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Gutfeld: Time for amnesty in bitter GOP fight?

Decisions made in anger don't work when buying a car or a house. Why employ it when picking a president?

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 28, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: I'm Greg Gutfeld with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Geraldo Rivera, Eric Bolling and she naps on a cotton ball, Dana Perino -- "The Five."

We've heard there's a civil war in the Republican Party, but there's nothing civil about it. You're either pro-Trump or #neverTrump, inside or out, elitist or crazy. So how did we get here? How do we get out? Oddly, we can handle differences with the left, but not with allies who disagree.

The current conflict derived from defining by difference: When you say you're against something, instead of what you're for. Throw the bums out is the gold standard of such thinking, targeting obviously politicians.

But decisions made in anger, they don't work when you're buying a car or a house. Why employ it when picking a president? Because, let's face it, it feels awesome even if the pleasure is inversely proportional to the reward. For anger undermines reason, it eggs on incoherence and then incites a blame war if it all goes to hell. So is it time for the great men, an amnesty among the allies, a willingness to replace anger with humor and laugh off the division instead of ending old friendships?

This season has done something to the right, something new: conflating the political with the personal. Unlike the left, our lives never hinged on politics. We actually had lives. 2016 changed that. We need to change it back to a cheerful aloofness. Like a pal who married someone you can't stand, you learn to live with whatever they love about him or her. You could forever question their intent, but ultimately you let them live with the choices they make even if you must live with them, too.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: I think it's OK to have differences. I call on myself.

GUTFELD: Yes.

GUILFOYLE: I think --

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: That was great.

GUILFOYLE: For me.

GUTFELD: Yes.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah, I really do. Because you know, when you think about a lot of people saying, let's unite the party, let's all get under one tent. And I totally get that, because I don't want the democrats to take the White House. Specifically, because I don't, you know.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

GUILFOYLE: . endorse the candidacy of Hillary Clinton -- Joe Biden, I don't mind, per se. But the point is it's OK for people to have the differences to try to -- I think ultimately, make the party broader. Remember those people out there, yes, that are pro Trump or pro Cruz that perhaps weren't engaged before in the process and now they feel invigorated and passionate about it. I like the idea of discourse. I like the idea of differences and people really advocating and sharing their voice about what they believe in, right?

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: I think that --

GUILFOYLE: It just makes us better --

GUTFELD: It does make. And I do think criticism is the engine of such reason. Eric, safely say we've never seen this kind of conflict among friends, right?

BOLLING: It's amazing --

GUTFELD: Yeah.

BOLLING: How people on the right, will attack. So if you're perceived as pro Trump or Trump supporter, the Cruz people distract -- they just --you say one thing, even if it's just statistic. Are you in the tank or you're working for him. He's paying you. Or on the other side, I'm sure the people who are pro Cruz are getting it from the Trump people.

GUTFELD: Yeah, yeah.

BOLLING: What a divide that this has created, unfortunately. Who is benefiting from it?

GUILFOYLE: Hillary.

BOLLING: Hillary Clinton and democrats. So at some point, whenever it is, we need to coalesce around someone. I will agree only.

GUILFOYLE: 1237.

BOLLING: . at one thing, though. And you, I think you said in your monologue, it's bringing more people to the process. I was having dinner with friends last night; he was like, you know, I've never paid attention to politics.

PERINO: Paid?

BOLLING: . ever in my entire life. And he starts reciting something that Cruz said and Trump said. So this is good. And the turn-out, the numbers on the GOP sigh up 65 percent. I saw a stat today.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah.

BOLLING: Trump right now has 10.1 million votes. He will break the record all-time held by George W. Bush in 2000 who had 10.8 million through the whole primary process. So it's only one or two more contests, and Trump is going to break that number. So people are engaged and they're in tune to what's going on. I think it's good for the process.

GUTFELD: That argue you said, I will argue, again, for not saying that he's bringing people in that aren't voting for him -- too, but yes.

BOLLING: Absolutely.

GUTFELD: Yes. So it's like --

BOLLING: Yeah, because he hasn't locked it down.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

BOLLING: Right now he has 200,000 more votes than Romney had the whole year.

GUTFELD: Right.

BOLLING: . in 2012. And Trump still hasn't locked down the nomination.

GUTFELD: Yeah, that's true. Dana --

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: I was just distracted. Look, the picture in the back it looked like there was actually somebody standing over Eric's shoulder when we were there and I was just a little --

GUTFELD: Were you going to call the secret service?

PERINO: I agree --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Because I mean, do you see what I mean?

GUTFELD: Yes, yes.

PERINO: See?

GUTFELD: Yes --

PERINO: I thought somebody was coming to get Geraldo.

(LAUGHTER)

GUTFELD: Oh, we can dream.

GERALDO RIVERA, CO-HOST: I am beloved in this city.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: I think part of this thing that has ruled it.

RIVERA: It is Trump.

BOLLING: It is Trump.

PERINO: . is the media.

GUTFELD: Yeah, definitely.

PERINO: Because you could pay attention to.

RIVERA: That variance -- I agree.

PERINO: . to the news. You could read the newspaper, you could watch the evening news, you could maybe go to a town hall meeting, but you actually had to like get an -- it used to be that you got your notifications from the Republican Party in the mail, and then you went down to the event. And now, you can participate all day long. And I do think there's a little bit of fatigue that could settle in. And a lot of people in Europe will ask -- all around the world. Why do your campaigns last for two years?

GUTFELD: Yeah.

