President Trump's media critics disappointed after hyping Robert Mueller's testimony

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President Trump's media critics disappointed after hyping Robert Mueller's testimony

Press frustrated by former special counsel Robert Mueller's performance at House hearings; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," July 24, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GREG GUTFELD, HOST: The Dems have nothing, now they have less than nothing. That was President Donald Trump. Hi, I'm Greg Gutfeld with Kennedy, Juan Williams, live from D.C., Jesse Watters here, and Sandra Smith. This is “The Five.”

So, we hear that Donald Trump is going to actually speak in a few more minutes. We're not sure when, so we'll go back to that. In the meantime, I want to get a quick reaction to President Trump's reaction to the Mueller hearing from the table and also from Juan, who was in D.C. Sandra --

SANDRA SMITH, HOST: Hi, Greg.

GUTFELD: Good to see you.

SMITH: It was quite a day. So the president just wrapped, really, what we were all witnessing throughout the day. In his own words, he said this was a bad day for our country. He then went on to say good day for him. He said -- you could say it was a great day for me. And Democrats, he said that they should be ashamed for bringing this on in the first place. On Republicans, he said that they defended something great today. He even called them warriors.

Robert Mueller, on his presentation, the president just said he believed that he didn't have a presentation. He did not have material when he went into those hearing rooms today. I think we're going to hear a lot more on this. Democrats are reacting tonight. It's not over yet.

GUTFELD: Oh, yes it is.

SMITH: A lot of disappointments on both sides of the aisle to this hearings today.

GUTFELD: I don't know, Jesse?

JESSE WATTERS, HOST: I'm not disappointed at all.

GUTFELD: Reaction to Trump, first?

WATTERS: Well, listen, he was extremely confident, preening, combative, sure of himself, he looked very, very confident and relaxed and relieved over today, because I think everybody agrees, even the Democrats and even the media would agree that this was as absolute catastrophe for them. I predicted this was going to back fire on the Democrats --

GUTFELD: You did.

WATTERS: -- backfired worse than I expected. The entire day, they tried to strike and light that match for impeachment and it just wouldn't light. There was no big TV moment. Mueller didn't deliver, he was stumbling, he was bumbling, Trump knows that because, optically, it was a bomb and, substantively, it was a bomb. And the way he was pushing back on the press right there, shows you how sure of himself he is that he's closed this chapter and impeachment.

I believe the impeachment train has stopped dead on the tracks. And the kind of questions that the White House correspondents were asking, it's almost like they didn't even watch the hearing, how biased and baseless they were. Are you worried about being indicted when you leave office? No, he's absolutely not worried about that.

GUTFELD: Kennedy?

KENNEDY, HOST: I thought it was very interesting, the president was really shot out of a cannon --

GUTFELD: Right.

KENNEDY: -- and we have to mark the contrast in tone and the reaction to today versus May 29th, when Robert Mueller came out and had that somewhat odd press conference where he managed to say two things. One of the things he said is, I don't want to go before Congress, and now we understand why he was hesitant to go before Congress. And the president was really waiting for a moment like this to button the whole thing up.

And Jesse is absolutely right, he was incredibly confident, he was combative, and the tone in the White House and for the president's allies markedly different than it was two months ago.

GUTFELD: Hey, Juan, are you there? I think President Trump was pretty happy with how this panned out, right?

JUAN WILLIAMS, HOST: Absolutely, no choke pill for him tonight. He's exuberant. That man is bubbling. He's like champagne. You know, I think, though, you know, you have to be careful because you shouldn't judge a congressional hearing by its entertainment value. But we live in an age of cable news and clicks and social media and you can see the wave right there, right?

So the wave -- and I think that's what President Trump is picking up on is, oh, my opponents feel deflated. And you heard that from Jesse, right? No, you know, no collusion, no obstruction.

It's easy to forget, Trump and the Republicans didn't want these hearings. But you get the hearing and now you get into a situation where I think a lot of people are saying, you know what, we thought the movie was going to be better than the book. Huh, it turns out the book was better than the movie, especially for the Democrats.

Well, you can't get away from the facts, and I think that's what the Democrats tried to show today. They laid out the case for obstruction, they laid out that Russia interfered, and as I -- you know, as you heard even at the very end, from Adam Schiff on the -- the chair --Democratic chair intelligence committee, he still thinks that there's a case to be made here. And the one thing that Mueller was clear on is Russia interfered in 2016 to help Trump, and they continue to interfere as we head toward 2020.

GUTFELD: It's -- the hype turned into tripe.

SMITH: There was so many awkward moments throughout the day, too. When you heard the president just there call into question -- and Andy McCarthy, by the way, reacting to this saying was even involved in the investigation, when you saw his -- the way he was ill prepared for some of the questions that came at him, including who appointed him in Massachusetts, U.S. attorney? He answered George H.W. Bush. He was quickly corrected by one of the lawmakers that it was Ronald Reagan.

Questions about -- how many of the witness interviews did you sit on? There were over 500 of them. He answered very few. About Fusion GPS, he said he was not familiar with Fusion GPS, the firm behind the Steele dossier? I mean, there was a lot of moments that stood out.

GUTFELD: I felt bad -- OK. Mueller is a stand-up guy. But I felt that -- I felt that the Democrats set him up and trotted him out when he wasn't ready or prepared and it made him look terrible.

