Marco Rubio on Putin's power play in Syria
On 'The Kelly File,' candidate explains how his predictions made during GOP debate unfolded
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," September 30, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, new questions emerging about whether the United States is heading for an armed showdown with Russia as Moscow starts giving the orders and dropping bombs in the Middle East.
Welcome to "The Kelly File" everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Like a crisis from the cold war, what started as a tense United Nation's meeting on Monday has escalated into a day of dramatic breaking news from Washington, Syria and Moscow. Earlier today, say U.S. officials, a three-star Russian general walked in to an embassy in Baghdad, Iraq and told us we had an hour to get our people and our jets out of Syria period. Sure enough within an hour, Russian fighter jets were carrying out airstrikes in Syria on what they claimed was ISIS but now we know different.
With Washington in full scramble and warnings about possible military accidents between the U.S. and Russia, Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the U.N. Security Council at noon, saying the Obama administration supported the effort as long as Russia was attacking just the Islamic State terrorists but late this afternoon we learned that was not what was happening. Instead, the Russians may have targeted the one group of folks, the one group, the one group of folks in Syria that America actually supports. And they reportedly killed a couple of dozen civilians including children in the process.
The U.S. Defense Secretary said, it was, quote, "unprofessional." Then just hours ago, the administration sent out Secretary of State John Kerry this time appearing with his Russian counterpart to say, well, they had had a constructive meeting about our, quote, "Need for clarity." Agreeing that, quote, "we have a lot of work to do."
As the crisis unfolds, we have tonight with us Senator Marco Rubio. He predicted this exact scenario two weeks ago. Also, former White House press secretary and co-host of "The Five" Dana Perino is here on how the Russians managed to pull this off and embarrass the United States according to many. But we begin with retired four-star General Jack Keane who was vice chief-of-staff for the U.S. Army and is the current chairman at The Institute for the Study of War. General, thank you for being here with us tonight.
JACK KEANE, FORMER VICE CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY: Glad to be here, Megyn.
KELLY: How bad is this? Put this in perspective?
KEANE: Well, frankly, we have once again Putin, you know, whose economy is in the tank. Whose military is no match for the United States. Who was out maneuvered and out bluff the President. He knows that the President will do nothing by verbal condemnation. What he's counting on is the President's predictable fear of escalation and fear of confrontation. This is a game changer. It's significant because what Putin is doing is changing the strategic shift in the Middle East in terms of the balance of power. In terms of U.S. losing influence and Putin gaining influence of it. So, it is a big deal, Megyn.
KELLY: What we learn today is that they may say that they're going after ISIS but they're not going after ISIS. And if you look at the map that you guys put together that this isn't your exact. But the green areas on this map are ISIS controlled. See the little red things? That's where the Russians struck. Nowhere near the green areas. They're not striking the ISIS controlled areas. They're striking areas within the Assad controlled area that are frequented by the rebels. By the people we support in general.
KEANE: Yes, that's absolutely true. Listen, the reason for Putin being here with his limited military capability is the fact that the rebels have been putting pressure on Assad particularly Jabhat al-Nusra from Aleppo to Damascus and that corridor there.
KELLY: Hold on. Hold on. Nobody understood what you just said. Say that in plain English.
KEANE: The corridor in North of Damascus that goes all the way up to the northern border with Syria and Turkey, the rebels have been putting huge pressure on that corridor, its road networks. And they've taken control of it. And this has been happening gradually for a year. And the Iranians went up to see Putin and told them, listen, "Situations get worst for Assad. It's also losing some political support for alawites, we've got to do something. Here's comes Putin to do something." So, that's what his focus on. The false narrative Megyn, so our audience understand is ISIS. ISIS is not why he's there. Now, eventually, will he attack some ISIS targets out in the northeast, likely? But the reason he's there and the focus of his effort will be to sustain the Assad regime in power. That gives him the foothold in the Middle East and he desperately cannot lose that.
KELLY: Who we hate and who Obama has said has got to go. But he said it back in 2012. He hasn't gone. Let me ask you this. What is the behind-the-scenes reaction at the Pentagon to what happened today?
