Road to 2016 election heats up

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Road to 2016 election heats up

Charles Krauthammer weighs in on the political climate of the United States

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," August 17, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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O'REILLY: Continue now with our lead story: the current political situation. Joining us from Washington Charles Krauthammer.

Let's talk first about Hillary Clinton. Do you see danger for her campaign with the FBI getting involved with the e-mail deal?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Absolutely. She sees it, Biden sees it everyone sees it a lot of Democrats who know that they are latched to the Clinton mast are terrified. And the reason is this: it is totally out of their hands.

The Clintons are obsessed with control and with secrecy -- that's the whole reason. She started the e-mail thing in the first place. After all, she wasn't covering anything up in the beginning. She hadn't done anything at the beginning. She wasn't even secretary of state. But they wanted control.

Now here they are in a position where the server is no longer in their control. Remember, how she said in March at the U.N. that the server was his -- was hers and was going to remain hers and she had already deleted stuff and that was it? Well, it's not it. And the question is what will the FBI find?

But the bigger question is what will the FBI be allowed to do? I don't know that there is ever going to be a cover-up ordered from on high. The question is how interested is Barack Obama in seeing a full investigation by the FBI? How enthusiastic and how speedy will they be in looking into this? I suspect because of the scrutiny they will not be able to do what they did in the IRS scandal, which is to bury it. This is going to be a lot harder to do.

O'REILLY: Yes.

KRAUTHAMMER: Also because of the congressional investigation and because the media is now on the trail as well.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, I'm going to tell you how I think this is going to play out and you tell me if I'm wrong, ok. This is how I think it's going to play out.

I don't think Barack Obama likes the Clintons. Even though he is playing golf up in Martha's Vineyard with Bill this week I don't think he has got a lot of use for them. So I don't think is he is going to put any political currency in telling Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, what not to do in this investigation because that will leak out.

Number two, if the FBI finds out that that server that Mrs. Clinton used was professionally scrubbed, which I believe it was -- I don't believe she went in with her little thumbs and deleted 30,000 any things. If they find out it was scrubbed and they will find that out very quickly, that's obstruction of justice. Ok? That's what that is and that's a felony.

Now, you may be right, the FBI may try to dance and this and that but then the Congress comes in with congressional hearings and subpoenas Comey -- ok. So that's how it's going to go down. Am I wrong?

KRAUTHAMMER: I think you are right. I mean occasionally you do stumble on the truth and I have to acknowledge that. Look, I think you are right. There is never going to be Obama giving an order go easy on Hillary. And I agree with you he may not have an interest in seeing that.

On the other hand he doesn't have to do that. All he has to do is to make a statement that in some way goes easy on her the way he has made statements about the IRS and other scandals. And it will be understood. But, nonetheless, I think there is too much going on here that the FBI is going to have a lot of trouble covering it up.

O'REILLY: And I don't think they will.

KRAUTHAMMER: And I do think that Trey Gowdy is the key.

O'REILLY: He is the guy.

KRAUTHAMMER: Remember, she has already said she turned over everything work-related and it turned out that Gowdy received 15 e-mails separately from Blumenthal that she had not turned over meaning she has been exposed as telling a major untruth from the very beginning. And I think that's going to be his role.

O'REILLY: But she forgot, Charles. She forgot. She forget.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, also. You know -- they'll try to get away with whatever they can.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: Let's go to the other side. My thesis that Trump has been good for the campaign, that he has offered exposure to all the presidential candidates they would not have gotten, that he has reflected accurately the anger of millions and millions of Americans toward a government that's impotent and dishonest to them. Am I wrong on any of those counts?

KRAUTHAMMER: You are a little bit off on the good for the campaign. It is absolutely true that of the 24 million who tuned in maybe, perhaps even half would not have tuned in. It still would have been say 12 million which is a major number.

And it is also true that because there were that many watching some of them, who did very well including Rubio and Cruz, I think -- and Carson, of course, were generally helped by the --

O'REILLY: Ok. But let me he stop you. Whenever I interrupt you, Charles, I get people, usually they are old ladies in their late 80s yelling at me, look,.

KRAUTHAMMER: And blood relatives of mine.

O'REILLY: Right. It's not just the 24 million who watch but every Internet site in the world picked up every bit of it. Ok. So it became a phenomenon which it remains today. All right.

Now, we have Rove coming up behind you. He doesn't think Trump is good for the party. But you know what? As I said Trump is not a Republican, he is he a Trump-ian. All right. He's trying to get to be president or amass power to do what he wants. Not what Reince Priebus wants or the Republican hierarchy wants and a lot of voters say, "good for you".

And I don't know how far he is going to go. Right now, in our republic we need this kind of robust debate. Go.

KRAUTHAMMER: Look, the idea that we didn't have a robust debate until now I think is completely false.

O'REILLY: But it wasn't getting exposed. It wasn't getting out there.

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, is it very healthy for a party to be debating as it is now, whether we should have mass deportations? Do you think that's going to help the party in the November election next year?

O'REILLY: But it will quickly go away.

KRAUTHAMMER: And that's because -- I don't know how quickly it goes away. He is the central character right now.

O'REILLY: Listen, when whoever wins the Republican nomination is not going to call for mass deportations, unless it's Trump, all right, they are not going to do it. They are going to put out what they want or what they think is best for the country. I'm not worried about that.

KRAUTHAMMER: Are they going to have the courage to come up and say that's a mistake? That's something that we cannot do, should not do, and will not do?

O'REILLY: I don't know. But that's what we are trying to find out who has the guts, the courage, the smarts, to turn the country around. Last word?

KRAUTHAMMER: They don't if nobody does stand up and say that then you can be sure the Democrat will. And that's not going to help the Republicans recapture the White House. You are asking me a straight question about the effect on the fortunes of the party and that is one specific example where Trump has shifted the debate in a way that's going to be extremely detrimental.

O'REILLY: All right. Charles Krauthammer, everybody.

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