PERINO: When you -- you know, if you're in Britain, you can call an election and say, OK, it will be six weeks from now. And then it's every -- those kind of races. It's just the way that we have it. I do think that the alienation, though, that comes from that is real and it's hard to overcome.

RIVERA: And yet --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: And yet, you have the situation where Donald Trump is saying very nice things about Marco Rubio. Who would have figured that would ever be healed?

PERINO: Now.

RIVERA: Now, is that the point --

PERINO: Well, healed on whose side? I mean, healed on the part of the attacker, right? I mean --

RIVERA: Well, I haven't heard Rubio say anything negative about --

PERINO: He hasn't said anything.

RIVERA: He hasn't said anything.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: I think that's a fair point. But I think that with Trump trying to mend the Rubio gap. I remember little Marco and the who's Johnson is bigger and all the rest of that. However, I think that with --

PERINO: What does that mean?

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Cut it out.

RIVERA: I think with Cruz and Trump, the gap is irreparable.

GUTFELD: Right.

RIVERA: It just seems to me that there is such -- look, Cruz has not been able to heal the gulf between himself and his fellow republicans in the United States Senate. Why should look at the -- you know, the relationship with the former speaker of the house, John Boehner. I think --

GUTFELD: We're going to talk that later.

RIVERA: That (inaudible) may be unbridgeable.

GUTFELD: I think -- can we admit though, that Trump isn't as dangerous as critics think. He's not as great as supporters think. The truth is always somewhere in the middle, right?

GUILFOYLE: Yeah. I mean I think that --

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Yeah, of course you're going to see some interesting alliances come out of this. And I think if the polls continue to hold, you've got right now six percentage points, right, that Trump is ahead so far of Cruz in Indiana.

RIVERA: In Indiana.

GUILFOYLE: And if he's able to get Indiana, I mean really, there's going to be a strong argument, why does Cruz stay in, right? It's kind of like all riding on that in the house in Vegas.

GUTFELD: Good transition.

GUILFOYLE: You're welcome.

GUTFELD: The Bobby Knight, of course, if there would be any basketball coach that would endorse Trump and you have to guess who it would be if it were a "Jeopardy" question, he would you say Bobby Knight endorse Trump -- obviously endorse (inaudible). He had a very colorful speech today, let's roll a little.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY KNIGHT, FORMER INDIANA BASKETBALL COACH: I'm not here to represent the Republican Party. You know quite frankly, I don't give a damn about the republicans.

(APPLAUSE)

KNIGHT: And then on the other hand, I don't give a damn about the democrats, either.

(APPLAUSE)

KNIGHT: This man is not a republican, he's not a democrat. At heart he's just a great American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: You know, Dana, it's kind of like the pope endorsing you for a Vatican -- mayor of Vatican City -- for Indiana, because he's such a big -- he's a big character.

PERINO: Yes, he is.

GUTFELD: He is.

PERINO: And I think one of the things that he was talking about is just, you talk about the rejection of ideology. And so I think about some people that I grew up with in Colorado and Wyoming who have strong feelings in this election, OK.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

PERINO: And they feel like they don't really have anyone to vote for at the moment. But the litmus test that you have to check all of these boxes and then you can be in the party, whether it be republicans or democrats, there are people that for many years have just rejected that. And sort of felt like, I think that's why you got people that used to say, well, I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal, because they didn't want to have to be put in the box.

GUTFELD: The Geraldo republican.

PERINO: And millennials in particular, they do not like to be labeled in anyway, which is why you see that in the majority of the country, the pew report last year for the first time showed that neither republicans nor democrats have a majority of affiliation in the country, that they are independents. So there is a realignment happening and I think part of it is what he -- but Bobby Knight was talking about, which is that he doesn't care about the party. He just cares about the results and for -- and hopefully for a better America.

BOLLING: This is such a great endorsement. Donald Trump plays these things so well. So Ted Cruz has the Carly Fiorina announcement, the VP announcement, and he comes back with this. And this is really huge, Bobby Knight was an amazing basketball coach, but he broke all the rules. He yelled --

GUILFOYLE: Unconventional.

PERINO: He doesn't care.

BOLLING: He even goes beyond unconventional. He broke the rules.

RIVERA: He threw a chair.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah.

BOLLING: He threw chairs.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: He hit you in the nose, Geraldo.

GUILFOYLE: Punched --

(LAUGHTER)

GUILFOYLE: Punched a player.

BOLLING: He did the things --

RIVERA: My kind of a man.

BOLLING: He did the things that you go, you can't do that, and you can't do that right now. But you know what he did also? He won basketball games, he won championships. He was the best coach I think, maybe besides Coach K ever to grace college basketball. But he is the -- Trump.

RIVERA: In the previous state --

BOLLING: Trump is the embodiment of Bobby Knight in politics.

RIVERA: Bobby Knight speaks the truth and I've been trying to make that point. He is correct when he says Trump not a republican and he's not a democrat.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

RIVERA: I remember when I spoke to Trump about running for president, years ago.

GUTFELD: But is he then?

RIVERA: He was going to --

GUILFOYLE: He's a Trump.

RIVERA: He's going to run as a democrat.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

RIVERA: Now he's a republican. Not only is he a republican, he's an anti- abortion, anti-immigration republican, the conservative republican. I think Trump has evolved. I think that Trump is Trump. I think he is, the cult of personality is huge, and I think that he is a movie star and I think he's a very formidable candidate, and I wish Cruz would just go home.