KEANE: Well, the Pentagon has been very frustrated for a long time. And, you know, what Secretary Kerry did today, you know, his conciliatory effort towards the Russians, you know, makes no sense to me. What should have been said to the Russians -- after all, they never coordinated any of this movement into Syria with us. They actually flew their fighters underneath their cargo airplanes so that no one would pick them up on radar. What should have been said today to him, is we're not having a coordination meeting, what we're going to do is we're going to fly when we want, where we want, and we do what we want.
And what you should be prepared for is to avoid confrontations, stay out of the area. If you don't stay out of the area, then expect confrontation. We have got to assert ourselves. We're here to destroy ISIS and we've got to give about doing that. And we all know the strategists and that has got to change. But there's so much we can do to assert ourselves and make certain that we're able to accomplish on mission and put Russia back on its heels where it needs to be.
KELLY: It's a very provocative move by Putin. How much stress is this create between our relationship with Putin and with Russia?
KEANE: Well, I just think it's added to a shenanigans back in 2013 when it created this masquerade of pulling the weapons out, the chemical weapons out of Syria. We've left production capability and we've left weapons, it has added to Crimea, it has added to the Ukraine. This is another shoe that has dropped. Putin has had a different relationship with us for some time. We haven't made up our mind that this relationship is fundamentally changed.
KELLY: Uh-hm. General, always great getting your perspective. Thank you, sir.
KEANE: Yes. It's good seeing you, Megyn.
KELLY: Well, with Russia clearly winning round one in this cold war style showdown, it did not take long for the political writers to remind people about this moment from the 2012 debate between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: A few months ago, when you were asked what's the biggest geo-political threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al-Qaeda. You said, Russia. In the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the cold war has been over for 20 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Dana Perino is co-host of "The Five," former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush and author of "And the Good News Is." And President Obama also said that ISIS was jayvee not long ago. And now the Russians are supposedly bombing the jayvee squad.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST, "THE FIVE": One of the things that President Obama also says all the time is that these actors are on the wrong side of history. I think what we saw today is that President Obama with the attitude of leading from behind has put America on the wrong side of history in the Middle East. This was dramatic action. President Putin know exactly what he was doing. Waiting until, number one, President Obama was already in as far as he was going to be able to go with the Iranian deal. He would do nothing to disrupt that.
KELLY: Because Iran wants this. Iran as General Keane explained, they want Russian going in there and propping up this brutal dictator Assad. They like him. They're having a little alliance.
PERINO: And Russians, the Iranians also are another alliance that Putin wants to strengthen very much. So, they waited until the United Nations is here under world stage. President Putin now is able to tell his audience back home because that's his most important audience, the domestic politics for him is important. He can say, look at the United States they do nothing. I on the other hand come up with a solution and I don't wait, 36 hours later, I'm bombing. Now, back home they don't care in Russia that they're not bombing the ISIS' targets, we care. But today, when President -- when Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary Kerry there in hour late to get to their press conference --
KELLY: Let's just watch it. Can we just watch it? So, we're not doing nothing. We're not doing nothing. This is what we're doing. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTERS: We agreed that the military should get into context with each other very soon.
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We agreed on the imperative of as soon as possible. Perhaps even as soon as tomorrow. But as soon as possible. Having a military-to-military deconfliction discussion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: The deconfliction discussion is going to happen as soon as possible.
PERINO: Yes. The State Department word sound is always a little bit hard to translate. But let me tell you what he said which is, we are powerless because in this situation, I think the reason they wanted to appear together is that, we have no choice but to try to show but to try to show some sort of united effort because we don't want to escalate problem with Russia as well. We have to try to at least somehow stay on the same page that Russia is in the lead.
KELLY: You hear the difference. I mean, what General Keane said. We're going to fly where we want when we want, period. And if you don't get out of our way, there's going to be a problem versus we're going to have a deconfliction discussion just as soon as possible? And that even our Defense Department saying, this is very unprofessional. I mean, what are we going to do about it? Nothing from the sound of it.
PERINO: Well, remember this also goes back to the National Security Council. So, Susan Rice call your office because tonight is most important that they coordinate and get on the same page. You had Defense Department and State Department, they were totally caught unaware and so they had different statements today. That's not a position of leadership or strengths. So, President Obama, I would hope in the morning, is going to have enough Security Council meeting. I would call it at 7:30 a.m. and make sure that he's out in-front of the camera at 8:15 and saying, this will not stand. The interesting thing --
KELLY: But he can't say that unless he really means it.