WATTERS: Well, that's why he had that aide that was sworn in to try to help him follow along. He couldn't follow the questions. He didn't know what was in his own report. It was truthfully Weissmann's report. They just slapped Mueller's name on it. He was not running this investigation, he was asleep at the wheel, they trotted him out because he's got such great brand, because he's served this country so honorably for so many years.

But he had no clue what was going on. No clue about the hiring process. He didn't know any of the details. He was stammering and he was stumbling. And Juan likes to say that the Republicans were fearful of this, I think if the Republicans could go back and say, hey, maybe, I think we'd change our mind.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

WATTERS: I think we want this hearing and we were very happy that he went out and testified.

WILLIAMS: You were the one saying, don't bring Mueller here.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: I says it was going to back fire because Mueller wasn't prepared, and he was going to wilt under questioning from the Republicans on the committee, and that's exactly what happened.

WILLIAMS: No, no, no, an important distinction we made here, Jesse. He didn't wilt. I think he was - he thought, in his mind, I'm going to present myself as the ex-marine, the straight-shooter, a man of great rectitude, instead he came off as uncertain of the facts --

GUTFELD: Juan -- here we go.

WILLIAMS: -- unable to defend himself.

GUTFELD: We're going back to Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then your answers are generally untruthful, what do you say to that?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: He didn't say that at all. You're untruthful. You are untruthful. When you ask that question -- when you ask that question, you're untruthful. And you know who else is untruthful? You know who else is untruthful? His aides. And Weissmann was untruthful. And Weissmann got caught just like he did with Arthur Anderson, way he lost in the Supreme Court, nine to nothing.

His aides were very untruthful and they put Mueller -- and they put Mueller -- not at all. They put Mueller in a very bad position. His aides put him in a very bad position. And if you were ever truthful, you'd be able to write --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: No, I haven't. No, but I'm very happy. I haven't called Boris, but I'm very happy that he won. I'm very, very happy.

(INAUDIBLE)

TRUMP: So what happened was Strzok and Page, meaning the two lovers is a disgrace, because they had a lot of text messages and Mueller illegally deleted those text messages, and they didn't get too much into that because he forgot, he didn't really know, he didn't know too much, he didn't know anything.

But Strzok and Page were texting. Don't forget, they were the ones with the, just in case you should lose, we're going to have an insurance policy. This is the same Strzok and Page. So that was a very, very bad situation. What they did, and what Mueller did, he deleted that text messages back and forth, probably thousands of them. That's a serious problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, have you heard from Kim Jong-un?

(INAUDIBLE)

TRUMP: I think it's going to help us because everyone sees now that this thing has been going on for so long. In all fairness to Mueller, this has gone on long before Mueller. This has gone on from some time after we came down the escalator and I got great poll numbers, because from the beginning, I was leading. And this really took place sometime right after we came down the escalator, the first lady and myself. And I will tell you something, I think it's going to have a huge negative impact on 2020 for the Democrats.

(INAUDIBLE):

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President --

GUTFELD: So the only thing that could top that, Jesse, maybe my monologue.

WATTERS: I would agree, Greg.

GUTFELD: Let's do it. So can you repeat the question, sir.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you repeat the question, sir? That went a little fast for me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you repeat that, ma'am. Can you repeat the last part of that question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you repeat the question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The impact --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you read the last question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last question was --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to make certain I got it accurate. Again, can you repeat the question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And where are you reading from one on that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm reading from my question.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then, could you repeat it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: This is very, very painful. Those aren't my words. But David Axelrod, a Democrat, tweeting about the hearing, yep, as much as they hope for a 12 alarm fire, all the Dems got was a damp sparkler. They wanted the Empire Strikes Back, but got a rerun of Matlock. They wanted a Super Bowl, instead they got a test pattern. So, was it a disaster for the Democrats?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this has been a disaster for the Democrats, and I think it's been a disaster for the reputation of Robert Mueller. He is a very uncertain with his brief. He doesn't know -- seem to know what things are in the report.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: But don't just take it from him, I had to watch the thing, too. No choice. It was on at the gym, and it was either that or Real Housewives. If you did a shot every time Mueller said, could you repeat the question, you'd be dead. But that's not Mueller's fault, it's the Dems still intent on reliving the past hoping the ending changes, but it can't. They're like a guy who got dumped and thinks playing their song over and over might rekindle the romance, the conclusion, same as before.

Mueller says Trump's not guilty, but the Dems want him to go beyond that and say, OK, Trump may not be guilty, but that doesn't mean he's innocent. That is Trump wasn't exonerated, but exoneration, declaring someone innocent is impossible. Watch this painful exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Mueller, does the attorney general have the power or authority to exonerate? What I'm putting up here is the United States code, this is where the attorney general gets his power and the constitution and the annotated -- cases of this which we search -- we even went to your law school because I went to Case Western, but I thought maybe your law school teaches it differently.

