This is a rush transcript from "The Five," July 1, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Andrea Tantaros, along with Bob Beckel, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld.
It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."
(MUSIC)
TANTAROS: The Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision ignited a firestorm of reactions across the political spectrum yesterday, with the most wild reactions coming from the left. Listen to this remarkably irresponsible claim by the front-runner in 2016 election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: It is a disturbing trend that you see in a lot of societies that are very unstable, anti-Democratic and frankly prone to extremism. It's very troubling that a sales clerk at Hobby Lobby who needs contraception, which is pretty expensive, is not going to get that service through her employer's health care plan because her employer doesn't think she should be using contraception.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANTAROS: Well it's no surprise the dangerous comments like those from Hillary Clinton would filter down to the rest of the liberal chattering class.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Apartheid in South Africa was justified on religious grounds. The Southern Baptist Convention justified slavery, and later, Jim Crow and segregation on religious grounds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody will say that's against my religious beliefs, or cases involving gays and lesbians, or cases involving people from different foreign origins.
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: Republicans want to do everything they can to have the long hand of government and now the long hand of business reach into a woman's body and make health care decisions for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANTAROS: Reach inside a woman's body. Wow. That's pretty graphic.
Dana, I have a theory. I think they are excited about this. I think the left is secretly deep, deep down these radical feminists are jumping up down at this ruling, even though they are delighted to mischaracterize because it gives them something not just to talk about, like the IRS or V.A. scandal it gives them something --
(CROSSTALK)
TANTAROS: Yes, it gives them something to now lie about.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Right. Heads they win, tails they win. They always win. Win-win.
I think -- if they had prevailed in the court, they would have tried to run with that ball. Losing in the court politically for them gives them a lot more reason to turn out the vote in November and then going into a possible Hillary Clinton candidacy.
It's interesting that there are so many lawyers who have been elected leaders or public servants seem totally unable of digesting the law and dissecting it in a way that is rational and actually -- says what the court intended which was not at all comparable to apartheid or Sharia law. But that's the kind of hyperbole and hysteria and emotional response that really works well in campaigns. It doesn't so much work, though, when you're talking about a Supreme Court decision.
When Todd Akin, the Senate candidate in Missouri, said the stupid thing he said about rape, Democrats were able to pin every Republican with that. A Supreme Court decision that was well-reasoned like this one was, that -- it just doesn't work as well. I think the emotionalism will have to come out a little bit of the balloon before November because the Supreme Court speaks, and that's just the way it's going to be.
TANTAROS: Yes.
Eric, honor killings, female genital mutilation, that's what they are conflating this ruling, which is a very narrowly tailored ruling. And I think they're going to Candy Crowley this thing, as much as they can, over the finish line.
What's ironic to me is, the law that the Supreme Court was considering was a Clinton signed law. The Religion Freedom Restoration Act was designed to protect people from any kind of religious persecution. It wasn't designed to punish anybody.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: So, the sound bite you played of Hillary Clinton was very disingenuous, her response, because she said, she basically lumped all contraception together. Contraception is contra conception, right?
Hobby Lobby and this is really important, 16 of the 20 forms of contraception they are providing. They disagreed with the four types that actually kill a fetus after conception. That was the issue there.
So, for Hillary Clinton to lump them all together, that's disingenuous. The bottom line is what the court did, what the Supreme Court did, it said, we're applying the same standard to individuals, we're going to apply that to corporations, tightly held small corporations with the religious beliefs, have the same rights as the individual does.
Now, the good news is, why is it only tightly held? Why is it only small corporations? Think about this. If you're out there and you're a lawyer and you're a bigger employer, and you disagree with this on a religious basis, why not? Bigger corporations should get involved, too.
I think the Supreme Court has done a fantastic thing for people who are in favor of religious freedom in America, more and more corporations should sign on to that with that precedent.
TANTAROS: Greg, how can they argue this anyway? I mean, the administration has given carve outs for churches and religious organizations. They chose not to give a carve-out in this instance.
And this wasn't part of Obamacare. This was HHS using an executive power overreach, according to Justice Kennedy, to subsidize -- and they could subsidize these women's sex lives -- the government, if they wanted to. There's a thousand ways they could have done this. They chose not to on unintended consequence of Obamacare law.
Why are they arguing against that? It wasn't this, though (ph).
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: I don't know. I thought they wanted government out of these choices.
You know, FOX News won't let me swear on the air. Is that denying my First Amendment rights? No. I can go outside and swear all I want. I can find another place to swear. Just so happens where I work, I can't use certain phrases that I love so much because I would lose my job. But that does not infringe on my rights.
For feminist bloggers especially, this is their World Cup, their World Cup is empty. You talk about overblown. They make Linda Blair from "The Exorcist" look like Audrey Hepburn. No grace involved in this, just shrieking. And it's because of these women who are activist, screaming is what they majored in.
