make Biden equally unattractive, maybe more unattractive than Trump is to the voters, so that Trump can win the election. But the problem has been -- even today, the news. The news just keeps going on.
You know, I know my baseball team is not playing tonight, why, because they're protesting. You know, the NBA is protesting, Major League Soccer, the WNBA. Trump is the incumbent in a nation that's hurting in terms of the virus, in terms of the economy, in terms of racial unrest. And even today, Kellyanne Conway on Fox and Friends says, oh.
You know what? All this chaos and anarchy is good for the Trump campaign, wow. So tonight, is Trump going to condemn that kind of statement? Is he going to condemn vigilante, militia violence, in which a 17-year-old brings a gun and kills two protesters? Will he praise Black Lives Matter? Will he say the name Jacob Blake who was killed, shot seven times in the black?
Will he say that right wing provocateurs should not use violence to try to undermine racial justice protests? That's what I want to hear.
WATTERS: All right. Well, I don't think that's exactly what Kellyanne Conway said. And if you're watching at home, you can go online and see for yourself what the transcript actually said. Coming up, Joe Biden tearing into Trump ahead of the president's RNC speech, we'll show you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: Jesse's girl. How did I get that?
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: What's going on here? Joe Biden unleashing on President Trump today, as Democrats worry about his campaign strategy, some in the party fear the former VP is not doing enough to counter-program President Trump. Biden may have alleviated some of those concerns with these attacks on the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The problem we have right now is we're in Donald Trump's America. He's rooting for more violence, not less. And he's clear about that. And what is he doing? He's pouring gasoline on the fire. COVID is out of control. He's doing very little. He's not preparing for it. He hasn't responded to it.
And he continues to be in a position where he does nothing to deal with it. We created more jobs in the last three years than he's created so far. Everything he's inherited he screwed up. There's no rationale. This guy doesn't believe in science, or if he heard it, he doesn't understand it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: And vice presidential nominee, Senator Kamala Harris, going after President Trump in a pre-buttle to his convention speech tonight. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump's incompetence is nothing new. A pandemic is unforgiving. If you get it wrong at the beginning, the consequences are catastrophic. He got it wrong from the beginning. And then he got it wrong again and again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Martha, Vice President Biden spoke today, as you just saw. One of the things he said spoke about COVID. He said talk about safety. The biggest safety issue in America is people dying of COVID. What did you think of that?
MACCALLUM: Well, you know, I think when you look at the way Joe Biden has approached this. Obviously, he is very careful in all of his approaches. But he has not really acknowledged the changing dynamic of this as we move forward. And the things that he talks about doing, you know, rolling out a plan and all of that, having a testing -- you know, ramping up testing, ramping up the movement towards treatment.
Those things are already in the works. So it kind of feels in some ways when he speaks about this topic, as though it could be something that he, you know, could have spoken about the same way a month or two ago because it's a dynamic changing situation. The one thing that I think you're going to continue to hear is the phrase, which we heard from Kamala Harris today.
It didn't have to be this bad. That's the convincing factor. If you can convince people that it didn't have to be this bad, that the president mishandled it, that this isn't just, you know, one of those big historic issues that a president has to wrestle with and do the best he can, and that bad things happen because of the nature of this virus. That's troublesome for President Trump.
And so he's going to have to continue to push back on that in his campaign. But that's the line that we heard from Bill Clinton -- initiated the line. And we've heard it over the course of the last seven or eight days. It didn't have to be this bad. Look for them to continue to press that every opportunity they get.
WILLIAMS: Greg, as you saw, Senator Harris also spoke today in what people are calling a pre-buttle. I love that word. Anyway, she said -- and here, Greg, you know, I'm paraphrasing. Trump caved to China when they refused to share information. He even praised their transparency. So what do you think? Is that an effective line of attack coming from the Democrats?
GUTFELD: Not really. When the canary in the coal mine was Donald Trump when it came to China, in fact, I think we all were making fun of Trump when he kept saying China, China. Everybody was mocking him. And it turns out he was right. And I agree with you. Pre-buttle is a strange word. It sounds like something you have removed.
WILLIAMS: Well, I'd want mine back. So Jesse, I wanted to read a quote to you. The quote reads this way. The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is. For the very clear choice on who is best on public safety, law and order. That's Kellyanne Conway. And I think that's pretty clear. So do you agree?
WATTERS: I didn't think she was saying that this helps us. I think she says that was presenting a choice because Joe Biden isn't acknowledging it. But the Biden strategy is this. He's going to ride COVID and race to victory. The race thing has backfired. So now, all he has is COVID. So he's hoping for a second wave.