PERINO: Right. What I was just going to say is, it could be that Vladimir Putin finally pushes Barack Obama and to do the right thing which is to allow the Department of Defense to fight this fight the way that they've wanted to for several years. And remember, 250,000 people have died in this conflict. We have millions of refugees all over the world. You have to solve this problem at it source. You can't just do a speech on climate change of the United Nations and expect that these real world problems of today are going to go away.
KELLY: And this is very much also going to be even more of a 2016 campaign issue that it's already become.
PERINO: President Obama is leaving his successor with a real mess if he doesn't get it, thanks to him.
KELLY: Dana, great to see you.
PERINO: Thank you.
KELLY: Well, two weeks ago, Senator Marco Rubio predicted exactly what we saw today. And he will join us in moments right after this break to talk about what may happen next.
Plus, we have big news for the republican field as we dig deeper on a whole series of brand new polls that just came out today. Chris Stirewalt is here on who's rising, who's falling and why voters are driving the change?
And then a Black Lives Matter activists today appeared in court on a charge of making terroristic threats against police. We'll show you the video that got her in trouble and the defense she's now trying to offer.
(INAUDIBLE) (BLEEP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have an understanding of exactly what it is Russia and Putin are doing. And it's a pretty straightforward. He wants to reposition Russia, once again, as a geopolitical force. Here's what you're going to see in the next few weeks, the Russians will begin to fly combat missions in that region, not just targeting ISIS, but in order to prop up Assad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: How about that? It was just two weeks ago that Senator Marco Rubio said that exact thing at the last GOP debate. Predicting that Russia would launch air strikes in Syria, sparing ISIS terrorists potentially but targeting those who are fighting the Assad regime. A prediction we saw unfold earlier today.
Joining me now, republican presidential candidate, Senator Marco Rubio.
Senator, you nailed it. I mean, that's exactly what we're now seeing. How did you know that was going to happen?
RUBIO: Well, it was quite predictable. It already been reported in the media that the Russians were positioning airfields in Syria and it was clear why, they were propping up Assad. And they make conduct some operations against ISIS but this is not about ISIS, this is about propping up Assad, who was a client state of both Iran and Vladimir Putin. And it's about something even broader. And that it's showing the world that Russia is now a power broker in the Middle East. And the message they're sending is, they're actually more reliable than America under Barack Obama. So this is a multifaceted plan by Vladimir Putin to prop up Assad but more importantly to replace America as the most important outside power broker in the region and that's the purpose of these airstrikes.
KELLY: How big a setback is this to the United States and our allies in the region?
RUBIO: Well, it diminishes America's importance and the eyes of the world, we're beginning to look like a junior partner under Barack Obama. You saw that this week play out at the United Nations. And nations in that region, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and others looking and say, you know, America, we've had a tough time getting them under Barack Obama to do anything meaningful. In fact, all they talked about is what they're not going to do or how they're going to get out of here. Maybe Russia would be a good partner to work with.
KELLY: Just last night, here on the Fox News Channel, one of your competitors for the 2016 nomination, Donald Trump, had a different idea for how to deal with Syria, with ISIS in Syria that looked a lot like what we saw today from Putin. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Putin has now taken over what we've started. And he's going into Syria. And he frankly wants to fight ISIS and I think that's a wonderful thing.
BILL O'REILLY, HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": Once Putin gets in and fights ISIS on behalf of Assad, Putin runs Syria. He owns it. He'll never get out. Never.
TRUMP: All right. Okay, fine, I mean, you know, we can be in Syria, do you want to run Syria?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Your thoughts on that Senator in the --
RUBIO: Well, he's wrong about that. And it's just a misunderstanding about the reality of this. The purpose of what the Russians are doing is not to defeat ISIS. I mean, they ultimately -- they needed to defeat ISIS in Syria in order to protect Assad. But the purpose of this is to prop-up Assad.
KELLY: But Trump's answer to that is, so what, Assad, you know, if I had to choose between Assad and ISIS, I guess I side with Assad.
RUBIO: Assad is a brutal dictator, but he's worse than that. This is a man who gassed his own people. But going further than that, Assad has given refuge, he's given assistance to every major terrorist's organization in the Middle East, he's an anti-American thug. In the Middle East, that's always acted against his national interests. That continues to do so even to this day. And I don't think the choice should be Assad or ISIS, I think they both need to go. I think it's important that they both be replace?