Campuses provide degrees in grievance. And there's no skill. There's no talent, just petulance.
And it gets to a bigger point. You know, women have fought the stigma of fragile emotional behavior for decades, for being accused of not being able to handle things. This hysteria by feminists have setback their cause by decades. I mean, they are truly resembling hysterics over a lot of this stuff and they are being dishonest to other women.
I don't believe they represent all women. They represent a small group of women who essentially do this for a living. This is what they do.
TANTAROS: It's gone from, Bob, "I'm a woman, hear me roar," to "I am woman hear me beg for Plan B." And doesn't it come down to just the conservative women or women who agree with this court decision are just stronger women than liberal women? I don't need a government or a boss or anyone to pay for my birth control, but it seems these radical feminists are far weaker than other women out there.
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Well, you know, this is so funny as Greg said that, because it's like the Plessy case. This is separate but equal. I can swear on the air --
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: Why is that, Bob?
BECKEL: Just like Plessy, it was, you know, separate but equal.
GUTFELD: You have a carve-out.
BECKEL: I agree. I have a carve-out.
Let me tell you why they are shrieking about this and why I'm very disturbed about it. It's a slippery slope. It's like anything else. Yes, it was a narrowly written, but let's assume for a second that you God forbid go to what Eric said go to big corporations doing this.
But let's assume that these people were Christian scientists. Now, Christian scientists do not believe in having children bled, taking blood out of them. Now, if you want to have religious decisions made by the head of corporations for 13,000 of people that work for them, it's absolutely obscene. I can't believe --
(CROSSTALK)
TANTAROS: Go ahead.
BECKEL: I just want to say I can't believe the court would go this way.
GUTFELD: OK. So, this is the inherent flaw in slippery slope arguments and why I banned that phrase. So, the slippery slope is, if you don't pay for these pills, what else won't you pay for, i.e. vaccines or any other kind of life-saving thing? You could say for the same thing if the ruling went the opposite way. If you forced us to pay for this, what would you force us to pay for now?
Both of -- it's a self-cancelling argument. Just throw it away because it's pointless.
BECKEL: Well, answer my question about Christian scientist then.
GUTFELD: I just did.
BECKEL: You did?
GUTFELD: You weren't listening.
BECKEL: I was listening to everything you said.
GUTFELD: The point is because the argument can be used in both directions. It's inherently meaningless.
TANTAROS: Bob, you use this analogy. You used it yesterday. And you used analogy also about Hassidic Jews. The Freedom, Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was designed to protect Christian scientists. This case, part of this case, Bob, was Amish, was Mennonites. Are you saying -- are you saying that a good political crouch is to kick down the door of Mennonites?
BECKEL: No, that's not -- I think that law was meant to protect your right to freedom of religion, correct?
TANTAROS: If you didn't want to work on a Saturday, Bob, because of your religion, you didn't have to. That was the point of that law.
BECKEL: If you want to get contraception, you can't because of that, right?
BOLLING: You can always buy it yourself.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: What if you can't afford?
GUTFELD: You can't afford it.
BOLLING: What if this group didn't believe in blood transfusions or whatnot, you can do that -- you blow it in the face. How many just eliminating the law completely because the only reason we're having this discussion is because President Obama insisted that the whole country have health care, and it be paid for by the employer? If that weren't the requirement, this issue wouldn't have gone to the Supreme Court and you wouldn't have to come up with all these gainsay little arguments, what if, you know, there's three guys on the street are offended by --
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: There's nothing gainsay argument about that, and by the way, what is wrong with all people getting health insurance?
GUTFELD: Oh, please?
TANTAROS: But, Dana, actually, it wasn't even part of the law. Again, it was Kathleen Sebelius who designed this using executive power to implement these essential benefits.
PERINO: Right. So, the secretary of health and human services was tasked with implementing the law and writing rules and as the president admitted today or the spokesperson did, nothing that the executive does without Congress will be as strong in the eyes of the court, which is why you go back, on the bigger picture. It shows how wise our Founding Fathers were to set up the Supreme Court so we could have how a bill becomes a law and a check from the Supreme Court that's measured and narrowed and much more mature than any of the hysterical debates that resulted from it.
BECKEL: That's because you're assuming this is mature Supreme Court.
PERINO: You know what? You can -- that's the thing about the Supreme Court. Is that, Bob, if you like their ruling, you're all for them. And if you don't, you're not.
GUTFELD: Exactly. You loved John Roberts.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: Supreme Court deserves to be -- OK, well, never mind.
BOLLING: No, no, go ahead.
PERINO: I just said, the Supreme Court deserves and was set up to be respected and to be that last stop.