PERINO: Is this -- but if that is true, I mean, part of the thing of argumentation is that putting yourself in somebody else's shoes. So you're asking life-long republicans then who believe in the party and want to preserve the principles than to vote for somebody who says they don't care about the party. And I -- I do think that alienation is real and no republican has won if they didn't have 90 percent of republicans voting for them. That's true for democrats, too; easier for them to do, I think this year. But you've got to figure out a way to heal that up and I think the alienation being so deep. And for that very reason that you said, I think it's hard to get to 90 percent right now. Anything can happen.

GUILFOYLE: How do you do it?

PERINO: Well, look that, you know, there were decisions that were made early on that. I think when you, when the history of this is all written, say Donald Trump becomes president, it will say, didn't matter. OK, that's fine. If he doesn't, then I think you could point to several things and say that was so alienating for certain people with take your pick about whatever issue it is. I think that that is going to be hard to overcome.

BOLLING: Can I just -- do you not think that also, though, that the -- this never Trump crowd and the establishment who has decided, let's just derail Trump rather than getting behind him and trying beating Hillary. That doesn't help, either. I mean I understand what you are saying were.

PERINO: Yup.

BOLLING: . Geraldo points out he's not the conventional republican, may that what the -- the traditional republican would love to vote for. That may be divisive, but also the push-back on the traditional republican saying.

PERINO: Yeah.

BOLLING: . I can't vote for him.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: Remember what you said about turnout, therein lies the key to this mystery.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah, it's true.

RIVERA: I think Trump motivates and turns out people who may have never voted before.

PERINO: Can I -- can I just point one thing out though, that today -- I want republicans to not have wishful thinking and be very clear-eyed about something. There are reports about the Hispanic voter registration in the country, and it is astounding. In 2012, 11 million Hispanics voted, but 12 million more were eligible to vote. So the democrats and republicans knowing that this year, Hispanic voter registration is up like something a hundred and twenty percent in key states; Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California. And if this race is going to be as close as we think it's going to be, that absolutely matters.

GUILFOYLE: And pick Rubio.

RIVERA: I agree.

PERINO: So everybody has to be very clear-eyed about this.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: And I agree on that.

PERINO: I don't think it helps enough.

RIVERA: And that is why.

GUILFOYLE: You got to do something.

RIVERA: . Trump will moderate his position on.

GUILFOYLE: Something.

RIVERA: . immigration and that is why the one thing you did not hear in that foreign policy speech he made was the wall.

GUTFELD: The wall.

RIVERA: The wall went down.

GUTFELD: The wall went down.

GUTFELD: The wall went --

GUTFELD: He tore down his own wall.

RIVERA: It was --

GUTFELD: He said, Donald, tear down that wall you said you were going to build.

PERINO: Well, which I think -- but then when you go back, again, I just say what could -- what happened that cause that? I mean, that belief was -- if you have a 77 to 85 percent negative rating with Hispanics. At the moment, you have to figure out a way to make that up because you need about 40 percent.

RIVERA: Agree.

BOLLING: Vice president.

PERINO: Unless you bring up all these new people.

BOLLING: Vice president.

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: You need vote.

PERINO: How many people vote, Kimberly.

BOLLING: That would be very helpful.

PERINO: . for based on the vice presidential pick?

GUILFOYLE: One percent.

PERINO: All right. There you go.

GUTFELD: All right. OK.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLLING: In the past --

GUILFOYLE: I'm your SOT.

BOLLING: This is a whole new ball game.

GUILFOYLE: The sound on tape.

BOLLING: The all of the conventional wisdom is out the door.

GUTFELD: All right.

GUILFOYLE: OK, republicans break all your big plans.

GUTFELD: Trump unveiled his foreign policy strategy yesterday. Hear what generals, ambassadors, senators and others think about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: I love that. All right, there's been a lot of buzz about Donald Trump's foreign policy speech yesterday where he laid out his vision to keep America safe. He won praise from some foreign policy experts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER UN AMBASSADOR: I thought it was a very strong and impressive speech. His analysis of the many failings of Obama, the Obama administration's foreign policy was on target.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER HEAD OF THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: I think the coherence of what he stated and what has been different for probably the last, at least the last 50 years is in one word, and that's winning. We have to get America back on the track of winning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Others weren't as impressed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Remarkably, he gives a speech that's now written and that he reads off a teleprompter; that it is wandering, and meandering, and incoherent as when he speaks off the cuff.

DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA, IRREGULAR WARFARE AND TERRORISM EXPERT: I don't see enough meat here on the bone and the speech he gave today is in various places ultimately contradictories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

GUILFOYLE: Say it, the way you say it.

PERINO: Gorka.

GUTFELD: Gorka.

GUILFOYLE: All right, so now that you're talking.

GUTFELD: Oh, I think -- it is a mixed bag. I think that you could -- you could look at this and see the good and the bad. What's good is the -- OK, the American first idea is not new. You should be of everybody thinks that way. However, the perception --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Yeah. But the reception is that Obama has put America last. So the distinction that he's making is very important and people understand it, because we feel for the past eight years that Obama has been worldly instead of americanly (ph), and that is important. But there were a mountain of contradictions in his speech. You know, he's isolationist and then he's mad at Obama because he didn't do anything about Syria. He said it was bad when you live in Libya, even though he wanted to be in Libya. There's a lot of stuff like that. But the fact that he's unpredictable and makes foreign powers nervous is kind of refreshing, because I'm -- we're always the good cop. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to be the bad cop or just pretend to be the bad cop.

BOLLING: You sound like you're coming around.