To tie your political fortunes to a second wave of Coronavirus, where more people die, it doesn't really taste very good when you say that. And it's also something you can't control. Coronavirus cases have been cut in half. Coronavirus deaths have been cut in more than half recently. Hospitals have plenty of PPE and they have space.
And next month, we're having schools opened, football happening, and businesses opening. And Joe Biden's campaigning like we're in April and it's a lockdown. Right now, the latest poll two weeks ago, PEW, said the top issue in the election is the economy. COVID was ranked fourth, tied with crime. I would bet now crime is above COVID.
And Donald Trump's trusted to handle the economy by 10 points over Joe Biden. There is a study by Franklin Templeton with Gallup. And they tried to figure out who was the most misinformed about COVID risk in America. They found out that people who get most of their information from Twitter, social media, and Democrats are the two groups that are most misinformed about who is at risk for Coronavirus.
So Joe Biden's almost trapped in the distorted reality of his own base that the media has created for him.
WILLIAMS: All right. So Dana, the former vice president said today he wants to go to Kenosha, but said he doesn't want a political circus. He wants to go there to help healing. You know, he said ideally he would facilitate a dialogue, black, white, police, protesters. So I thought I would ask you. Is this a good idea? And how would you structure it so that it is helpful and not simply a political show?
PERINO: I mean, he's got all these resources at his disposal. They've raised a ton of money. I don't think it would be that hard to do it. I think I could pretty much figure it out. I could -- not that I'm going to. But like, you can set up a private meeting. You invite the family then. You see it. You can keep it safe. You can make sure that people get a COVID test. Like, we're all doing that. Like, everybody is doing that.
And I feel like they have to fight fire with fire. He says they don't want create a circus. You have got to fight circus with circus. You can't just, like, sit in Delaware. It's just not good enough. They have seeded almost the entire week to Donald Trump. And I think that he will see a big bounce out of it because of it next week.
WILLIAMS: All right. Up next, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker, says Joe Biden should skip, yes, skip the debates with President Trump. We're going to tell you what Biden just said in reply about showing up, next for you on The Five.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: Nancy Pelosi thinks Joe Biden shouldn't debate President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Don't tell anybody I told you this, especially don't tell Joe Biden. I don't think that there should be any debates. I wouldn't legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States. If Joe Biden asked you what I thought about it, I don't think that he should dignify that conversation with Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: She knows she was on TV, right? And here's Joe Biden's reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: As long as the commission continues down the straight and narrow as they have, I'm going to debate him. Now, I know for certain that they're going -- I'm going to be a fact-checker on the floor while I'm debating him. I think everybody knows this man is -- a pathological tendency not to tell the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: So Dana, wouldn't you want to debate a liar? Because if you debate a liar, you can win with the truth, it seems like it's better to debate a liar. Because all you have to do is come with facts. I've learned that.
PERINO: There you go, OK. I did think about you, Greg. Because a few months ago, when we did a segment and you said they're going to figure out a way not to debate, I said no. And then I made a bet with Tucker that they're going to debate. And so I could be on the losing side of all of this. Because when -- as soon as she said don't tell anybody I told you this.
Then you knew -- she's too smart to just say something like that and not know that it's going to have a lot of consequences. And I'm kind of surprised that Joe Biden didn't more forcefully shut it down. Because there's this aura that they think that -- there's basically going to be some big problem that he's not going to be able to debate, and they want to make him not do it.
He shuts it down. But I don't think it's as forcefully as he could have. I still that there will be debates. There should be debates. But now, now I'm sceptical when she did that, because she doesn't do that lightly.
GUTFELD: Exactly. You know, Jesse, if this were high school, I think you would be the person that would start making the chicken clucking sound.
WATTERS: Wow. You nailed me, man. I was such an instigator in high school, wow. I guess still am, if you think about it. But now, I get paid to do it. I mean, isn't Biden taking performance enhancing drugs? Didn't the president accuse him of taking drugs during the debate against Bernie Sanders, which I don't know if you guys remember it?
Juan, I told you after that debate how I thought Joe Biden was so sharp and so crisp. Maybe the president is on to something. Who knows? He will have to submit to a drug test. But Greg, why are we talking about this conspiracy theory? This is a right-wing talking point. I mean, only Nancy Pelosi, Joe Lockhart, Thomas Friedman, and about a dozen Democratic strategists have raised this issue about Biden ducking.