KELLY: What should we do?
RUBIO: ISIS with obviously -- well, the first thing we need to do is put together a coalition with our Sunni allies in the region. ISIS is a Sunni force and they can only be permanently defeated by Sunnis themselves. The United States will have to help put that coalition together. But it would be Sunni ground forces from Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and even Sunnis from inside of Iraq and Syria --
KELLY: Before I let you go. The news just hitting a short time ago that apparently, Hillary Clinton's e-mails, her private e-mail was attempted to be hacked, or at least five attempts or made to hack it by the Russians. And this is just now breaking. So your thoughts on that? On the insecurity of that e-mail she was using for --
RUBIO: Yes. When this whole thing about the e-mail broke, one of the first things I said was, she made it susceptible to foreign intelligence agencies. Sensitive information about U.S. strategy and U.S. policies. And I bet you it's not just the Russians, I don't know this for sure. But I bet that you're going to find the Chinese, as well. And maybe some other intelligence sources tried to act as that as well. Again, I thought of all the things that have happened here, the lying is a big deal of course. But the exposure of American sensitive information to foreign intelligence agencies by communicating in an insecure manner is incompetence, it is malpractices, it's inexcusable.
KELLY: They're looking into it. And they haven't confirmed whether the hacking was successful in these particular instances. But at least five times it was attempted by the Russians according to latest news. Senator Marco Rubio, thank you so much for being here.
RUBIO: Thank you.
KELLY: Well, serious concerns is building along the U.S. east coast tonight with two monsters storm systems now threatening to join forces, and millions of people are potentially in the path. Meteorologist Rick Reichmuth is here with what you need to know.
Plus, the more presidential candidate Carly Fiorina rises in the polls, the harsher the media attacks against her. But are they true and fair? James Rosen and Howie Kurtz separate fact from fiction, next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLY FIORINA, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yesterday, I was protested by Planned Parenthood people who were throwing condoms at me. I don't know what this has to do with this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, a top republican contender comes under increasing scrutiny. It seems the more Carly Fiorina's poll numbers rise, the number of attacks from the media pile up with some recent ones suggesting she is misleading at best or quote, "a liar." Those are some of the nicer comments.
Chief Washington correspondent James Rosen reports tonight from our D.C. Bureau. James.
JAMES ROSEN, FOX NEWS CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, good evening. If Carly Fiorina anticipated that her polling surge would mean heightened scrutiny, she is learning tonight that that scrutiny extends beyond simple re-examinations of her stormy tenure at Hewlett-Packard. Fiorina is coming under continuing fire as critics accuse her of having mischaracterize during the CNN debate two weeks ago. The contents of those recent Planned Parenthood sting videos. Fiorina remembered seeing footage of quote, "A fully formed fetus on the table."
Its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain. A fetus that was apparently still alive did indeed appear in the controversial video, but the organization responsible for that segment of footage has since released the full unedited footage of the fetus and the leader of that organization is not confirming or denying that the incident captured in that footage had anything to do with Planned Parenthood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: The videos, even the people that made the video admit it's stock footage, yet you went right along and said, its Planned Parenthood.
FIORINA: Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Do you think this is not happening? Does Hillary Clinton think this is not happening?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEN: The Daily Beast Ana Marie Cox writes, quote, "What's disturbing about Fiorina's falsehood isn't that she lied, or even that she seems to believe her own lies, it's not even really that her lies get bigger every time." "No," Cox continues, "what should give you pause is that by sheer force of articulated she has fabricated her own reality, to point that her Super PAC spliced together a different video to illustrate just what it is she said she saw." Finally, the Washington Post blog, the fact-checker has expressed, quote, "regret" for using the word bogus in the headline to described Fiorina's off repeated line about going from secretary to CEO.
However, the blog stuck by its verdict of three Pinocchios saying, Fiorina's only in America tale is, quote, "misleading" because when she relates it, Fiorina omits the privileges she enjoyed as the daughter of a prominent figure in government and academia. The Fiorina campaign says, the blog shows, quote, "media bias on full display" -- Megyn.
KELLY: Unbelievable. James, good to see you.
ROSEN: Likewise.