GUTFELD: No, I said that a long time ago.

BOLLING: No, no.

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: And now --

PERINO: Oh, now you gonna --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Twitter feed.

GUILFOYLE: And now --

GUTFELD: No, no.

GUILFOYLE: Yesterday --

GUTFELD: I said that before he ran. I said that America should always be the crazy nation.

BOLLING: Yeah.

GUTFELD: . once in a while.

BOLLING: Yeah. And that's -- and for me that was the biggest take-away there that if you're a world leader and you watch that speech, and you already had this impression of Donald Trump, already, you're like wow, I'm not sure what we're going to get. I'm not sure we're not gonna get pat on the back or punch in the face, and I think that for once, will be a god thing. Because President Obama clearly said they're gonna -- America is not exceptional, we're just one of you. Everyone is equal. We want --

GUILFOYLE: Apology --

BOLLING: The apology tour that started and went through Cairo, (inaudible). This is a nice refreshing change for me.

RIVERA: I thought he was nervous and tentative in reading that prompter.

GUILFOYLE: Those are --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: And I say that he came up to me in the "Apprentice" final finale and always very respectful. He said this, "Were you nervous, when you're on stage doing the finale?" And so I -- I turned it back on him. I thought that reading the teleprompter, he was awkward, almost amateurish, and it was nothing like the confident person who has really with pure charisma and verve done so well in this campaign.

GUILFOYLE: We've got to get used to those facts. I got to tell you --

RIVERA: I agree.

GUILFOYLE: I don't like them.

RIVERA: I agree. That's defensive.

GUILFOYLE: And you emcee an event and you have those, it's like a weird thing. I don't know what's up with it. But anyway, but you've got to practice with that. What about names? Maybe some of these world leaders are worried about what their nickname may be, Dana.

(LAUGHTER)

PERINO: Well --

GUILFOYLE: Like Putin is like, uh- oh.

PERINO: Well, Putin, you know, Putin complimented it. But you know compliment from Putin is not something that I would necessarily accept. Here's what I think about this, that nobody that goes into the oval office has enough foreign policy experience before they walk in on that day -- no one. Not even Condi Rice or Hillary Clinton, nobody does because the world -- it's complicated, obviously. And I think one of the reasons there were contradictions is because it's just you have to make judgment calls. And I think this -- a speech like this doesn't necessarily have to be given on a teleprompter, except for it's in Washington, D.C. and you're in front of the foreign policy elites and they're going to nit-pick everything that you say. But because the White House is the decision-making experience, you want to know is what is your core governing philosophy, and I think that what I would have added to the speech is that we're going to act in America's interests to protect our own national security. It doesn't mean that we're going to go after your treasure or your territory, because America has never done that, but we will protect our national security. That would probably help him, especially with women.

GUILFOYLE: And yeah, I think you're right. And when I thought about it too is that, you know, he's really proved to himself. And I thought about the slot today to be highly adaptable individual, especially being new to politics, to be able to kind of maneuver and manage to come this far, to bring that many people in and now you see him giving a speech like a POTUS would do, you know, with a teleprompter and talking about foreign policy. It's almost like out of a dream or something, Geraldo.

GUTFELD: Are you saying out of a dream?

(CROSSTALK)

GUILFOYLE: Like it's not --

GUTFELD: What is happening?

GUILFOYLE: It's like out of a movie. It's like out of some --

RIVERA: Would he -- or he is confused American military might to free those girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram.

PERINO: Right.

RIVERA: . in Africa.

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Is it that in America's national interest? And because --

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Where is your humanitarian heart? I mean, that -- those are questions.

RIVERA: But -

PERINO: . you can't decide until you get there.

RIVERA: But isn't he right about the fact that so many of these nations don't pay enough of their GDP--

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: I like that also, but I'll tell --

PERINO: Not a new issue, though.

BOLLING: I think the most controversial thing that he said during that speech was that he would turn Syria over -- let Russia take care of Syria. That was --

PERINO: Didn't we already do that?

BOLLING: More on, I mean--

GUILFOYLE: We kind of advance.

BOLLING: Made by default we did.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: Right.

GUILFOYLE: I got that one.

BOLLING: But to stick it out and say that, boy --

(CROSSTALK)

RIVERA: I like that he and Putin --

BOLLING: Where do you put that, though? You don't put that on a democrat.

GUILFOYLE: OK.

BOLLING: . they won't put that or a republican.

GUILFOYLE: It's like --

BOLLING: That's kind of -- I don't know where that is, little libertarian.

GUILFOYLE: On the big --

GUTFELD: Yeah, but then he's against globalism, which is like ridiculous. It's 2016.

RIVERA: But if two macho guys get together, Russia and United States can do anything. They could do Syria --

GUILFOYLE: With the world map.

RIVERA: I think.

GUILFOYLE: . and divide it up. OK, you've got Syria.

RIVERA: Yeah, yeah. It's almost like a Mike Myers movie.

GUILFOYLE: All right.

RIVERA: But I think that they could do it.

GUILFOYLE: OK.

PERINO: Exactly.