Here's what I found funny. A guy tweeted this. I was going to give him credit. But I forgot to write his name down. But this is it, the strategy from Biden. Don't debate. Don't leave the basement. Don't concede the election. How arrogant do you have to be to think that's going to work?
GUTFELD: Pretty arrogant. But I'm pretty sure that was a question he didn't want to answer, but I answered it anyway.
WATTERS: Thank you.
GUTFELD: Martha, is this a trial balloon or a trial Hindenburg?
MACCALLUM: You know, I think he should say to Nancy Pelosi, like, you know, stop trying to help me, because it puts him in a bad situation when she says that. There absolutely -- I believe there absolutely have to be debates. I think that it -- he, you know, absolutely cannot go on with this strategy. You know, he was in the basement. I notice now he's moved up to the first floor.
There's light coming in the windows. He's now in front of a fireplace. I think he's at a different home of his, in Maryland at this point. But he really needs to get out. Now, there's a discussion from the commission, the debate commission. And President Trump brought this up that they need to have a debate before early voting starts in 22 days.
So there is a suggestion. And they're trying to get the Biden team to get on board on this, that they should do one before that and have four debates. The American people deserve to see these two individuals debate. Nancy Pelosi looks a little bit panicked when she talks about this. And I wonder what she is so worried about. Joe Biden seems to feel like he can get out there and do it.
And yes, he had a great debate against Bernie Sanders. So I guess whatever he ate that day, he should repeat that and try to get back out there and do it again.
GUTFELD: Yeah. So Juan, Nancy Pelosi is arguably the most powerful Democrat, right? And so this is not some kind of off-the-cuff situation. I mean, it's kind of a serious deal what she said.
WILLIAMS: I don't take it that way, but I thought it was a suggestion. I mean, you know, like President Trump produces headlines, what Jesse just said to us about how he said that, you know, maybe Biden is taking drugs. You know, it produced headlines, but again, I don't take it that seriously. I just think that's the kind of nasty slash that comes from Donald Trump towards his opponent.
But I mean, remember, first he said that Biden was a doddering old man. He was losing his mental capacity. You know, that's not even Donald Trump talking. He's just a puppet. Remember all that? And next, I imagine he's going to say something that you might like, Greg. He's going to say, oh, he's actually a robot. He's got computer chips in his head. That's not Joe Biden. You know, this is just what he goes about his business.
GUTFELD: You can't disprove that. You can't disprove that, Juan.
WILLIAMS: Oh, OK. You got me there. You got me there. So, I think --
GUTFELD: You got to open them up. You got to open them up and see, you know.
WILLIAMS: I think -- I think Trump must be very nervous. I think Trump is the one that's nervous here.
GUTFELD: That's why Pelosi said no for the debate?
WILLIAMS: Hang on, hang on, because he knows -- hang on because he's suggesting drugs and all this other -- and Biden's you know, mentally weak. He's the one that knows that everybody, everybody is going to fact check all the claims and outrageous things he says.
WATTERS: Juan --
GUTFELD: And you should love that. Nancy should love that. But you know what, I think he should bother.
WATTERS: Juan --
WILLIAMS: I agree with everybody. Let's have a debate. We don't need extra debates, but let's have the three debates.
WATTERS: Juan, you know what else I heard? I heard Joe Biden is going to stand on a box during the debate. He's going to borrow Mini Mike's little box under the lectern.
PERINO: There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that.
MACCALLUM: And Trump wants to be standing for all the debates. No sitting.
GUTFELD: I think that what Nancy Pelosi is doing is she's providing cover for Joe to escape the wrath of Trump. This is -- they know he's going to get -- he's going to get destroyed in the debate. And this is actually a kind of a logical argument against it. Like, don't -- we shouldn't have to debate an immoral character. We don't -- we don't need to. We're above that. That's going to be their argument.
MACCALLUM: I don't think voters will stick for that.
WILLIAMS: No, I think she's -- I think she's saying to the press, you guys better do your job. You know, like, this convention so many false statements. Go out and actually do your job and call Trump on his lies.
GUTFELD: Like they said under Obama.
MACCALLUM: That's what the debate process is for.
GUTFELD: Coming up, the DOJ taking aim at blue states over their disastrous nursing home policies that cost thousands of lives.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: The DOJ demanding answers from four Democratic governors over how they handled COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes. The Fed asking for information from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan after thousands of elderly Americans died. Governor Andrew Cuomo blasting the move as politically motivated. He claims that his state did what Florida is doing now.