BOLLING: Can I make one very quick point? And, Bob, you're right. You're right. You have to be careful why every single election counts. In 2014, if you don't be careful, you could have more Supreme Court judges that are in favor, that are in the same camp. I mean, look --
BECKEL: I hope so.
BOLLING: Well, yes, if you don't believe in this, then you don't want more Supreme Court judges. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she may step. She's sick. She may say, I've had enough. If President Obama has the Senate, guess what? If President Obama doesn't have the Senate, that would be hard to get someone through.
GUTFELD: OK, they compared this to Jim Crow. They compared this to the apartheid. I don't know why they left out the Holocaust. But I think there should be a lot of people around that are pretty offended by these comparisons.
The bigger point here is this isn't that really big of a win for the right. They just slightly slowed down the coercive progression of government but it reflects the intolerance of the other side, how they are reacting. These entitle bots are reacting as if the world is coming to an end.
The final argument I will make on this is that people are upset that men made the decision. So, what is the alternative? Should women judges only be allowed in matters that pertain to women and anything that has to do with men only men should judge on that? Is that the kind of world we want? Because that's what they're talking about.
TANTAROS: It also shows, I think, a strengthening of the First Amendment and how much the left hits it, on all accounts.
BECKEL: The connection between apartheid and Jim Crow is very tenuous to say the least.
TANTAROS: I would agree with that.
When we come back tensions in the Middle East are escalating after ISIS militants declared caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. Could Islamic extremists be planning attacks on U.S. targets? Disturbing new details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: After declaring a caliphate in areas of Syria and Iraq, U.S. officials say ISIS militants are beefing up their military capabilities with advanced bombmaking skills and cultivating a new wave of suicide bombers. The threat to American interests is, quote, "extremely high" and as a result, the U.S. is sending more troops to Baghdad to protect our embassy.
Former CIA and NSA director, General Michael Hayden, offers a chilling warning about the future of Iraq and how that could affect Americans on our own soil.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: You said this week that Iraq as we know it has ceased to exist. What do you mean by that, General?
GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER CIA & NSA DIRECTOR: Well, first of all, Chris, I think I'm right and I hope I'm wrong. I certainly wish my mind wasn't leading this progression of thought but we are seeing the creation of another ungoverned area, and unlike Afghanistan which is kind of in the middle of nowhere, as you already suggested, this is in the middle of the Middle East. This is quite a dangerous thing that we're seeing unfold here. It's probably not 9/11, but it certainly is in the same area code.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: Greg, let me start with you. When President Obama said that we're going to the end war in Iraq and try to contain terrorism there without a political solution left behind and then in Syria does a similar thing and now those borders are erased, and we have a situation that General Hayden who is not a political guy. His job has always been, he's now not in the government but his career was in the military and CIA.
What's frustrating is that Republicans are then asked the question, well, then what would do you?
GUTFELD: Right.
PERINO: But they didn't -- they weren't advocating the president's foreign policy to begin with. So, where is the demonstration that our government is actually going to do something to either prove to us that they can contain it or do something to take it out?
GUTFELD: I don't know what they're doing. I mean, it really isn't our problem until it becomes our problem. And I often ask myself, could 9/11 have been prevented? We knew the Islamic threat but we didn't act. That's a lesson here.
It's all about keeping a presence, air strikes, drones, doing what can you. It really is about a presence. Saying no boots on the ground is not a stance. We had boots on the ground for seven decades and remained safe and won the Cold War. If you don't see the link between that, congrats, you'll get tenure at any major campus.
PERINO: Well, Michael Hayden wasn't the only person that spoke this out this, Andrea. This is something the Obama administration has gotten a pass on and it might be something that taxpayers may regardless of your party affiliation want to look at and that is the failure of intelligence to predict this threat.
General Petraeus, who is no longer in the government but still involve in the world, says he could have seen this coming, that the administration was warned, there was testimony in front of Congress trying to raise a red flag to say we think that ISIS is gaining in strength. Do you think that the intelligence, something here that the media hasn't focused on enough?
TANTAROS: I do. I think that there was plenty of heads up given to President Obama if he were to read his intelligence briefings. There were warnings that this country could fall. Every time that he talked about troop withdrawal and drawing down the war, there were people that were against him, that would speak up and say Iraq will fall.
Again, I don't think the president cares. If he were a very strong president -- if I were him I would stand up and say look, this is an area decently rooted with ethnic hatred. It is not our issue yet. If ISIS begins to march on Baghdad, it will be a full blown civil war. It will be a huge problem and that's not our problem yet.
If I were president Obama, I would continue with that statement by saying, if ISIS or any other entities in the Middle East begin to target the United States of America, then it becomes our problem and we will wipe you out. We will return, we will wipe you out and we will leave. No democracy promotion. We will flatten you, period, end of story.