GUILFOYLE: So much more to come. It's pretty interesting there, don't you think? So there's a new movie in the works, not a dream, about former President Ronald Reagan, and his family is not happy about it. Hear why in the Fastest 7 with Bolling, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: This weekend while overseas in the U.K., President Obama took credit for saving the world economy from a great depression. Now in a new interview with "New York Times" magazine, he says he's not getting the credit he deserves for rescuing our economy. He boasts about his legacy -- legacy saying, quote, "We probably managed this better than any large economy on earth in modern history." New numbers out today -- don't reflect to that assessment. The economy has slowed more than expected, growing at its weakest pace in the first quarter by only .5 percent. Even former President Bill Clinton isn't backing up President Obama's claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: The problem is, 80 percent of the American people are still living on what they were living on the day before the crash. And about half of the American people after you adjust for inflation are living on what they were living on the last day I was president -- 15 years ago. So that's what the matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: I think, Eric, this is one of the reasons that you get the polls saying that 70 percent of the country thinks the country is going in the wrong direction, and that 80 percent are worried about the economy.

BOLLING: Yeah. It's huge opportunity for either side, but most likely the GOP side, because the GOP are the ones who really focus on the economy and make changes that inspire growth. Growth is the ultimate -- the only thing you should really care about in the economy. When growth comes back to the economy, everything else trickles down into home owners' pockets. Right now, household incomes and savings are below they where -- where they were when President Obama took over. Wages are stagnant, flat to where they were when Obama took over. The only thing he can say that is better is the unemployment rate, but that's a fake number too. If you take all the people who have left the workforce, given up hope and just.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLLING: . decided to go on unemployment. If you bring them back into the economy, unemployment presses 10 percent again. So the numbers are really, really bad if you read them, but the headline number, unemployment and the stock market look good. So Obama is trying to take credit for it. But growth, that's the only thing that really matters and it's -- and he make it best.

RIVERA: But --

PERINO: You do agree, Geraldo?

RIVERA: I do disagree, because I remember that day when the Dow hits 6,000 something. I had half the money I had before the crash happened. Goldman Sachs was teetering on the edge of extinction. The economy -- the world economy indeed, seemed about to fail. The too big to fail banks were failing right and left. It seemed to me that President Obama did save the economy. Plus, I have (inaudible) --

BOLLING: Well, that --

RIVERA: But I think that --

BOLLING: It may have help.

RIVERA: Yes, I'd like to see more robust growth, but isn't it true? I mean, you tell me that -- isn't the second quarter supposed to be better than the fourth quarter?

BOLLING: I think it's always supposed to be better.

GUTFELD: No.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLLING: And it's always revised downward, three months later. That's -- that's been the history. You need to have 4 percent growth to have any sort of -- Ronald Reagan -- Ronald Reagan coming out of the last recession the way President Obama came out of this recession had 8 percent growth. We're lucky to get 1 percent growth over that.

PERINO: But part of that, could it be, Greg, one of your favorite topics, President Obama talks about this in his interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin about -- he went to tour a factory while he was overseas. And it was a beautiful factory. But he didn't meet that many people. because in the factory the things doing the jobs were robots, not people.

GUTFELD: Exactly, exactly. It's the robots that are stealing our jobs, not the Mexicans. So we can have the robots actually build a wall...

PERINO: Build a wall.

GUTFELD: ... around themselves.

RIVERA: Those are Mexican robots.

GUTFELD: Yes. There you go.

The economy is growing slower, slow. But with camouflaging this, is the innovation and the capitalism that's flooding our country with cheap goods, quality, affordable electronics, so that people who aren't as well off as they were before, are living better than most anybody around the world.

The poor in the United States have better living standards than the middle to upper class anywhere in the world, because we have all this stuff, and it's getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. But sooner or later, we have to avoid that problem. What do you do with a workforce that's no longer working?

PERINO: That is a problem. Kimberly, the wealthy are doing well on paper. The problem, I think, is where you see the 99 percent as saying why can't anybody help us?

GUILFOYLE: I totally get it. But why don't you look to the White House and say why hasn't this president done more to improve the U.S. economy instead of, you know, putting a pox on the House of the coal industry and trying to stop oil and gas exploration. And fracking.

Instead of -- the gains that we've made have been due to that industry, despite the president's best efforts to thwart them. That's the fact, and that's the truth. We should be and we could be doing a lot better than we're doing. And that's one of the key factors in this campaign.

But as Dana pointed out, women care about, too. Jobs and the economy. And they've got to start putting some dollars in the pockets and meals on the table.

BOLLING: Can I just, very quickly, the wealthy are doing very well, and the very poor are doing better, and the middle class is getting it stuck right to them. They're not doing better...

GUILFOYLE: Help them in the middle.

BOLLING: They haven't participated in...

RIVERA: What could he have done differently?

PERINO: The last thing President Obama did for the economy was raise taxes in 2012.

GUILFOYLE: And he's over-regulated.

PERINO: We didn't even get to Obamacare.

GUILFOYLE: And bad health care.

PERINO: We have to go. Ahead, John Boehner does not like Ted Cruz, and he's not holding back. Hear what the former speaker is saying about the Republican candidate now and Cruz's response, up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RIVERA: You'd be hard pressed to find many people, let's face it, people who like Ted Cruz in Washington. John Boehner, the former speaker, does not. Listen to how he described the Texas senator last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted Cruz?

JOHN BOEHNER (R), FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Lucifer in the flesh.

I have as many Democrat friends as I have Republican friends. I get along with almost everybody. But I have never worked with a more miserable son of a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) in my life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: Tell me what you really think. Today the Republican candidate responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He said something like "He's the worst SOB I've ever worked with." Something like that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lucifer in the flesh.

CRUZ: Well, there was that, too. But the interesting thing is, he said "that I've ever worked with." I've never worked with John Boehner. Truth of the matter is I don't know the man. I've met John Boehner two or three times in my life. If I have said 50 words in my life to John Boehner I would be surprised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: So there you hear Cruz claiming that he never worked with Boehner, but the speaker said that he did. On the other hand, the speaker also had some nice things to say about Cruz then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, FORMER HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Now where does Ted Cruz fit in there?