You know, Juan, when you take a look at this situation, you've seen so much blame, finger-pointing, going back and forth between President Trump and the governors and whose responsibility is what. But the bottom line is that these -- I mean, I live in New Jersey and I know what their policy was. New York did the same thing.
Basically, when people were sent back out from hospitals, and in some cases, those people were sent back to the nursing homes because they were - - they had DNRs, they had Do Not Resuscitate. And they sent them back to the nursing home. They said -- and the governor said they weren't allowed to test that person or to, you know, to say to the rest of the population, that this person coming back in has COVID. And this is believed to have led to an enormous number of deaths in these nursing homes.
And now, Bill Barr wants to take a look at their numbers, because a lot of people think that the numbers have been -- have been played with a little bit. So, what is wrong with doing investigations into these four states to see what happened, to see what their policies were?
WILLIAMS: I don't know how you could get more political than this, Marth. I mean, this is Bill Barr, it seems to me turning the Justice Department into a campaign tool for the Trump campaign. You know, at this point, that's what it is. You know, the fact is they all need to cover and that's what Barr is doing for the fact that Trump had so many failures in terms of dealing with COVID.
You know, what I'm talking about is pressuring CDC just last week to end COVID testing that was previously required for all people that had been exposed to the virus. Now, nope, not under the Trump administration. Trump underplayed the virus initially. He failed to close down quickly. He rushed reopening.
GUTFELD: So, did you.
WILLIAMS: He promoted baseless cures.
MACCALLUM: Why shouldn't these -- why shouldn't these governors be held responsible? If they didn't do anything wrong, that's what this data will show.
WILLIAMS: No, everybody --
MACCALLUM: But these policies in New York and New Jersey, in particular, and I know they're looking at Michigan and Pennsylvania as well. I mean, I know you've heard Janice Dean talking about what happened to her in laws. And I've spoken to medical professionals in these nursing homes who say, you know what, all these people did not have to die.
WILLIAMS: These are Democratic cities, right, or states, I should say --
MACCALLUM: What difference does it make?
WILLIAMS: Well, gee, we're having a huge campaign and COVID is a big issue for voters and a major failure point for Trump.
MACCALLUM: So those families don't deserve answers?
WILLIAMS: So I think Americans -- look, I don't care what Bill Barr does. He can play politics, but Americans know what happened, and they know that the great leader said, when all these Americans are dying, it is what it is.
MACCALLUM: Jesse, I want to play this from Andrew Cuomo on May 17, 2020, and get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- to families who've suffered losses inside nursing homes, and they're looking for accountability and they'd like to see justice?
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): How do we get justice for those families who had 139 deaths? What is justice? Who can we prosecute for those deaths? Nobody. Older people, vulnerable people are going to die from this virus, and that is a fact. And that is not going to change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: He got a lot of heat for that statement, Jesse. And now he's writing a book about how successful he was at handling this in New York. And I guess this news is not good for book sales.
WATTERS: If he was so successful, why wouldn't he want to show everybody how successful he was? Juan says Cuomo did a bang-up job. Hey, show the country what a bang-up job you did. Show how everything you did worked. It doesn't make any sense. This was like a medical 9/11.
Regular 9/11, they had a commission. They looked into everything. Where did it go wrong? What happened? We need some accountability so this can't happen again. Juan doesn't want to get to the truth. He doesn't want to know the facts. That's fine. I want to know. And you know what, if it was a Republican governor, let's look into what they did too, because then we can find out what works in case God forbid this happens again.
I have a family member who runs a series of nursing homes in New Jersey. And a little while back, I said, you know, how many patients did you have die from COVID-19? And he looked at me in the eye and said, zero. I said, how is that possible? He said, I did not let one infected patient come into any of my nursing homes. He had very strict protocol, wouldn't let anybody come in that had tested positive, and saved a lot of lives.
There was no mandate forcing COVID patient -- listen, this was not the Trump administration telling Cuomo and these governors accept patients. This was a state deal and they blew it. Let's be accountable.
MACCALLUM: And you know what, Greg, we all saw the Comfort parked on the Hudson River. We saw the Javits Center built out with all of those beds. And Governor Cuomo as far as I can find, never requested to spread those nursing home patients out so that they wouldn't be infecting other people in those places that were not full.
GUTFELD: Yes. There's an interesting trend. The Democrats don't get concerned over an issue until they can see it benefiting them. So, they actually play down COVID. CNN did, Washington Post, Cuomo, De Blasio, certain people here did that. You had the ship, they didn't want to use a ship, because then that would make Trump look good, right.