Again, I would wait a little bit on this one, just because I don't see what coherence airstrikes would do. ISIS is deeply entrenched in that population. They infiltrated it. They wrapped their arms around it. Without any presence on the ground I'm not sure what it would do. It will turn into a bloody civil war. I don't want our troops if caught, to be beheaded and killed for their civil war.
PERINO: Good point.
OK, Bob, the president has been very emphatic no boots on the ground. However, today, we hear a few more troops going in to protect, and a few more. I mean, are they basically trying to inch their way up? They're not going to send 100,000 troops. But at what point do the Democrats even start to say to the president, you know, I think you're going too far here?
BECKEL: Well, I think not much farther than where he's going now. And he's going to start to get some heat. Let's keep something in mind. Historically, this has been a religious conflict between the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites, well before the British drew the lines and said this is Iraq. They sat down. There are some civil servant in Britain said, here's Iraq.
And, frankly, I hate to say this, but I'm sort of missing the bad old days of Saddam Hussein. Only a strong dictator can keep these religious fanatics from each other's throats. The fact America can go in the middle of this place and solve it, it's just crazy.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: The Kurds are doing way better. The Kurds actually have a fairly peaceful existence. They are glad --
BECKEL: That's right.
PERINO: Can I get Eric in here before we have to go?
From President Obama's standpoint, in some ways I feel like we've talked about this for six years. And he spent so much time fighting President Bush now he's back to almost in the position where he has to take some radical action to have a course correction in order to fulfill his oath to protect the country.
BOLLING: And, OK. Here's what I wouldn't do. I certainly wouldn't be sending any more troops other than you need to protect our embassy in Baghdad. I think that's the first and foremost and that's what he's doing.
Also what I would do is beef up what ever we need to do with Israel. Make Israel is wrong, and if ISIS has any inclination on going anywhere near Israel, that would be cause for a lot of things, including boots on the ground. And I would certainly stop this idea of sending $500 million of aid to the rebels in Syria, because we just don't know who we're arming. In fact, sometimes we're aiding Syrian rebels and it ends up the same people we're fighting in Iraq.
TANTAROS: That's a great point, Eric. John McCain, a Republican -- this is where Republicans and Democrats have both gotten this issue wrong. Just a couple of months ago, John McCain was calling to arm essentially ISIS and he said, oh, well, it's going the moderates. Good luck with that.
BECKEL: Who really believe --
PERINO: I think going back two years is when that original request to try to push for it and --
BECKEL: You know, your assumption is the United States military can beat these grounds if they were on the ground.
PERINO: Oh, yes, we can beat these guys.
BECKEL: I don't believe for a second.
TANTAROS: We can beat them.
BECKEL: They can beat us out for another two decades.
TANTAROS: We can destroy them.
BECKEL: How?
TANTAROS: Quickly.
BECKEL: Really? With big bombs.
(CROSSTALK)
TANTAROS: Oh, yes. We would annihilate them.
GUTFELD: We have done it before. That's the sad part is. We have done it before. We actually won the war, President Obama wasn't interested in winning.
BECKEL: Won the war?
GUTFELD: Yes, we won the Iraq war and he was interested in ending it rather than winning it, which is why it's falling apart.
BECKEL: You think that was one war --
GUTFELD: The war was won and if we kept the pressure there, it would have stayed that way.
BOLLING: Can I make one quick thought to ISIS? Everyone is really freaking out about ISIS because they've declared this caliphate. It didn't matter what borders, there is going to be -- the caliphate being an Islamic state that is recognized by its own size, not by anyone else's borders. But they have a lot of enemies. The U.S. is their enemy. Iraqis are their enemies. The Iranians are their enemies. And the Saudis are their enemy.
Let these people kill each other.
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: Perhaps it's a lot of chest thumping but I don't know how we protect ourselves if they are actually serious. So, I'd rather err on the side of caution, I just don't know what that is actually supposed to be.
OK. Directly ahead, stunning revelations from unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers explaining why he considers American deserters, including Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl to be war heroes. More from Megyn Kelly's exclusive interview with Ayers when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: Welcome back to "The Five."
Everybody last night, we previewed Megyn Kelly's exclusive big sit down with Bill Ayers, the leftist nut job who ran the Weather Underground, the group who protests everything that makes America great, and they also like to blow things up.
Hear Ayers explains to Megyn why he think deserters should be considered war heroes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL AYERS, FORMER WEATHER UNDERGROUND: One of my brothers went to Canada and he's a hero for doing that. One of my brothers went to the communes, one joined the Democratic Party, tried to build the peace wing and I did what I did.
MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: You think Bowe Bergdahl is a war hero, too.
AYERS: I think Bowe Bergdahl, if he deserted, that was a heroic thing to do. Absolutely. I don't -- nobody knows if he did or he didn't. But I did blog about that because I think throughout history, we should build monuments to the unknown deserters, the people who look at the craziness they are asked to participate in and say I'm not part of this.
KELLY: OK. So --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: OK. Ands, so our young people are dying on the battlefield so morons like Bill Ayers can say stupid things like that on television to our good friend, Megyn.
TANTAROS: Unfortunately, it's true.
BOLLING: Wow.
TANTAROS: Yes. Why do we look to him for any kind of reasonable commentary? Desertion is a terrible crime in a military unit, because that's how you get killed. You have to stick together to stay alive.
You know, Bill Ayers, he should not be, really, I know we've given him time on the show, but he should not be the one that we look to for any kind of guidance. And I know Bob's going to get very upset with this, so I'm not going to say all the left. All the left.
But it is true that many on the left agree with him. Agree with this crazy thinking and do believe that what Bowe Bergdahl did was heroic. And many of them said it and blogged about it and tweeted it and Facebooked it when the whole Bergdahl issue was happening. And it's a huge -- it should be excused. It's a huge flaw in the Democratic Party, that thinking.
BOLLING: Bob, do you want to respond to that or do you want to explain how this guy can have such -- be held in such high esteem on the left?
BECKEL: Well, he's being held in high esteem on FOX. I don't think anybody on the left has paid any attention to the guy. But leaving that aside, I think the idea of desertion is a crime. It's treasonous. You should be punished for it. I think the idea of refusing to join the military and particularly around Vietnam when I was around, was absolutely the right thing to do.
BOLLING: The topic is Bill Ayers.
BECKEL: That's what I'm saying.
BOLLING: You say he's a moron, too, with the rest of us?
BECKEL: I think for the desertion party for using your conscience to stay out of the military for an illegal war like Vietnam, yes.
BOLLING: Everything he said right there. Your thoughts on that?
PERINO: I want to talk about the interview, because I -- I'm intrigued by what Megyn had to say yesterday on our show, and then I was watching the interview. And I thought holy cow this is -- it is high quality, well-thought-out. The presentation was great. The editing was very good. And she's the only one who's done interviews with him in the last few years who has actually held him to account with a follow-up.
And one of my favorite parts is he said, "I never said that."
She says, "It's in your book." Like he had even forgotten the things that he had read. And she knew them all. I thought that it was extremely well done.
BOLLING: Greg, would you agree with Bob or disagree with Bob? Isn't he a professor at the University of Chicago?
GUTFELD: Yes. He has tenure at a university, and the only role he should be playing on campus is as one of those classroom skeletons in a medical college, i.e., he should be dead. Ayers' beliefs are shared by some in the administration. The only difference is, he made bombs instead of connections. And he actually made connections through the bombs.
BOLLING: Speaking of that, second of a two-part series, Megyn sat down with Bill Ayers. That airs tonight in a back and forth that Greg alludes to, and I think it will be very telling. Megyn asked Ayers about his relationship with President Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Let me ask you this.
AYERS: Yes.
KELLY: How much ideology did the two of you share?
AYERS: Zero.
KELLY: Good friends? Not good friends?
AYERS: I knew him as well as he knew 10,000 other people. And today, I wish I knew him much better, and I wish he'd listen to me.
KELLY: Did he ever contact you once you became the story in his presidential race?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: All right. So Tommy tells me it's University of Illinois, not University of Chicago. Talk to me a little bit about that. Aren't there a lot of links between Obama and Ayers?
GUTFELD: Yes. And I think this always undermines the "Bill Ayers is old news" story. Because the relationship was buried. The link was the first cover-up engineered by a complicit media. The media loves Ayers, and it's not because -- remember he was roughly their age and they liked him.
BOLLING: Bill Ayers denies -- I'm sorry, Barack Obama denied the relationship when he was running, and now we're finding -- well, Ayers didn't confirm it, but we find out a lot more. It was a lot closer than either one of us are alluding to.
PERINO: Ayers disagrees, and actually, you know, Megyn spent an appropriate time on it, because she actually focused on Ayers and the things that he did and why he has an answer for those things. I think that's part of it.
BECKEL: He had absolutely no relationship except being on a couple of committees today and being on one fundraiser. You want to call it a relationship? Fine.
BOLLING: It wasn't one fundraiser. It was a couple of them.
BECKEL: A couple of committees.
BOLLING: That were handing out a lot of money.
BECKEL: Yes, yes, yes.
BOLLING: That matters. That's ideology. Ideology.
BECKEL: That make you friends? That's good.
BOLLING: I didn't say "friends."
TANTAROS: They're not close friends. They share an ideological mindset about this country. They do. And he can run from it all he wants. But look at the people he hung out with. Take Bill Ayers out of it. Take Bill Ayers out of it. Look at the rest of the people in the president's life.
BECKEL: You think the president of the United States thinks that desertion is a heroic thing to do?
TANTAROS: I think if you asked him in private and he wouldn't catch political flag for it, yes.
BOLLING: I think the two of them may agree on certain parts of the economy. What's right with distribution of wealth, what's right for free markets. I think they see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.
GUTFELD: I think they were married.
BECKEL: Before gay marriage was legal.
BOLLING: Part two of Megyn's interview with Bill Ayers at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight.
Up next, though, a surprising new poll says young Americans care more about the World Cup than the latest scandals plaguing our country. We're going to break it down.
And later, speaking of soccer, the USA versus Belgium showdown is under way, and Bob is still not amused with the sport. The latest on the pregame and more ahead on "The Five."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: According to a new poll, young Americans care more about the World Cup than they do about the V.A., the Iraq mess, the IRS scam, the upcoming mid-terms and the recent Supreme Court rulings. Should we care? No.
Sports and things like soccer are appealing -- more appealing than political issues because they aren't political issues. This is more fun to look at than this. It's that simple.
More important, politics is boring and complicated, which is why so many bad things happen within it. Politics is a game bad people play when good people aren't looking. As you get on with your life they get on with yours, too: creating new taxes, expanding their power, exacting new methods of coercion. Is it any wonder that Bill, Hill, Barack and every other politician is a lawyer? It's to master the rules to the game board of graft they play while you're away.
Tedium enables their success. Explain the IRS scandal to anyone under 25 and their first question will be, do you have an iPhone charger?
Obama knows this, which is why he hops from scandal to scandal, leaving a trail of messes like an incontinent gerbil.
So how do you get people interested? Well, you find articulate leaders to explain why they should care. You need to find your Obamas. If you don't the other Obama will always find you, and you'll be watching soccer as he steals your pants.
That's a metaphor. He doesn't really steal your pants.
Andrea is this finding at all surprising? It's sports. People like sports.
TANTAROS: I thought it was a euphemism, stealing your pants.
GUTFELD: Sometimes.
TANTAROS: When you're involved.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: Yes, I mean, I'm not really surprised by this. And I look back. I don't know if my generation was necessarily as plugged in as other generations were, more active in the '60s.
But President Obama is very shrewd when it comes to getting the young people involved, and he has celebrity on his side.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: He's done it better than any president, even better than Bill Clinton. So it's really tough to compete with. But how do you get people interested in the jobs and the economy and the IRS when most of these kids don't have jobs so they're not really paying taxes, and they're allowed to stay on their parents' health care. But he's figured that out. And if he can keep them down, if he can keep all people down and dependent on the government instead of on themselves they won't figure out that, actually, there's a lot of other things going on that they should be caring about.
GUTFELD: Bob, does Andrea have a point that people have pretty much opted out of all current issues, because they have -- current issues have no impact on them anymore?
BECKEL: Well, no, I think it's because if you look at any poll over any period of time, except maybe during the '60s during the Vietnam War, most young people don't care about this stuff. This is nothing new.
And if you look at the rest of that poll, when you get into the upper ages, they get more and more engaged. The older you get, the more engaged you get. Which is nothing new. It's happened in American politics as long as I was in it. So it's no surprise to me at all.
GUTFELD: Eric, soccer, let's face it, is easier than reading.
BOLLING: Yes. Some of your monologue, in other words, don't worry about the ratings, because they're going to be...
GUTFELD: Nobody is watching us right now. But something is going on. It's still 0-0, Eric. It's still 0-0.
BOLLING: But here's the thing. Wait until they start having jobs. Wait until these young people you speak of and wait until they start paying taxes. And wait until they start realizing how big, intrusive government corruptocrats (ph) are stealing their money, wasting it on stuff, ingratiating themselves with our money, then they might care about the V.A., the IRS and all the other three letter scandals.
BECKEL: Would you like to have government just go away?
BOLLING: I'd like it to be smaller. I'd rather privatize.
GUTFELD: It doesn't have to have either/or, you know. There's always something in between. Dana, we keep saying young, but isn't it all of us, if you think about it, that are distracted in society? We can't blame one society. We're all pretty bad.
PERINO: Well, at least with soccer, there is the element of surprise. There is no surprise when it comes to government corruption.
And that's an interesting thing about President Obama. He was supposed to be the one that changed everything, that restored America's faith in government, that the government could solve your problems; and six years in, the utter disappointment can be heard all across age groups and is reflected in this poll.
GUTFELD: Maybe they should combine politics and soccer.
PERINO: Make them run.
GUTFELD: Yes, exactly.
PERINO: Could we win?
GUTFELD: No.
PERINO: And by the way, maybe you are our Obama. You keep telling everybody else to get out there and explain things. Maybe you're our Obama.
GUTFELD: I quit smoking, though. I'm not smoking any more.
TANTAROS: You are the one we've been waiting for?
GUTFELD: That's very sad. Very sad.
BECKEL: Not me. I guarantee you that.
GUTFELD: I couldn't run a sea lab. OK. Coming up -- those are those little independent places in the ocean.
Anyway, fans are going wild for the World Cup as USA takes on Belgium. Bob's got the latest on the big game that you're probably watching and can't hear this tease.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECKEL: The big USA versus Belgium soccer showdown is underway, with a score of nil-nil. That's 0-0. Almost 90 minutes watching grass grow, and they still haven't scored any points.
Fans have going wild for the World Cup for weeks. But as you know, I'm not a soccer fan, and neither is former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who writes about why soccer will never be a slam dunk in America. He's got a lot of courage to do it.
Quote, "Soccer doesn't express the American ethos as powerfully as our popular sports. We are a country of pioneers, and we like to see extraordinary effort rewarded with points." It's exactly right: with points. Nil-nil. Nil this -- Eric.
BOLLING: Look, I've been with you on this. I've got to tell you, once every four years you've got to be patriotic, got to root for your team. This is really kind of compelling stuff watching this team.
We're outclassed in this Belgium game. But we're holding our own. Still 0-0, right? Still nil-nil, I think we're doing great. I have an idea. Cameras guys before the show, we were watching the game. You know what I think would help soccer to get Americans more tuned into soccer, if they use those close shots that they do in football, that they do in hockey, that they do in baseball ...
TANTAROS: Of the players butts?
BOLLING: Well, not the butts, but...
TANTAROS: Like cheerleaders.
BOLLING: So when they're kicking the ball up the field, they always need to big relationship shot, not show the big field. Most of that game you're watching, you have 22 players. You can't see any one of them.
PERINO: You mean like GoPro cameras on their sneakers?
BECKEL: Can you include in the cameras the guy mowing the grass?
BOLLING: That's not that big.
BECKEL: OK, I know you like that stuff.
GUTFELD: Why stop at the game? You should have cameras in the locker rooms. Some people need to know what's going on in there. Right, Dana?
PERINO: Absolutely. That way it would be out in the open.
GUTFELD: Yes, exactly. That's where scoring really is.
TANTAROS: I like where your head is at. And you too, Bolling. And they don't get down in that huddle position like the football players.
They're picking it up; I'm putting it down.
PERINO: If the soccer teams had cheerleaders would you watch it, Bob?
BECKEL: Probably. But yes, I would. But what I want to say right now is to my good friend Greg. The way you're sitting there right now, you're exposing yourself.
GUTFELD: Am I?
BECKEL: Yes, you are.
GUTFELD: All right. Thanks.
BECKEL: Now I know it drove a lot of you wild, but I didn't want to see you get like that.
Now, the thing about soccer, though, it's got a lot of people playing. Thirteen million or something. Used to be 100,000, 200,000 ten years ago. thirteen million kids play the game now.
TANTAROS: In America.
GUTFELD: Not everybody can afford golf clubs. That's the great thing about soccer. A ball means the world to the poor.
BECKEL: I like that point you made before. That's right. That's why some, like -- some of these countries can compete, because they have no money.
TANTAROS: Well, why such hatred for it? I don't understand the vitriol against it. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I don't really like golf very much.
BECKEL: I don't hate it. I just don't want to sit in front of it and watch it.
PERINO: Watching golf on TV...
GUTFELD: I love that.
BECKEL: There's some great shots.
PERINO: Talk about watching grass grow. That's actually...
GUTFELD: Golf is great. You just lie on the couch. You fall asleep. You wake up. Nothing's happened.
BECKEL: Same with soccer. You fall asleep and wake up; nothing's happened.
GUTFELD: That's the players.
BECKEL: That's right.
TANTAROS: I don't know what else to say about this topic, so I have a question. I report, you decide. Someone compared the Belgian coach Marc Wilmots to one Eric Bolling.
PERINO: I thought about that earlier.
TANTAROS: Now he's not as tan as Bolling. Doesn't he look a little bit like Bolling. A little bit.
BECKEL: Very good. That's very good.
TANTAROS: The other shot of him with his hands? I thought that earlier.
BECKEL: Now since Eric has sucked up to the soccer people, which he didn't do early on -- that's all right. It's like what you do with your wife. I understand.
BOLLING: I'm just too patriotic.
BECKEL: I know, OK. Let me put you all on the record here.
TANTAROS: Eric Bolling, Eric Bolling.
BECKEL: What's the score going to be when all this is said and done?
BOLLING: In this game?