KELLY: Joining us now, Howard Kurtz, host of Fox News' "MediaBuzz." So, let's just start with that. She gets three Pinocchios which they say is, that means significant factual error and or obvious contradictions, it means her story was mostly false about going from secretary to CEO. And, yet, her first job really was as a secretary for a real estate firm. And she did become the only woman CEO of a Fortune 20 company at the time. Where's the lie? Where's the dishonesty?
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "MEDIABUZZ": That is exactly the problem. I called out this Washington Post fact check and after the buzz segment because essentially, the cues of presidential candidate of lying and not be able to find a single untruth. All of those things happened. Most of the information was drawn from her own books and interviews. I gave that segment four Pinocchios.
KELLY: But it is so dishonest. They talked about how, you know, they thought, the suggestion that a character starts to the lowest ranks of an industry polls themselves up by their bootstrapped and against all odds reaches the top position in the industry. They reject that because they felt that she glossed over the only for Fiorina opportunities that she had. That proverbial -- had. She was a secretary. She worked hard and she became a CEO. You know what? Washington Post fact-checkers -- hmm.
KURTZ: She never said that she grew up in a log cabin in a poor family. That's not the issue. But I'll tell you what, Carly Fiorina has a much bigger problem. "The New York Times" the other day interviewing a number of women including influential feminist author Jennifer Weiner who's quoted as saying about Carly Fiorina. "It's so weird. She looks like one of us, but she's not. What does that mean? You're on the bus with her until she starts talking about Planned Parenthood."
So, what this means is, you're out of this sisterhood sister if you don't agree with our position being pro-choice on abortion. Kind of a growing effect that millions of women in this country happened to be pro- life.
KELLY: I know, it's so tiring. People are so -- they're just dogmatic in their believes. And it's fine. You cannot want to support Carly because you're pro-choice and she isn't. But to deny her, her accomplishments as a strong female professional, and to say she's not one of us, if us is strong women is absurd, Howie. It's absurd. And you tell me whether the attacks on her are based, in large part, on the fact that not that she's a woman, she's a conservative woman.
KURTZ: Right. I mean, obviously, the coverage of Hillary Clinton is very different. And look, Carly Fiorina, I knew this five minutes after she won that CNN debate, you know, is going to get intensified media scrutiny and she should as a presidential candidate and she has to be able to handle it. But so much of the scenes to be either that she's a conservative or, being the only GOP female candidate in the Washington Post style section the other day did a profile which said, oh, you know, she's so intense, she doesn't tell him any jokes, does she have a Mitt Romney problem? I'm sorry, I don't remember reading any pieces about, is Ted Cruz too intense? It's the kind of thing that would not be said about a male candidate.
KELLY: He is intense. That is true. But I think Rand Paul is more intense than Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz, he'll laugh every once in a while. But let me just say this. The abortion controversy in the tape, you tell me, that seems legitimate. You can probe into whether she was misrepresenting what was on there or wasn't misrepresenting. That doesn't smack of media bias. But to challenge her story because her dad was the dean of Duke Law School so therefore she can't say she went from secretary to CEO is downright obnoxious Washington Post. Do better than that.
KURTZ: She worked there a number of secretarial attempt jobs. And when she was hired at AT&T, it was a sales rep. So, this is a woman who climbed the ladder even though she did come from middle class family. And so, to use that and essentially call her a liar, I just think is a complete journalistic --
KELLY: They're making it sound like she was trying to mislead us to believe that there she was, answering the phones and one day they said, you have a lovely speaking voice. Would you like to be the CEO of Hewlett- Packard? She never implied that and they need to get their act together over there. They wrote sort of a follow-up saying, gee, people are angry but they didn't take away any of their Pinocchios.
Howie, great to see you.
KURTZ: Same here.
KELLY: Well, we've got new forecasting tonight on what could turn into a very dangerous situation for the United States East Coast. As a dangerous hurricane appears ready to become even more powerful. We've got an update for you live.
Plus, big news for the republican field as we go behind the numbers that make up a brand new series of polls. Two big ones came out today. Chris Stirewalt breaks down who's surging, who's labeling off. And why we are seeing a shift and how in this race for the White House.
And then a Black Lives Matter activist today appeared in court on the charge of making terrorist threats against the cops. We've got the video that led to her arrest and the alibi she offered cops.