And we got the criminal law textbook from your law school. Mr. Mueller, nowhere in these -- because we had them scanned, is there a process or description on exonerate. There's no office of exoneration at the attorney general's office. There's no certificate at bottom of his desk. Mr. Mueller, would you agree with me that the attorney general does not have the power to exonerate?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to pass on that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the headline on all of the news channels while you were testifying today. Mueller, Trump was not exonerated. Mr. Mueller, what you know is that this can't say Mueller exonerated Trump because you don't have the power or authority to exonerate Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Oh, that did not go well. And so a 400-page lump crafted by unhappy agenda-driven staffers collapses like a bad souffle. As Trump continues to unleash an economy that lifts all boats, his adversaries sit stranded, arms flailing, going nowhere. Stuck in the past as the future starts looking like 2016 all over again. The Democrats wanted so badly for Mueller to give his report new life, instead he took it out to the woods and shot it.

Kennedy, you want to bring up a point about impeachment?

KENNEDY: Yes. So now we have to ask because the Democrats were hoping that this was their best hope at igniting the fire of impeachment, because the pilot light is lit, the flames are there, so today was either kerosene or ice water.

GUTFELD: Yes.

KENNEDY: And unfortunately for Democrats who are pinning all of their hopes on this pivotal moment, it was the latter.

WATTERS: And here's why. The messenger was not effective. It was like he didn't have all his faculties, he was bumbling and stumbling, and just did not deliver the goods. It was clear that he was not running the investigation. He was just the figure head. And he testified under oath, Greg --

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: -- that his investigation was not obstructed. Yet, the Democrats want to impeach Trump for obstructing an investigation that the lead investigator said wasn't obstructed. Also, Trump is presumed innocent in this country. And what the hearing established was that when Mueller said that I cannot exonerate you, that he violated the bedrock principle of the American judicial system that you are innocent until proven guilty, and that he abused his prosecutorial authority by making that claim.

And, he had no control over his own team. He said he didn't even ask any questions when he hired his staff. They hired 14 Democrats, no Republicans, Clinton donors, Clinton lawyers, people that partied with Hillary the night she lost, they come on the team, he didn't even know about those conflicts, and when he found out about them, he didn't do anything about the conflict.

SMITH: But, you know, that was one of the moment, I think, that he got fired up the most today, was defending those on his staff, the lawyers that work for him when some lawmakers chose to question him about their political affiliation, Democrats donating to Hillary Clinton's campaign. He fired up and actually looked at everybody in the room and said not once when I have hired people to work on my team have I ever asked their political affiliation. I would say that's one of the one moment where he defended himself the most.

GUTFELD: Yeah, that was the only time he actually perked up. Juan, what about -- the bottomline, he does not have ability to exonerate and that just crushes the Democrats.

WILLIAMS: You know, I disagree, Greg, because it seems to me that he's the special counsel. He's not like a prosecutor in your hometown who either indicts or doesn't indict, goes to the grand jury and gets the charge or doesn't. He's a special counsel and under his mandate, he was to give a report. And by the way, he was supposed to be a private report, it was up to the Attorney General Bill Barr to release it. And Bill Barr released it, not in full, but as much as he thought was appropriate. And what he did was he said, I don't find the conspiracy -- and by the way, I thought you guys were going to hit Mueller on the fact that he couldn't distinguish conspiracy, you know, from -- collusion.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: We'll get there. It's a long show.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. But I'm just saying, I think that what he had in his hand was to say, one, and this is headline out of today, guess what, yes, the president can be indicted but we didn't make that determination because of the office of legal counsel direction, the policy direction coming from justice, and I think that's really important for people to understand. He was constrained.

WATTERS: Juan, I think you're saying he's the special counsel, that doesn't make him special, he's still a prosecutor. And no prosecutor --

WILLIAMS: No, he's not your ordinary prosecutor, Jesse.

WATTERS: No attorney general in America has the power to exonerate anybody.

GUTFELD: True.

WATTERS: You're innocent until you're proven guilty in a court of law --

WILLIAMS: I love it, Jesse, but that's not the case here. The case here is --

(CROSSTALK)

KENNEDY: I have to disagree with you, Juan, because he's appointed essentially as a prosecutor, and that is his job. And the basis of prosecution and the judicial system in this country is the presumption of innocence. That's where you have to work from, you cannot work backward. It's not a spy novel with excited twists and turns. It has to be pretty straight-forward if we're going to have equal justice under the law.

WILLIAMS: Kennedy, what you guys are saying is true if you were a street criminal. We're talking about a guy who is operating as a special counsel under special law. He didn't even have Ken Starr's authority. Ken Starr was a special prosecutor. This guy is a special counsel. He was supposed to issue a report. And in the report, he can say what he wants to say about exoneration. Again, this is a false standard being set up by Republicans to try to say, ah, nothing here.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: It wasn't John Dean.

SMITH: But, Juan, what about that exchange that Jesse just mentioned with Ratcliffe, though? Because he said -- he was asked by the congressman, Robert Mueller was, can you give an example other than Donald Trump, where the Department of Justice determined an investigative person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined?

He replied, Mueller replied, I cannot, but this is unique situation. Ratcliffe says we'll leave it there. I only wish they would have gone on with that statement and let him actually respond to that.