BECKEL: Yes. Realistic? I'll be patriotic. It will be zero-zero, but we'll win on penalty kicks.
BECKEL: So we understand each other now. If this thing ends at 90 minutes, it's nil-nil, they then have to add on the extra time that the referee decides, the 90 minutes wasn't being played. Then you go to 15- minute playoff and then you've got to add the extra time for the referee. And another 15 minutes and then you've got to go to the other stuff on the referee. And then you have a kick-off and then if that doesn't happen everybody goes to Burger King. I don't know. What do you think?
PERINO: America 1-0.
GUTFELD: I have 53-35.
PERINO: That's good.
GUTFELD: By the way, you know where it comes from, nil? Nihilistic. It's a belief in nothing.
BECKEL: What do you think?
TANTAROS: I don't know. I don't really know what to say. I just like places that you can go and get together and drink without judgment. It's perfect.
GUTFELD: You know what I love about soccer? Talking about it.
BECKEL: To be patriotic, I hope the United States wins, but my own guess is it's going to be nil-nil when all is said and done, if that's possible.
BOLLING: Somebody has to win.
BECKEL: Somebody has to win.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TANTAROS: Time now for "One More Thing," and the best part about soccer besides the players is insults -- Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Part two. Here's a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG: I understand all the wagers here, all the Italian wagers have the respect for the game, are only groping the women with their feet. That's right.
Goal! Goal!
(SPEAKING GIBBERISH) I think they got the goal. Goal. Tell me what happened. What happened? Ivory Coast won the coin toss.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANTAROS: Very funny. There are more videos. You should Google them.
All right. Bob.
PERINO: Bob, a second job for you.
BECKEL: yes. You all remember, I think, the Republican representative from Illinois, Vance McAllister. And this little piece of footage they picked up on him while he was in his office. We got that?
OK, there we go. Now, there's Vance with a staffer right there. He's married with kids. And oh, my is that a good night kiss or is that just a hug? We all hug each other. Well, guess what? There you go, Vance, boy. Louisiana, that's good. A lot of things happen in Louisiana.
And so Vance has decided now that the people of this district really need him back. And he said he wouldn't run for re-election and actually got out of the Congress. Now Vance is back and he's running again, and I can say that I wish him extremely well, because he's representative of those representatives.
TANTAROS: Can we run all the footage of, oh, I don't know, all the Democrats that have had lewd experiences?
BECKEL: Excuse me. Excuse me. We've got to just move on.
TANTAROS: OK.
GUTFELD: Or certain consultants that have gotten in trouble in sex scandals. Anyway...
TANTAROS: Moving right along, Eric.
BOLLING: OK. So another example of the left media sucking up to the Obama administration. NBC did a four-minute puff piece on Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser for President Obama. During that puff piece, they aired this picture right here in her office. Valerie here has a picture of herself, but three people, three guys are bowing to that picture. And spot shadow the one right there. I'm just wondering. You know, her boss has a tendency to bow a lot. I just wonder if that was supposed to be...
TANTAROS: Symbolic? It is very symbolic.
BOLLING: That's good.
PERINO: I expected that from my staff. I expect it from you. Let's go.
TANTAROS: He does bow down to Jarrett.
PERINO: All right. Here's the thing. Talk about the lap dog media. I bet they missed this story.
So the inspector general at the Health and Human Services Department, where they're implementing Obama care, came out with a doozy of a report today. The Obama administration cannot verify 2.8 million irregularities in the applicants for enrollment for Obamacare. That means that they cannot find -- they have inconsistencies on citizenship, lawful presence, residency, family size, household income. You name it. They can't figure that out. So that means that when they did that, big victory lap with 8 billion people signed up and enrolled, and everything was going to be just fine. That can't possibly be true with this inspector general's report and deserves some more attention.
BECKEL: Go Obamacare.
TANTAROS: Yes.
BECKEL: Are you up?
GUTFELD: I believe so.
TANTAROS: Greg Gutfeld.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: I hate these people!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: I'm a fan of public transportation. But not when there are teenage girls on it. They do not or should not be allowed on public transportation, because they are loud. They talk too loud about their personal problems. They chew gum, always talking about boys. I don't care. I have to take the subway to work. I don't need to know your stupid, stupid stories. So if you're a teenage girl who takes the subway shut up.
BECKEL: You know, they're pretty good...
GUTFELD: Those are teenage girls, Bob.
BECKEL: Oh, I'm sorry.
TANTAROS: OK. We're celebrating the Fourth of July all week long right here on the FOX News Channel, so if you're a proud American, tweet us, @TheFive using the hashtag proudAmerican and tell us why you are a proud American too.
Don't forget to set your DVR so you never miss an episode of "The Five." We'll see you back here tomorrow. "Special Report," up next.
BOLLING: Belgium just scored a goal.
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