(INAUDIBLE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, two brand new polls show outsiders maintaining the lead in the Republican field, but not without some major differences between them. First, a USA Today poll has new numbers showing Donald Trump is leading. He's up 6 points from July, there you can see he's ten points ahead of his next closest competitor, Dr. Carson at 13 percent. Well, Dr. Carson and Fiorina are tied at 13, each is surging, Carly up by 12 points since the last USA Today poll. But a Washington Post poll that digs into who was supporting which candidate shows a different kind of story. Dr. Ben Carson is staggering -- Dr. Ben Carson has a staggering net positive of 18 points of the favorability rating. Does anyone know what that means? It's higher than Fiorina's and it's much higher than Trump's who is negative 25. Stirewalt's going to explain this. He's our Digital Politics Editor, and back with us by special request, Howie Kurtz.
All right, can we just put that full screen back up with all the numbers? Plus 18 sounds like better than minus 25, unless you're talking about weight loss. So why is this good news for Carson and bad news for Trump and mediocre for Fiorina.
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS DIGITAL POLITICS EDITOR: So we always care a lot about favorability. There are basically in the new USA Today poll that's out, there are six candidates who are in the running. Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Rubio, Bush, and Ted Cruz that are sort of in the discussion, they're in the game right now. Then we want to say who's in there? What's the support like in there? And favorability is the measure of -- as we talk about are you open to this person? Are you willing to vote for this person? And we see somebody with high favorability numbers. That means they have a lot of room to grow, they have a lot of potential.
When you see somebody who has low energy -- their favorability numbers, that means that they may be at the limit of their -- what they can do.
KELLY: So let's talk about this. Because you look at the Washington Post poll for example, and it shows a growing gender gap, sharp racial polarization, and a less educated base as potential limits on Donald Trump's popularity. That's what they conclude. I realize that so many more men like Donald Trump than do the women -- Hispanics and African/Americans are not crazy about Donald Trump. His base doesn't tend to have college educations. But why is that a limit? If all of the whites without college degrees -- Donald Trump, couldn't he still win the nomination?
STIREWALT: Probably not -- maybe, probably not. And the other thing is this. When you talk about where you are in a race, and when you're in a race like this, you're thinking about ok, I can win at 26 percent if nobody catches up, if the rest of the field doesn't start coalescing.
(CROSSTALK)
STIREWALT: However, what happens over time is as the Perry's and the Walker's and the others -- and how long does Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie and this guy and the next guy...
(CROSSTALK)
STIREWALT: Some will stay and some will go. Some will stay and some will go. And those that go, their vote share will move onto other people and those numbers will change. The reason we care about this stuff is who's going to do the best when the change comes.
KELLY: Howie, when you look at the number of people who know Donald Trump, it's everyone. No opinion, 28 percent say have no opinion of Carson, Fiorina 35 percent have no opinion, they don't know her, Trump, and only 5 percent of the people in that Washington Post poll had no opinion on him. That's the problem in trying to build up his numbers. They already know him and they've made their decision one way or the other.
KURTZ: They better know him. He's on TV 22 hours a day. I called out on a limb last week -- Trump, he's heading down, he's escalator is going south -- he does have a un-favorability problem among Republicans, about a third don't like him. So people either really like him or really don't like him, but in the past, he's shown some ability to turn that around. Interesting on Ben Carson because I think that he has the lowest number of percentage of one poll, 14 percent of Republicans view him unfavorably, if anything those comments about not advocating a Muslim president helped him. But there are a lot of people I think who don't know that much about Ben Carson. The media has only started taking him seriously recently. So I think that could change, depending on how he handles the pressure and the scrutiny.
KELLY: What these polls are showing us, Chris, and this is back to the Suffolk Poll that shows Donald Trump leading by ten points. They say he's strong with conservative voters, but it's a much different story once Democrats and independents are in the mix. But the numbers go way over the other side, they're not prepared to vote for him. Should anyone care, at this point? Right now, he's fighting it out for the GOP nomination. He can smooth things out with the independents and the Democrats when and if he gets it.