WATTERS: Yeah, it never happened in America, Juan. Never happened in America, Juan. This is not a banana republic. This guy has authority under the executive branch. He can do what he wants under those legal guidelines. He can't go out of those legal guidelines. And speaking of his mandate, he didn't even follow through on his mandate. His mandate was to look into Russian interference in the election. Yet, the core people involved in the origination of the investigation and the origination of the Russia collusion narrative, Ms. Foot, Glen Simpson and Christopher Steele, let off the hook by the special counsel. Ms. Foot lied three times, was never charged with perjury. Robert Mueller said he never heard of Fusion GPS, who is the Clinton dirty ops arm and got paid millions of dollar --

WILLIAMS: Oh, stop. Give it a break, Jesse. Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: -- and yet he looks the other way. That's why people think this is rigged --

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: How many times did he say not in my purview? Go ask people at justice, go ask intelligence agency, not what he was supposed to be looking at, Jesse.

WATTERS: Russia interference in the election covers collusion and Americans conspiring -- and that's what the Democrats did.

WILLIAMS: -- and the transition.

SMITH: Well, he had an opportunity to defend himself in that room today, and we didn't exactly see that. Moving on, we're about to hear from top Democrats reacting to Robert Mueller's testimony earlier today at the hearings. Democrats honed in on their key issue. Should President Trump be charged with a crime over obstruction of justice? Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice crimes after he leaves office, is it correct?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: True.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does obstruction of justice warrant a lot of time in jail if you were convicted?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did the President of the United States want you fired?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does ordering determination of the head of a criminal investigation constitute an obstructive act?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In my view, anyone else in America engaged in these actions, they would have been charged with witness tampering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: All right. So there was a lot of obsession in that room today. Kennedy, why don't you start us off here.

KENNEDY: Obviously, we see split hearings whenever you have big moments like this. And the Democrats tried several times to throw Robert Mueller various lifelines. And the only thing that really stuck and stirred emotion in Robert Mueller was when they were talking about his record, and there was still some confusion about that.

But Democrats also, you know, they were trying to sort of lead him into parts of the report that were damming for the president, and even with that and with that guidance, special counsel still shut them down with these one-word answers and the need for clarification over and over and over again.

SMITH: Greg, to quote Al Green a few moments ago, Democrat from Texas, a wow moment did not happen. Sol Wisenberg asked the question, you know -- or made the point, this did not move the needle. That's was what Democrats were hoping for. I thought it was amazing when Nancy Pelosi who we're about to hear from Democrats here in a short bit Nancy Pelosi was asked about the hearing and whether she was watching it, and she said, just a little bit.

GUTFELD: Yes, I know.

SMITH: Only a few moments.

GUTFELD: It was just passed by; she was passed by a big box store and saw it on the TV, and she was like - but this is - the Dems are caught in this dilemma. They love the indictment story. They love the collusion story, but America doesn't.

So, the more that they use these golf clubs, it keeps them from actually coming up and generating ideas that might attract voters. Collusion, the collusion argument is the equivalent of smoking pot when you wake up in the morning. You're going to get nothing done the rest of the day, Democrats, if you start on collusion early, you're done.

SMITH: Jesse?

WATTERS: Well, I would get off collusion because I think everybody knows that didn't happen. But on the obstruction thing you cannot impeach a President for obstructing a crime he didn't commit. You could not impeach a President for obstructing a crime that the lead investigator said, he wasn't obstructed on.

And of course, you're going to fight back when you've been framed by Democrats and then investigated by only Democrats who were coming after your company, your family, your personal assets and trying to set perjury traps for you, trying to tee up impeachment and trying to set up an obstruction case against you. You're going to fight back.

Yet he not only fought back, he complied. He never claimed executive privilege. He handed over thousands of documents and he won and that's what the Democrats want to impeach him for.

Now, POTUS never fired Robert Mueller. He never even said, fire Robert Mueller. He merely asked his personal lawyer to go ask the acting AG, hey, can we replace Robert Mueller with someone who is not conflicted. And if Democrats are going to hang their impeachment hat on that, go fishing.

SMITH: Let's ask Juan. Juan did this - today, these hearings helped persuade Nancy Pelosi in any way to move forward with impeachment, did it move the needle.

WILLIAMS: I don't think it moved it with Pelosi. In fact, Chris Wallace who was on the programming all day with me said, he thought this helped Nancy Pelosi because she has been trying to hold a lot of the Democratic firebrands back.

I think on the argument that, hey, the elections coming up and that you know if you make Trump into some kind of martyr, it might actually help him get reelected. But just let me say quickly in response to what Jesse was saying, Jesse, this is not again a street criminal activity. You've got to understand that when Trump says to his lawyer to Don McGahn, go fire Mueller. Call me back. What are you talking about?

That's on the record. That's in the report, you can read it.

WATTERS: Yes, I did read the report and I'm glad you brought that up Juan, because here's the truth about this. They got caught Mueller's team overcooking this statute, whatever it is, U.S. Code 151C2. This is a statute did they use against multinational companies for auditing irregularities and for shredding documents.

They creatively empowered this statute to make any executive action criminal. So, and they actually brought that up. They said, Barack Obama could be charged under the over interpretation of this statute when he went on the record and said that Hillary Clinton's e-mail server was not that big of a deal and wasn't a threat to national security. That's how convoluted and creative the use of this statute--

WILLIAMS: You are so far off.

WATTERS: And Bill Barr got caught them red handed trying to pull that. And that's what shut this investigation down.

WILLIAMS: You know what, you should be celebrating what happened today, instead you're in the--

WATTERS: I did.

WILLIAMS: And you're just distracting, but the reality is--

WATTERS: It's the facts. It's not a distraction.

WILLIAMS: No, those aren't facts. Those are you going off on some crazy facts--

WATTERS: Sorry, I said U.S. code. I'm sorry.

WILLIAMS: You should be happy.

SMITH: Kennedy.

MONTGOMERY: I want to add something to that very quickly, Democrats were hoping that this would be the kind of big splash that eclipses the IG report that's coming out.

And they also - it was very necessary for them to have Mueller testify before we get that. If you remember he was supposed to testify last week. And obviously you know this was put off by week for some very, very obvious reasons. And you know Robert Mueller came out himself and forcefully said in writing and in person that he did not want to testify.

And it's obvious why and we don't know what's going to be in that IG report, but there are many people who are starting to string some of these facts together who realize that that is an ugly necklace that could hang democrats from this issue.

SMITH: Juan, at the end of the day, the President tweeted out, truth is a force of nature. Earlier on, I believe this was after the conclusion of the first hearing with the Judiciary Committee today. He sent out and this is the first part of the tweet. I would like to thank Democrats for holding this morning's hearings.

This have to do with steering this morning about Mueller. A, being President and then he sorts of changed his mind as the morning went on. Do you think that Democrats are going to regret this, regret getting Robert Mueller in there for these hearings today?

WILLIAMS: No, you know in terms of moving the needle, in terms of the politics of it. I don't think that anybody who had an opinion going in changed it. And I think the Democrats had hoped that they would push especially independent voters based on the credibility of Robert Mueller as a war hero, a longtime FBI Director. I don't think that happened, so if that's what the Democrats are hoping for, a letdown.

MONTGOMERY: They have to do that as well Juan, I mean that was very necessary for Democrats today, because impeachment has not been polling well for them.

WILLIAMS: Oh! No. But remember, impeachment among Democrats polls very well. So what you've got to understand is the dynamic inside the Democratic Caucus which is why Chris Wallace was saying, Nancy Pelosi was actually may be quite grateful for what happened because now some of those fires may be pulling back, but in terms of the Democratic base, there is no question, they'd like to see Trump impeached.

Now, you have a question. What do we do go forward, you get this big August break coming up as we come back in September, are the Democrats going to come back to this? Because believe me, Adam Schiff, Adam Schiff is not going away. The whole talk of impeachment of this guy not going away.

SMITH: And I know that Jesse you had some sort of reaction when I said at the top of the show that there was disappointment on both sides and I was only alluding to the fact that Republicans did go into this hoping and wishing to dig in deeper to the origins of the Investigation. Robert Mueller made it very clear at the top of the hearing this morning that he would not go there.

GUTFELD: You're asking me?

SMITH: Right. Respond.

GUTFELD: You said, Jesse. Do I look like Jesse?

SMITH: You had some sort of reaction.

GUTFELD: I don't know. You know what, here's the deal. I'm more interested in how the media is going to portray this now, because I can't tell the difference between the media reaction and the Democratic reaction. They're sweaty feverish anti-Trump hatred makes it hard for anyone to take their righteous shrill end of the world shrieking today, seriously.

Since every day is the apocalypse, when you come to this hearing. No one's listening. Everybody is tuned out, but us, because we don't trust what we hear. Imagine if the media hadn't given into their bitter emotions after being humiliated in 2016, if CNN hadn't been fear mongering or had 12- person panel, call everybody racist, people might actually listen to this stuff, too late.

WATTERS: Let's go to the media stuff because today's hearings were also a major bust for the media. Remember these are the same people who spent years pushing a phony Trump Russia collusion, conspiracy theory and then they hype for months that Mueller's testimony would finally get Trump. But of course, none of that happened. Here's the best of the media's Mueller meltdown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the Democratic perspective to me so far, it's been a bit of a bust.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are telling a story particularly through a congressional hearing what you really want is the witness to tell the story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bob Mueller's grasp and presentation of the underlying facts was not very detailed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The shortcoming isn't appearing to not know basic fact patterns.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They fumbled the entire accountability mission that they were supposed to be having these last seven months. On optics, this was a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: So, Kennedy notice how the media is completely obsessed with the optics of this because it's always been about the optics it's never been about the substance, it's always been the optics of proving Trump guilty in the world of public opinion and getting the rest of the country to follow along.

MONTGOMERY: But the problem is when you shift the focus and you lessen the focus; it erodes whatever goal you ultimately have. And you know for people like Chuck Todd in the media and certainly for congressional Democrats they want that focus to be impeachment. But you know when you move from conspiracy to collusion to well this is a little bit unethical, that's very problematic when you're trying to make a forceful point.

And you can really sense the disappointment and you have to ask if you're so disappointed, what did you expect from today and how did you think the outcome was going to be any different from this. WATTERS: I think they thought Greg that the Democrats on the committee could sell it.

GUTFELD: Yes.

WATTERS: But apparently you know the OLC opinion, Don McGahn and Rosenstein can't really sell a political scandal the way maybe a burglary or dead body, a bribe would.

GUTFELD: And they had the edge. I mean the party and the media work hand in hand. I was - I said at the gym like it was 140 minutes I was there. CNN's lower third was Mueller. Trump was not exonerated. So, they just went with that.

So, Carnival News Network only had one thing to bark.

SMITH: Well, it was the first exchange.

GUTFELD: What?

SMITH: It was the first exchange.

GUTFELD: Yes. That's all they had. And the problem is they can't report on the good news because that's linked to Trump. So, they have this - they seized on the only thing they can because they don't care really about how good the country is going. They just want revenge for what happened to them, humiliated.

WILLIAMS: Hey, wait a second. Can I jump in here?

GUTFELD: No, Juan.

WILLIAMS: I mean wasn't Trump saying all along and believe me, you talk about media, his use of Twitter, his use of social media, Facebook, all the people he's had over the White House who support him online, wasn't Trump the one that's saying this is a witch hunt. This Russia stuff is a hoax.

WATTERS: And he is right.

WILLIAMS: Wasn't he the one that said Mueller - the Democrats and Mueller want a second bite of the apple. I mean he was going at it in terms of his media, his bubble. And he's getting through a message and guess what.

WATTERS: What?

WILLIAMS: It wasn't what he said. That's why I said to Jesse, you guys should have been saying, no obstruction, no collusion. Let's have him in here. Let's get Mueller in front of Congress.

WATTERS: We haven't really changed that line Juan.

WILLIAMS: He did make the point. Hang on.

WATTERS: No one has been charged with.

WILLIAMS: He did make the point that guess what this President can be, if it not--

WATTERS: If that's what you're going to take away from this hearing--

WILLIAMS: Could be indicted.

WATTERS: OK. Wait, not two years, wait six years and then you could lock Trump up. Sandra, I think one of the main takeaways from this today was that a lot of the American public maybe that hadn't been following this are hearing things from the very first time because they did a study.

MRTV about how the networks have portrayed this entire Russia investigation. 1.5 percent of the coverage was on the text messages, the dossier 1.3 percent of the coverage, the FISA abuse 0.8 percent of the coverage, the country doesn't even know unless you watch Fox or read certain things on Twitter about the corrupt origins of the investigation.

SMITH: Well, I think, and only time will tell. And again, we're waiting to hear from Democrats this evening. Further reaction how they're going to proceed after these hearings--

GUTFELD: They're at the bar.

SMITH: I wasn't at the gym when I saw this headline, I was working getting ready for--

GUTFELD: I was at the stair climber watching it. Not like chores.

SMITH: The New York Times headline, out of the gate was Republicans attack Mueller's investigation at hearing trying to portray Republicans in that room, the first hearing room is going on the attack and you know perhaps that was the way that they were dealing with Robert Mueller appearing sort of weak as you heard from even some Democrats in the media throughout the process.

MONTGOMERY: But how else are you supposed to get answers.

WATTERS: Right.

MONTGOMERY: And also, the Judiciary Committee is full of lawyers. You know you have a bunch of former prosecutors on that committee who are going to ask questions in a certain way, some to better effect than others.

My biggest problem was that Robert Mueller was the one who decided what he was going to talk about and was that something that he negotiated with the chair Jerry Nadler and Ranking Member Doug Collins, because when things got difficult for him instead of answering the question he would just say no, I'm not going to. That's not in my purview.

If magically certain things were not in his purview, although we're talking about the basis--

SMITH: Like Fusion GPS.

WATTERS: Basis for the investigation and that seems like a pretty critical link in this investigatory chain.

GUTFELD: What's amazing. They actually held mock hearings. I mean they actually practiced for this. WATTERS: I think the mock hearing probably went better than the real hearing.

GUTFELD: Exactly.

WATTERS: Hey, Juan, quick question. The fact that the media who we all know is one sided, they all hate Trump, but the fact that the media would admit on live TV that this thing was a catastrophe. How bad was it actually for Democrats, because they didn't even try to spin it? So, unless, it's really bad.

WILLIAMS: You have to say, the media was honest, because you agree with them, right.

WATTERS: Yes.

WILLIAMS: You think this did not go well for Democrats.

WATTERS: The only time they are honest is when they agree with me.

WILLIAMS: So, you've got to agree. But you know to me the big news here again is that there are facts out there and people. Tomorrow morning when they pick up the so-called media, I don't care if it's on the left or the right are going to see how you guys - guess what.

WATTERS: What?

WILLIAMS: He said that you can't indict a sitting President under policy. He didn't make that determination because of policy.

WATTERS: OK. So, Juan let me ask you this question then. He could have indicted someone else in the President's circle for obstruction and then that would have made the President an unindicted co-conspirator, why didn't he do that.

WILLIAMS: I don't know why he didn't. If you read the report.

WATTERS: You sound like him. He doesn't know.

WILLIAMS: What he says is--

MONTGOMERY: But I think that's a good question, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Even in the Michael Cohen situation with the payoffs to woman, he is identified as co-conspirator, they don't even name them there, so they are very respectful and protective of his rank as President.

WATTERS: You really think that the Mueller respects the President and it was protective above him.

WILLIAMS: Maybe after he leaves, he gets indicted.

WATTERS: OK. I disagree. Kennedy.

MONTGOMERY: Where is his John Mitchell. That's what I want to know, where is the guy standing behind the guy who is going to go to prison for these crimes and not just for process crimes, not just for being caught in certain traps and not answering questions.

And by the way, I thought that that was one of the best lines of questioning of the day was Jim Jordan talking about Joseph Mifsud.

WATTERS: Yes.

MONTGOMERY: And asking you know if here's a person who is clearly working for either British Intelligence or U.S. Intelligence. And Mueller obviously couldn't get clarification on that. But if he lied to the FBI and lied to Special Counsel three separate times, why wasn't he charged with one of these process crimes, because he was the impetus, he was the launching pad for this entire process. And I thought that was very well played by--

SMITH: Jesse when you go to the miscalculation by the media, you just saw the way some of the shows and some of the coverage, Martha and Bret were of course awesome this morning.

But some of the other media coverage when the hearing began this morning, George Stephanopoulos for example asked the question out of the gate, what will it mean about impeachment.

He went on to say and wonder what crimes would be revealed by Mueller, asking what will Mueller say about Russia, the President, and possible crimes. I mean there were high expectations by not just Democrats, but also the media heading into all of this.

WATTERS: Well, it sounds like Stephanopoulos never read the report, because we knew going into this that Mueller wasn't going to stray from the report.

GUTFELD: The report, it's actually taller than George.

WATTERS: You add up the report, I don't know who is taller.

GUTFELD: But the media, we have to never forget how hypocritical the media is to pretend now in 2019 that they cared about Russian collusion, when in the 80's they were very sympathetic with the USSR when there were eight times the size of Russia and would make fun of anti-communist and thought that you know that we had nothing to worry about.

When Obama made fun of Mitt Romney for being skeptical of Russians as ever being good for us. And then here and now all they care about is nailing Trump not actually looking at the collusion, the Russian side.

MONTGOMERY: OK. On that note, Christopher Wray came out in the last couple of days and sort of laid out the threat that China poses. And so, here we are still obsessing about Russia and that you know talk about retro. The early odds, once they're big foreign threat back and we really should be focusing on China and the ways that they have infiltrated culture and politics and technology.

SMITH: All right.

WATTERS: All right, Juan.

WILLIAMS: No.

WATTERS: Want to take us from here. Want to take it away for us.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know what, I think really what this is all driving toward is the 2020 election. And I think that's where we're going to see the impact of what took place today. So, what you get is a situation where people already are trying to figure out the politics of it.

We have a Democratic debate scheduled for next week. We'll see how the Democrats handle what took place here today. Do they see it as a dud, or do they see it differently? Sandra, what do you think happens at the debates?

SMITH: At the debates?

WILLIAMS: Yes.

SMITH: I think Mueller conversation, where does it go from here. I think that's what we're about to hear from Democrats, we're waiting on Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leadership is about to talk and the actual basis of what we are about to hear I think that the press release is right here.

They're going to hold a press availability after the Mueller hearings, how they plan to proceed after the hearings took place this morning. This has been such a huge narrative for them. And you've heard so much from the Presidential candidates on this Juan. I'd ask you, what part is this now going to play in 2020. How much can Democrats still lean on this narrative.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think they have so many problems with Trump. I don't think they have to sell it. I think they have to be convincing. And then once they head towards the general election, we're going to see a shift. I think that's where we'll see it. But let's take a look at this. We have some reaction from some Democrats, here they are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No matter what this current Attorney General and the President of the United States try to say the American people are smart enough to know what is and what is not truth.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Donald Trump did everything he could to obstruct justice. It is time to bring impeachment charges against him.

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-N.J., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A report is enough of an--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Here we go.

WILLIAMS: All right, so here we see Democrats - go Democrats go.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF.: Public awareness on what happened and how it conforms to the law or not. The President likes to have his poster that said the Mueller Report took this many day, cost this much money. This, that and the other. Well we have a corresponding contradictory chart. Mueller investigation by the numbers. $40 million recovered for the U.S. government. Remember he said how much it will cost less than that. 37 people and entities charged with crimes, 25 ongoing criminal cases referred, seven convicted including five top Trump campaign officials.

And then he had no collusion, no this or that. 10 instances of obstruction. Yes. No exoneration. That's some of what we heard today. I just want to go to another point. At the same time as we're on this path of the Mueller investigation to recognize that the Mueller investigation was prohibited from looking into the President's finances and that is what our committees of jurisdiction have been doing.

As we legislate for the good of the American people, we're also investigating so that we have the grist for the mill to litigate in court and those cases we've won in lower courts. They of course appealed. We feel strongly that our position - about the position of Article 1, the legislative branch having the right to have oversight over every other branch of government. But that's important because it means we can get the information to show the American people what the obstruction of justice was further all about.

I'm very, very proud of our committees, the Judiciary Committee and great Chairman Jerry Nadler, the Intelligence Committee, great Chairman Adam Schiff. We're going to hear from them now. We're also joined by Elijah Cummings, Chair of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, a committee that has winning its courts in case as well. So, I'm going to yield with great respect to all three of our Chairman and then we'll take some questions.

First, I'll yield to distinguished Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Nadler.

REP. JERRY NADLER, D-N.Y.: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today, the American people heard directly about what the special counsel investigation uncovered as to Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the President's cooperation with it and obstruction of justice.

Mueller made clear that the President is not exonerated. Mueller found evidence of obstruction of justice and abuses of power by the President. He said - the report said the President could be indicted for obstruction of justice after he leaves office.

Mueller found that Trump would and did benefit from Russia's help and that the campaign welcomed that help. Mueller found multiple instances where all three elements for charging criminal obstruction of justice were met trying to fire the special counsel in order to stop the investigation.

Trying to have people lie and cover up for him for the same purpose, trying to limit or impede or constrict the special counsel's investigation, trying to tamper with witnesses, tamper with witnesses, cooperating with investigators.

All of these were found with great evidence. President Trump went to great lengths to obstruct this special counsel's investigation. Anyone else who acted in this way if they were not the sitting President would face criminal prosecution, would face indictments.

Only the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion that you cannot indict a sitting President has saved or is saving the President from indictment, because all the elements of these crimes were found with substantial evidence and the people have now heard this. The President's chant of no obstruction is nonsense. His chant that he's been totally exonerated is a simple lie.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: First of all, I want to thank Director Mueller for a lifetime of service to the country from his days as a young Marine in Vietnam through his decades of service as a prosecutor, as the Director of the FBI and through his service as special counsel. This nation owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.

So, Director Mueller, I want to thank you personally for all of your service. Today, the director outlined in powerful words, how Russia intervened massively in our election, systematically in a sweeping fashion. How during the course of that intervention, they made multiple approaches to the Trump campaign? And far from shunning that foreign involvement in our election, the Trump campaign welcomed it, made full use of it, put it into its communications and messaging strategy and then lied about it.

Lied about it to cover it up, lied about it to obstruct the investigation into that very attack on our democracy.

Part of what I found so powerful about his testimony today was not just when he was asked about the law but when he was asked about the ethics, the morality, the lack of patriotism of this conduct. And perhaps one of the most chilling moments I think in our committee was when he expressed the fear that this become the new normal.

And of course, I think what is animating that fear of the director would certainly animates it for me is the fact even after the nightmare of the last two and a half years, the President of the United States will still not forswear receiving foreign help again. That to this point, the President still continues to call this Russian attack on our democracy a hoax. Something that Director Mueller today directly refuted that he still calls a witch hunt something that Director Mueller today directly refuted.

And so, we go into this next election more vulnerable than we should be. We can't control completely what Russia does although we must do everything, we can to harden our election defenses to make sure there are paper trails, to make sure that we deter and disrupt any kind of Russian intervention.

But we cannot control that completely, but we can control what we do. And Director Mueller made it clear in no uncertain terms that it's up to us whether we act ethically and patriotically, whether we refuse to be a party to a foreign attack on our democracy. And once again, I thank him for his service.

PELOSI: Thank you. Elijah.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, D-MD: Thank you very much. I first want to applaud Chairman Nadler who heads our Judiciary Committee and certainly our Chairman of Intelligence Committee for what they did today and their committees.

What they did was paint a picture for America. One of the most chilling things that I have noticed that I witnessed is when a member of - a former member of our committee, Mr. Amash, a Republican went to a town hall meeting. And got a round of applause in a Republican district after he had said that he felt that the President should be impeached.

But that wasn't a thing that got me, what really got me was when a lady at the end of the townhall meeting said, I didn't know that there was anything negative in the Mueller Report about President Trump. This says a lot. And to her credit, our speaker made it clear that we needed to paint a picture for America, so they could fully understand what is going on. This is a critical moment in our country's history. Don't be fooled and--

GUTFELD: All right. We've got time for some final thoughts. I want to go first. It's clear Pelosi didn't watch it, because she talked about seized assets. That was like a point she had already, which I think if we can do the seized assets from the investigation, let's use it to build a wall.

WATTERS: There you go.

SMITH: Nancy Pelosi calling this the crossing of a threshold, it was a big day for us. She said she watched it a little bit when asked earlier, she says the American people now realize more fully the crimes that were committed against our constitution. I think this gives you some sense that the calls for impeachment will not completely be ignored by the Speaker of the House.

WATTERS: Well, Nancy Pelosi was smiling because it was over today not because it went well. She's now pivoting to getting Trump's taxes, Nadler and Schiff look like they need Prozac. It was ugly up there. It looked like there was a death in the family. Again, they've done nothing. Nancy's Congress so far besides a hundred hearings on a hoax and they've shutdown the government. They've done nothing on health care infrastructure, trade or drug prices. And at the end of this, no one was charged with collusion or criminal conspiracy and no one was charged with obstruction.

MONTGOMERY: Oh! But there is no exoneration, there is no statute.

WATTERS: That's right.

MONTGOMERY: It's interesting if you look at the tone of the Democrats in the press conference they just had and the tone that the President had when he was talking to the press that we had at the very top of the show. And those are so different. You know that is such a contrast. If Chuck Todd says it is all about optics, then it's very obvious how the optics are--

GUTFELD: You get a better haircut if that were the case. Juan, final thoughts.

WILLIAMS: Well, I thought Nancy Pelosi made her point. You know she said look, we have oversight responsibility and then you heard Nadler come forward and said, anybody else who had been found to have obstructed in this manner would be indicted. Maybe that will come through as news. You heard Elijah Cummings say at the end, a lot of Americans didn't read the report. Maybe this will get through. But I think overall--

WATTERS: Mueller didn't say it either Juan.

WILLIAMS: You saw President, you saw the Democrats, the President is the happy guy. Right.

GUTFELD: All right. Mueller probably didn't read it.

WATTERS: Like the rest of the country.

GUTFELD: All right. That is it for us. What an exciting day. Oh, God, snore. Anyway, "Special Report" is up next. Watch it.

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