BOEHNER: Well, he would be on the conservative side, Tea Party side. But listen, Ted Cruz used to be my attorney a long time ago.

LENO: Is that right?

BOEHNER: Yes.

LENO: OK.

BOEHNER: A good guy. I don't always agree with him, but he's a good guy.

LENO: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: The Cruz campaign maintains that, although Cruz was technically Boehner's lawyer, in fact he did work for him back in the 1990s, the candidate Cruz never actually spoke to Boehner when he represented him. He only assisted with legal briefs and attended meetings with the speaker's staff.

So Kimberly, why do you think it is that Ted Cruz -- I mean, I want to be fair, and I don't want to call him any names. I don't want to be scolded again by Dana. I promised I wouldn't. Why do you think he's so unpopular?

GUILFOYLE: You know, I mean, I don't have a personal relationship with him, so I can't speak to the -- you know, the pleasure of being in his company or not. But you know, people work with you, and you have an idea. A sense of things. We know people that we like, colleagues that we work with; and we know people that we've worked with that were like, you know, take a moment.

I think that he's passionate. He doesn't stand down on issues. And he's not afraid to take a risk. And to take a position and to be the only one or the last one left standing as we've seen, literally.

I think John Boehner probably has an opinion that's based on experience working with him in Capitol Hill. So I mean, he's entitled to his opinion. I thought it was pretty bold to kind of tell it like it is. But that's what Boehner does.

RIVERA: Don't you like a loner?

BOLLING: Yes, I do. I like an outsider, but I don't like one who says at one point, "Look at me; I'm the outsider," then takes the insider's endorsements, saying, "Look, everyone likes me." And then, when someone from the inside says, "I don't like him," or "He's Lucifer," then he says, "Look, I'm the outsider again."

Look, I like Ted Cruz. I really like Ted Cruz. But either you're the insider or the outsider. You can't run as the outsider and then want the endorsement of the establishment. You just can't do it. And when someone from the endorsement, like John Boehner, says he's Lucifer, saying, "See, I'm the outsider." It's just -- it's going back and forth too much.

GUTFELD: Wait, wait, wait. Trump got endorsed by Christie.

BOLLING: Yes.

GUTFELD: I wouldn't call him an outsider. Christie.

BOLLING: I wouldn't either.

RIVERA: Dana, didn't Cruz have a lot to do with Boehner leaving the speakership? Wasn't it, in fact, Cruz threatening to shut down the government again that Boehner says, "Hey, I'm out of here"?

PERINO: No, I think that -- I think John Boehner made that decision on his own after, remember, the pope came to visit. That was John Boehner got the invitation, sent to the pope and had worked on that his whole career. And then he made a decision.

John Boehner is a patriot. He's served his country for a long time. I've always been a huge Boehner fan. It's interesting, though, that could have been the ultimate kiss of death for a candidate, right, if John Boehner, the ultimate in the establishment, gave him an endorsement.

I'll say this: When Ted Cruz says, "I haven't spoken 50 words to John Boehner," maybe you should have. He was the -- he was the House speaker. And Ted Cruz did put him in a box when he forced that stupid government shutdown.

GUILFOYLE: Right.

PERINO: But you look, Boehner and McConnell and those guys said, "OK, if you want to try this, knock yourselves out. We'll try to go for it." And it was disastrous for the Republican Party. It took them a long time to dig out of that hole. And anybody who said it was a bad idea was crushed at the time and was proven right later on. So I think that Cruz could have spent a little bit more time building the network and actually should have reached out to John Boehner.

GUILFOYLE: Remember after, when Boehner, you know, stepped down, Cruz was very vocal taking credit, saying, "We got this done," and he's out.

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: You mentioned the pope. This explains why the pope was there in the first place. It was an exorcism that Boehner called.

But you know what? This -- I don't believe -- I don't believe for a minute he was -- he was criticizing Cruz by calling him Lucifer in the flesh. Lucifer is a rendering of Hebrew word that means "shining one, light bearer." So basically, he was saying Cruz shed light on our nation's problems.

RIVERA: Oh, please. Please.

BOLLING: "Lucifer" is a new show. That is a great show.

GUTFELD: It's a very entertaining show.

RIVERA: Late night had some fun with Cruz's basketball bungle the other day. It's coming up next in "The Fastest Seven."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLLING: All right. Welcome back, time for...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAPHIC: Fastest 7

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: ... "The Fastest Seven."

GUILFOYLE: Go fast, go fast.

BOLLING: I'm trying. The very fastest 16-something minutes on television. Three fascinating stories, seven fleet minutes, one fastidious host.

First up, it's a rim or a hoop. It's definitely not a ring. What it is certainly, though, however, is a lay-up for late-night comedians.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you throw a basketball into?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A hoop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A hoop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A hoop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A hoop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you ever call that a ring?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS'S "THE LATE SHOW": You listen up, Ted. So you called a basketball hoop a basketball ring. Who cares? Buck up. There's no crying in sport ball. You've got to keep bouncing that leather balloon down the wood room. You've got to dig long and down on the ground to give 110 degrees. Leave it all out on the place where it happens, because winning isn't all of the things; it's the only stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Lay-ups.

GUTFELD: It's -- I feel bad for him. But then again I hate basketball. Because you know, it's...