STIREWALT: So the conservatives seem to be gravitating to Carson. We see higher education -- people with more education moving to Fiorina. We see this going on. Trump's base stays the same. They are white voters with less education. As you say, that might be enough to get through. But let's say he can pull off 25 percent of the electorate in the Republican primaries, get through to the nomination. Then you get to the general. If you haven't found a way to get out of that coalition, or what you had to do to keep that coalition together and you say Hispanic voters, hey, ladies, I'm here. Let's party. It may be tough.
KELLY: In the end, he went with a different campaign slogan. But maybe you'll reconsider yours, great to see you both.
KURTZ: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: Moving on, there is some disturbing news tonight as forecasters are expressing new concerns that a massive storm system could soon join forces with a hurricane now churning near the Bahamas and become a very serious storm. That could bring damaging winds and as much ten inches of rain to a section of east coast that is home to millions. Our Chief Meteorologist Rick Reichmuth is live in the Fox Weather Center for us tonight. What's happening, Rick?
RICK REICHMUTH, FOX CHIEF METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, you know millions of people, but also, they've seen so much rain from the last couple of days from the storm that's been plaguing them. Some spots have seen incredible flooring and that is not even from what is Hurricane Joaquin, and this storm strengthening a lot. Winds are now up to 105 miles an hour. It's a category two storm verging on the category three hurricane. Down here in the Bahamas -- and it's going to linger here for about another day -- day and a half. And then it will take a northerly turn. And that's then where we start to see a split in our ideas of what could happen. One of our very reliable models pulls this offshore -- one of them or many of them goes towards the coast.
And here's an example of that. We like this model a lot. It has been pulling it away from shore. We hope that's the case. But most of the other guidance, take a look at this, Megyn, pulling right here towards the Mid-Atlantic. We could be having a category two, category three hurricane somewhere here in the Mid-Atlantic sometime this weekend. Massive impacts possibly from D.C. up to New York and Jersey, think Hurricane Sandy a few years ago, possibly a similar scenario. We'll continue to track it right here.
KELLY: Before I let you go, how often is the Euro model right versus the other model?
REICHMUTH: It's a good model. It's a really good model. We like that model.
KELLY: If you had to put money -- which way are you going to go?
REICHMUTH: This is how good it is. All of these models here are going this way. And that one model being out here still makes us not bet on this just yet. That's how good that model is. That gives you an idea so we do like that model.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: They're as good as their weather predictions as they are at their wine.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: Great to see you, Rick.
REICHMUTH: You, too.
KELLY: Also tonight, we'll show you what happened when a black lives activist today had to face a judge over a video that called for the killing of police officers. That's next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time and time again, throughout the years of the decades. They have been killing us, they've been slaughtering us. They've been taking our children. They've been putting our men in prison. They've been attacking our women through their wombs, and enough is enough.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Developing tonight, a black lives activist who put a profanity-laced video on YouTube, today had to face a judge on a charge of making terroristic threats to police. Trace Gallagher has the story, Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER: Megyn, her name was Natasha Ned, but she goes by (Inaudible), is an Egyptian name meaning goddess of war. The woman is part the flag movement, an off-shoot of black lives matters. In the video posted on YouTube, Natasha Ned appears in camouflage holding a gun and machete (AUDIO GAP). During her three and a half minute profanity-laced rant, she repeatedly calls for open season on police, police stations, and white people, or crackers, as she calls them. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're killing our women saying that they committed suicide. They're killing our unarmed men for no reason at all, for petty crimes or nothing at all. For traffic stops, your tail light is out and you get killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: She goes onto say F America, asking black people if they're going to be a race of sheep or a race of warriors. The video was taken down from YouTube and Natasha Ned was arrested at her home a mile and a half from the police station in Clayton County, Georgia. And she appears to be surprised by her arrest, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All I did was, say defend yourself against people that want to kill us, that's all. I never said anything more than that. I never said anything more than that. So I'm being arrested for what?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: Ned is now facing charges of making terrorist threats and assaulting a 14 year old girl, beating her multiple times with a belt, leaving visible marks. The girl apparently is not her child. Natasha Ned is being held without bond, Megyn.
KELLY: Thank you. Joining me now Mark Eiglarsh, Criminal Defense Attorney and Former Prosecutor, she never said anything more than that. Mark, I don't care what the video tape says. Forget about that.
MARK EIGLARSH, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And I watched it several times. It is available on YouTube. And what makes this case fascinating is that she's going to say that our forefathers fought and gave up their lives so that she can declare open season on crackers.