So, they shipped the patients over to the rest homes, the sheer number of deaths from that is breathtaking, New Jersey and New York. The last time I checked was about 80 percent the death count of all Republican states combined. And a lot of that was sparked by the rest home deaths which are in the thousands. I think it's like 6,000, 7,000.
But the trend here is the Democrats didn't care about COVID until they thought it could be used as a weapon the same exact way they didn't care about the riots; they didn't care about the violence. They didn't care about chop, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, the shootings in Chicago. They didn't care about the violence up until 48 hours ago when they could use it politically.
So, save that lecture about politics. If you didn't -- had nothing to say about the disease way back when, you're still at the kids table. And the same thing goes with the violence.
MACCALLUM: Dana?
PERINO: Well, Andrew Cuomo will not be able to shut down this investigation as they did into an investigation about corruption when he took over as governor. I also would say this. We've talked a lot of this past two weeks about empathy and who has it? I actually think this is quite empathetic. It's empathy with a hammer, meaning that you can basically have the Attorney General say, let's look into it.
To Jesse's point. Part of the reason you do these investigations is to make sure it never happens again. And many of these nursing home patients had average additional years of eight to 10 years. Imagine all of these family members who could have had eight to 10 more years getting to know their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren being able to be there.
It's like some people can't take care of their parents or their grandparents in their own homes, and they have to be in nursing homes. We have to do a better job of taking care of our elderly people, and I think this is quite empathetic.
MACCALLUM: Yes. It brings to mind the line that I talked about before. It didn't have to be this bad. And it didn't have to be that bad in those nursing homes is what we're learning. All right, coming up, ahead, President Trump getting ready for his big night. We're going to tell you more about what is expected this evening on the South Lawn. We'll be there coming up next on THE FIVE.
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PERINO: A major moment for President Trump tonight as he looks to win four more years in the White House. Just hours from now he will deliver his highly anticipated RNC speech. The President expected to go after Biden's "extreme agenda and much more." I want to get final thoughts and predictions. Greg, let's start with you.
GUTFELD: I'm predicting I'm going to order a steak from the Bowery Meat Company which brings me to a point that I wanted to bring up in the last segment which is that if we don't allow these restaurants to reopen inside, you're going to lose half of them, which in New York alone is 15,000 restaurants.
And what happens which I predicted three months ago, the more boarded up and close businesses reduce pedestrian traffic and turn neighborhoods into criminal free for all. We've seen the 280 percent increase in robberies in one Upper East Side neighborhood. So, people are getting shot in broad daylight, and this is directly I think, related to the reduced traffic and streets.
If you open up the restaurants, crime will go down. That's a prediction that I'm making here. I'm not condoning it. I'm predicting it.
PERINO: I eat in a restaurant for the first time -- inside the restaurant for the first time since February on this trip here in D.C. and it seems safe. Everybody's doing the right thing, so good point. Jesse Watters, what do you predict?
WATTERS: Well, it's going to be a great speech. I wrote it yesterday and passed it to the White House this morning. I don't want to give too much away but like Greg, I want to go back to the last segment and I want to do a Dana impersonation.
Did you guys read Karl Rove's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, The Left's COVID Memory Hall? Juan, you got to read this thing. This is just lists --
WILLIAMS: Oh, I saw it.
WATTERS: Have you read it?
WILLIAMS: Yes.
WATTERS: OK. So, it lists all of the things that the Biden team said about COVID in January, February, March, and April. It's going to go away. It's not serious. You don't need to panic and go get a mask. The warm weather will wash it through. I mean, like they were against the European travel ban, the China travel ban, to come out and say that if only Trump had listened to Joe. I mean, it's pretty funny.
PERINO: Juan Williams, do you want to answer that or you give a prediction for tonight?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think tonight we're going to have great fireworks. I look forward to that. We're going to be perched up here and so I get to see it. I think it's going to -- the finale of the convention will be like fireworks creating your own reality T.V. show fantasy, so explosive lies about Trump's record about Joe Biden as a commie and all that. So, make America great again, again, again, who's buying this stuff?
GUTFELD: A lot.
PERINO: Martha?
MACCALLUM: I'm going to be watching the president, of course, but also Alice Johnson tonight. There's been a very direct appeal to talk to Black voters in the United States. And I think to try to move the needle with them to say that that, you know, these life stories that we've seen presented, Clarence Henderson and others are compelling stories, and they want to offer a choice to all voters in the United States.
And I think that is starting to register with the Democratic ticket because we heard very strong language today from Kamala Harris who said, the life of a black person in America has never been treated as fully human, is what she had to say. And I think everybody recognizes that there are some very big issues that need to be rectified in the country. But that's a very strong statement.
And I think these stories are getting a lot of attention, and I think that they're -- we're going to be one to watch Alice Johnson tonight.
PERINO: I predict the rain will hold off.
MACCALLUM: Good. I like that one night.
PERINO: All right, "ONE MORE THING" is up next.
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WATTERS: It's time now for one more thing. Jesse's Shark News. Wow. I'm dressed like Gutfeld right there. All right, take a look at this video from the Coast Guard out in the Pacific. That's an eight-foot shark getting way too close to the crew of the Cutter Kimball who are just, you know, enjoying the little open swim time.
So, what the Coast Guard do, yes, they open fire, taking more than a dozen shots at the shark just trying to scare it away. I mean, wow, you see how close those people were. And they were successful though. And everybody including the shark was able to swim away to safety. Dana?
MACCALLUM: In their unicorn raft.
PERINO: Martha notices the important details on this.
WATTERS: She's got a good eye.
PERINO: All right. So, one Chick-fil-A seems to be perfecting the art of delivering their orders that their customers have. In North Carolina, customers brought their golden retriever Ellie with them to pick up their food, and then that's what she does. And this is -- she's learned how to do this. Ellie's owner is named Nick, and he said that this is how they've been able to practice social distancing. They make their order and then Ellie goes and picks it up. Look how happy she is. I assume that she gets a generous tip when she delivers. Good dog. That's all I got.
WATTERS: That's pretty good. Greg?
GUTFELD: All right, if you go to https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__FoxNewsPodcast.com&d=DwICAg&c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&r=tgDLkJy54PfJyWJwul3dKe54qGxqO7b7d5vjo7RcZds&m=xvqq9HkZ8koii6VtKnY2TodlfwgmDD3R9nzuq9zHzKA&s=8mMUZ-WsRzBzYtL7J0xpdtKkE6B2_pc7WJes-FIXbeQ&e= , I have a great interview with Jason Kraft. He's the CEO of Electric Bike Technologies. We spend a half an hour talking about the wheel. It's pretty fun. We talk about exercise, diet, but most important about how the electric bike could change your life. Speaking of travel, let's do this.
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GUTFELD: Animals are great. Animals are great animals. Animals are great animals.
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GUTFELD: Everyone wants to get back to school provided it's safe. Of course, disclaimer covered. Even the -- even the school bus driver Otto Furbag has been practicing at home in its portable school bus. I never understood why they're called guinea pigs. That is not a pig. There is no bacon on that creature. And if it is, it's probably very, very disgusting. So, don't eat a guinea pig. That's the wisdom of today.
WATTERS: Juan Williams.
WILLIAMS: Well, talk about turning lemons into lemonade? Those words came to life for a couple in Ohio when they were forced to change their wedding plans due to the virus. That's Melanie and Tyler Tapajna. They could not have a wedding reception dinner for 150 given concerns over the pandemic, so they took the food and donated it to Laura's Home, a Cleveland shelter for women and children.
The newlyweds did make one request though. They asked to serve the food and meet the women and children. So, in wedding gown and wedding tuxedo, the lovebirds serve the food creating a one of a kind wedding day memory. Congratulations to Melanie and Tyler.
PERINO: Nice.
WATTERS: I don't want to say anything rude, but -- I'm not going to say it.
PERINO: Yes. Let me hold your hand.
WATTERS: I'm not going to say it.
WILLIAMS: OK, all right.
WATTERS: Martha? It's not about you, Juan, not about you.
MACCALLUM: I just want to revisit -- I want to revisit a really nice moment last night for SoldiersStrong. After the Vice President's speech, they went down, the president and the vice president went down and shook hands with these veterans who thanks to the technology of exoskeleton, were able to get up out of their wheelchairs and look eye to eye at the commander in chief. And it was a very special moments.
It's a great organization I've been involved with for many years. Dana has helped them out over the years as well, Janice Dean, Harris Faulkner. So, hats off to SoldiersStrong and to these veterans. We thank them for their service.
WATTERS: I'll just say what I was going to say. Why would you wear your mask for your official wedding photo? I mean, really?
GUTFELD: That's not what you were going to say.
WATTERS: I'm glad I said it.
GUTFELD: That's not what you were going to say.
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