GUILFOYLE: You can't reach the hoop.

GUTFELD: It's height privileged. It's height privileged. If they lowered the basket down to five feet, then you would see more short people in the NBA. But they won't, will they? Because they're bigots.

BOLLING: Thoughts?

RIVERA: The problem with something like this is that it sticks. You know, and everyone can identify with -- everyone is smarter than Cruz on this point. People love to be smarter than the smart aleck. So now he's made the mistake, for whatever the period of time is until they forget it. They're going to say, "Oh, basketball ring. He's the basketball ring guy." It makes him the fool.

BOLLING: The biggest problem is they're going into the Hoosier state, who loves basketball, that primary.

PERINO: Well, as I've been known to mess up a sports metaphor now and then. So -- but remember when John Kerry in 2004, he really wanted to win Wisconsin. In fact he might have. He landed in Lambert Field.

BOLLING: Lambert.

PERINO: And everybody laughed. And I remember in the staff office we were like, "We just won." 2004. Even though I think we won Wisconsin.

RIVERA: That's the phenomenon.

PERINO: But we didn't win Wisconsin.

RIVERA: You thought that would be a deciding factor.

PERINO: It gave us a news cycle.

GUILFOYLE: Obviously, that sucked for him. Right? Because he needs to do really well in Indiana. He thought he got Carly. He was hoping to get Pence, and then came the ring. So he's kind of like circling the ring right now.

BOLLING: Stay right there. Don't circle that ring too far. Will Ferrell, the funniest man alive, present company excluded, of course.

GUTFELD: Thank you.

BOLLING: Ricky Bobby, Shake and Bake, Ron Burgundy, "F-U, San Diego." And he's now getting back into politics. But not this one.

GUILFOYLE: Can you say that?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL FERRELL, COMEDIAN (AS GEORGE W. BUSH): I'm entering the race for president of the United States of America. The field of Republicans out there is so messed up I figured it makes you miss me, doesn't it? And that's saying a lot. I've already got my campaign song.

(SINGING) Ready or not, here I come. You can't hide. I'm going to find you. And make you love me.

(SPEAKING) That's a little something from the Fugees.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Funny, but he may be going a too far with this one. Will Ferrell will be playing an Alzheimer-afflicted Ronald Reagan in an upcoming feature-length film. President Reagan's son, Michael Reagan, tweeted this: "What an outrage. Alzheimer's is no joke. It kills. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should all be ashamed of..."

GUILFOYLE: You.

BOLLING: "... you."

Thoughts.

PERINO: There's some things that are just a bridge too far. I mean, making fun of a former living president, like George W. Bush, obviously, that's very funny. I do think that I probably would have passed on this script if they'd sent it my way.

GUILFOYLE: Absolutely terrible. Boo, boo, boo, boo.

RIVERA: It was the hottest unmade script in Hollywood.

GUTFELD: Of course.

RIVERA: Everybody wanted it.

PERINO: Everybody wanted it?

RIVERA: Everybody wanted to do it. Gerald Ford falling off the steps of the airplane. Bill Clinton is mocked mercilessly.

BOLLING: Yes, but not in a feature-length film.

RIVERA: Didn't our colleague Bill O'Reilly write a book, "Killing Reagan," that posits in its thesis that Reagan was so injured by Alzheimer's and the assassination attempt that he had diminished capacity?

GUTFELD: But this is different. The plot of this thing is that an intern is hired to convince Ronald Reagan, who has Alzheimer's...

GUILFOYLE: That he's an actor.

GUTFELD: ... that he's an actor in a film.

So I have a great -- his next -- I think that Will Ferrell's next movie should be a comedy called "Chappaquiddick," and he can play Teddy Kennedy; and Amy Schumer could play Mary Jo. Do you think they'll do that?

PERINO: No.

GUILFOYLE: Exactly.

RIVERA: Who would go to it?

GUTFELD: You understand the point.

RIVERA: I understand your point.

PERINO: There's no movies about Jimmy Carter.

RIVERA: They make comedies about the Holocaust, for goodness sake.

GUTFELD: Which one?

PERINO: Where?

RIVER: The one with the Italian -- the Italian comic...

BOLLING: "Life is Beautiful"?

RIVERA: "Life is Beautiful."

GUTFELD: It wasn't really a comedy.

RIVERA: It was plenty of laughs there.

BOLLING: A little friendly competition is a good thing. Yankees/Red Sox. Trump/Cruz. Firemen/cops. Firemen and cops have some of the biggest rivalries in the world. That's why this is hilarious. A group of cops got stuck in an elevator. Guess who had to rescue them?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY PISCIOTTA, FIREFIGHTER: We had a lot of fun with them. And we made sure everything happened safely. And, you know, we did it all, you know, the way it's supposed to be done. And they were good sports about it, and we had to do our jabs and, you know, it was cool. So...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: All right. All great people, the bravest and the finest. K.G., we appreciate them all.

GUILFOYLE: I love firemen. I love cops, too. So...

RIVERA: Do you have the calendar?

GUILFOYLE: Many.

But I've been -- I've been rescued by the fire department a few times. So it's amazing -- and they have -- I was locked in a bathroom. They climbed up and rescued me out through the window. And there was a time when my toaster oven, I was trying to cook and it caught on fire.

GUTFELD: It's all minor events that you seemed to call for.

GUILFOYLE: These are big ones.

PERINO: "Oh, I locked myself in the bathroom."

BOLLING: "Oh, no, I'm locked in. How did that happen?"

GUILFOYLE: Yes. And then when you blow up a toaster, they're like "You shouldn't be cooking for yourself. Come to the firehouse. We'll cook for you every night." How do you pass that up?

GUTFELD: I don't know.

Have you ever been stuck in an elevator? I always wonder if you have, like, your lunch with you and you're there for a while, do you share?

PERINO: Yes.

GUTFELD: I don't know.

PERINO: Of course you do.

GUTFELD: I don't.

RIVERA: What about bathroom breaks?

GUILFOYLE: You are so mean. Of course you would share. Why wouldn't you?

RIVERA: The rivalry is real. There really is intense emotion involved. This is a real gotcha for the fire department.

BOLLING: All right. We've got to leave it there.

"One More Thing" up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: "One More Thing" -- Eric.

BOLLING: OK. Very quickly, Daniel Halpern, a 16-year-old now, 14 years old, he was suffering with leukemia; he's a leukemia survivor. He put together a video for the Broncos a couple of years ago. Check it out. Here's a piece of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL HALPERN, LEUKEMIA SURVIVOR (singing): Broncos go, Broncos go. The Super Bowl's at our door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: All right. So he won, and now he will be announcing the Denver Broncos NFL draft pick tonight from Chicago. So check that out.

GUILFOYLE: How cool is that? God bless him and his health, too. It's very nice.

BOLLING: K.G.

GUILFOYLE: All right. Well, last night I had the great privilege to attend an event with my friend Ainsley, co-host of "FOX & Friends," where the $6 Million Man, Lee Majors, and his wife, Faith, were honored last night for their work with the organization St. Christopher's Inn. It is a fantastic organization that operates 182 beds for the homeless. And it offers them treatments for substance abuse problems.

Lee and Faith gave incredibly powerful speeches about their backgrounds, the losses they have both endured in their lives, and what it has taught them. And here's what they had to say earlier on "FOX & Friends."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAITH MAJORS, HONORED FOR WORK WITH ST. CHRISTOPHER'S INN: You never give up. It doesn't matter -- my mom would always say, it doesn't matter what it looks like, sounds like or feels like. You keep believing and trusting that God will make a way, and it's not always easy.

LEE MAJORS, HONORED FOR WORK WITH ST. CHRISTOPHER'S INN: It's like I said last night: for every acting job I've gotten for the last 53 years, I say, "Thank you, Father."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUILFOYLE: Really incredible and a beautiful choir. I sure encourage you to attend mass out there at Garrison (ph) on Sundays. So congratulations to Lee and Faith on your amazing work and a very special evening. And to learn more about this important cause, please visit St. Christopher's Inn, PrayMore.org (ph).

GUTFELD: All right. Geraldo.

RIVERA: you know, Sunday is the fifth anniversary of the greatest night of my career. It was the night we discovered, as I was on the air, that our brave SEAL Team 6 had killed the terror mastermind, Usama bin Laden. And it happened so incredibly, so spontaneously. It's something that really, I will cherish for the rest of my life. Here's what it looked like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: Hold it, hold it. Hold it. Hold it. Bin Laden is dead. Bin Laden is dead. Confirmed, urgent confirmed, bin Laden is dead. Multiple sources, Usama bin Laden is dead.

Happy days! Happy days, everybody. This is the greatest, give me a wide shot of the channel. This is the greatest night of my career! The bum is dead. The savage who hurt us, so grievously. And I am so blessed, I'm so privileged to be at this desk at this moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERA: Sunday night, between 9 and 11, the killing of bin Laden, a special. This is the crowd outside the White House. It was amazing. It was amazing.

GUTFELD: I went to Times Square, got hammered.

GUILFOYLE: You had to be in D.C.

RIVERA: I happened to be in D.C. for the Correspondents'...

GUILFOYLE: Exactly. And then, boom, next thing you know, Geraldo is there. He's where the action is.

GUTFELD: He certainly is. Dana.

PERINO: So Chris Stirewalt and I taped another podcast today, so it will be live. You're going to want to listen to this, because Chris Stirewalt makes a recommendation for Donald Trump for vice-presidential candidate. And I was so shocked, I almost fell out of my chair.

But now, upon reflection, I think maybe he was -- had a good idea, a good point. So you might want to listen to that.

GUILFOYLE: Is that a tease?

PERINO: That's a tease. You have to listen to the podcast.

GUTFELD: Where the spiders go.

PERINO: It's a man. He recommended...

RIVERA: It's a man?

PERINO: A man. How about that.

RIVERA: That was my segment.

GUILFOYLE: Where the spiders go?

GUTFELD: Think about it.

All right. It's time for this.

GUILFOYLE: What a weirdo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Greg's Disgusting News

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: This is so horrible I think all the children should leave the room and the parents, too. Take look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CAT STICKING ITS HEAD OUT OF A HOLE ON A CAT SCRATCHING POST)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: Here you have a cat, sticking its head up through a hole. Now I don't know where this cat gets off. And frankly, this disgusts me, but I want this kind of behavior to stop.

GUILFOYLE: What are you talking about? Have you really lost it?

GUTFELD: Yes, I have lost it.

GUILFOYLE: What is this?

GUTFELD: It's a cat, sticking it's...

BOLLING: Be any more drunk?

PERINO: As I was looking at the cat, I realized that, no, I think Chris Stirewalt was wrong. I'm going to reverse my reversal.

GUTFELD: All right. Set your DVRs. Never miss an episode of "the Five." "Special Report" is up next.

GUILFOYLE: That was terrible.

GUTFELD: I was being ironic!

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