KELLY: It starts with the movement she's a part of, which is the F-YO Flag, which apparently is a splinter off-shoot of the black lives matter movement. I'm sure the black lives matter movement is like thanks a lot for the help. We don't need those kinds of splinters. But here's the question. Because you know contrary to what some legal analysts have said, hate speech is not prohibited by the constitution. So how does that cross over from general hate speech that is irritating but fine, to the basis for a criminal charge.
EIGLARSH: Ninety five percent of what she says is outrageous, offensive, angry, hurtful, but clearly constitutionally protected. It's the five percent where she is clearly exhibiting fighting words where she's advocating violence. Coupled with the other 95 percent makes it clear that her actions are criminal and not constitutionally protected.
KELLY: And then she's got the child abuse charge in there. They were, like, there's a 14-year-old you used the belt on. The problem is she's got a long list of issues here. What's likely to happen to her now?
EIGLARSH: Well, her lawyers I think will do the best that they can to get the charges dismissed, alleging that her speech is analogous to others, outrageous, offensive things that have spewed from people's lips. I think they're going to fail. Because you have to look at everything, it's not just the words, it's the actions. She's holding a gun and a machete. She's saying let's get them. Let's be warriors. She's not suggesting through words or actions that people should be warriors. She's saying violence. It's very clear.
KELLY: How is it different from what we saw you know -- we saw New Black Panthers a couple of years with batons saying we've got to kill some cracker babies? How is it different?
EIGLARSH: It's all fact sensitive. Expressing how you feel very clearly and causing others to be angry, that's -- and I'll defend people's right to do so and I do every day. But when you then step over the line and advocate that we need to pick up weapons. We need to go to the police station. We need to get the crackers, we need to get the police, now you're advocating violence, Megyn, and now you're stepping over the line.
KELLY: She's stepping over the line and stepping all over the American flag which is what she's normally doing, that's her first commitment to be part of the -- you know, as I said, F-YO flag, great to see you, Mark.
EIGLARSH: Same here, Megyn.
KELLY: You know it's late in the evening. So you -- maybe you can say things like that, I didn't say the actual word. It's her movement.
Coming up next, Governor Mike Huckabee is here and he's disgusted with the media that's covered the Pope's visit at length except for two important stops. He'll tell you about them right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Well, it turns out Pope Francis met with Kim Davis when he was in Washington. She's the county clerk who denies same-sex couples their marriage licenses in Kentucky. The mainstream media cheered the news. Oh, wait. My next guest is Former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Governor, good to see you tonight, so in fact, what we saw was Bloomberg called it the wrong message. Slate called it a disaster, and Esquire called it the dumbest thing the Pope has ever done. You disagree.
MIKE HUCKABEE, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, of course I disagree. The Pope gave an affirmation to somebody who had conscience, somebody who carried out her faith. He respects that. He appreciates it. And he expressed that to Kim Davis. He even said to Kim, pray for me. She was overwhelmed with the sense that the Pope would talk to her. She's not even Catholic. I thought it was an incredibly powerful experience, not just for Kim Davis but for so many people who stand with her and believe that she's doing what she should do and that's follow her faith.
KELLY: They talked about how this undermines everything that he accomplished on his visit here, that's what Esquire says, and that he undermines the unifying healing message that he brought. Why? It's no secret that the Catholic Church opposes gay marriage.
HUCKABEE: Not only do they oppose gay marriage, but they also stand very strongly for the sanctity of every human life. The Catholic Church hasn't changed its doctrine, neither has this Pope. And I know a lot of people on the left would like to believe that he's somehow soft on marriage, soft on life. He met with the Little Sisters of the Poor. He affirmed them. They hear what they want to hear, but that's part of the problem. We're living in a day when the media wants to pick the presidential candidates. They want to decide who gets heard, who doesn't. The media wants to decide what the Pope's message means. I think the Pope's pretty capable of getting his message out without some left wing media person trying to interpret it for him.
KELLY: Governor Mike Huckabee, great to see you. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: So tomorrow night we have Charles Krauthammer and Brian Kilmeade, and guess what else happens, Nan turns 100. Yes, my lovely Nan turns 100 years young. October 1st, 1915 she came into the world. And tomorrow, victory lap.
Content and Programming Copyright 2015 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox