Terrorist drives van into Barcelona crowd
This is a rush transcript from "The Five," August 17, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened? Oh God!
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KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kimberly Guilfoyle, and those horrific images are becoming an all-too-familiar scene, another terrorist attack, streets covered in blood in the heart of Europe. Just before 6:00 p.m. local time in Barcelona, Spain. A white van jumped the sidewalk and purposely mowed down tourists and residents on the city's most famous street killing 13 and wounding at least 100.
ISIS has claimed responsibility and two suspects are in custody, but authorities say there is a manhunt underway for the van's driver. And in late-breaking news, the AP is reporting that the Spanish authorities have just shot and killed four suspects involved in a separate alleged terror plot south of Barcelona. Today's terrorism is just the latest in the wave of attacks in Europe where a vehicle was used to target innocent civilians with other similar incidents happening in recent years in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Greg, sadly we see this happening over and over again, especially with increasing frequency over the past year, get your thoughts and reflect on what has happened here and ISIS claiming responsibility.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Well, we always talk about how we need to keep an eye on this thing when we are talking about North Korea and when we're talking about identity politics. Our country is taking the eye of the ball. There is an existential war going on, and it is not internal, it is not in the United States, it is external. You know, we are killing each other over statues, statues do not move. Terror moves.
And this is a world war, we are at battle. We are at a battle over the future of this world. It is not about identity. Unlike statues, terrorism is malignant. It moves, and we have to fight it together. What worries me is about how we look at terror now as something mundane, like extreme weather, because we get a dozen dead here, 15 are dead here, we've become accustomed to this pattern of it.
So that we reported for about 72 hours, and then we move on, and then we get confused about how many there are, because there are so many. We have to understand that we're going to look back at this era as a good old days, because once technology and terror marry each other and you have the drones and you have the bioterror, it is going to make 9/11 look very, very small.
And we have to understand that right now during this -- this is a prelude. We are talking about an apocalyptic war that will go on for possibly our lifetimes. We have to take it seriously, the world has to.
GUILFOYLE: The world has too. Are we taking it seriously enough? Melissa, we will get your reflections on this today.
MELISSA FRANCIS, GUEST CO-HOST: I actually disagree with Greg a little bit. I see the commonality between this and what happened in Charlottesville.
GUILFOYLE: Uh-hm.
FRANCIS: Because, I mean, beside the fact that there was a car involved in both incidences. But even when you watch some of the tapes that Martha MacCallum showed last night about the neo-Nazis gathering in Charlottesville. And you try and think about what fuel someone to feel such inhuman hatred for other human beings, is it pure evil? How do people get radicalized like this when you're talking about neo-Nazis or you're talking about ISIS?
To me it looks like the same sort of unfathomable problem where you have people who want to wipe out total strangers in the most gruesome and brutal way that it is not even human, that we cannot even relate to it. But you have to find a way, I don't know, somehow to stop people from feeling this way, because they will going to figure out how to kill people no matter what.
GUTFELD: One is an extremist religious doctrine that is seeking a dirty nuke?
GUILFOYLE: Oh, there you go. Yes. Bring in North Korea.
GUTFELD: Yes.
YLE: Also the mix. So, we see this happening in Europe, but we should care and pay attention in a really acute way as Greg is saying, because this is a global terror threat. And if anything does not like bring people together and nations together to coalesce, to fight against it, what else will?
JESSE WATTERS, CO-HOST: I agree with Greg and Melissa, it's a deadly terror attack. Something like this. It makes people that are offended by a statue seem really, really out of touch. At the same token, you have the real fascists are there in Barcelona. ISIS is the real fascists. So if anti-fa really wants to fight fascism, maybe they should go over to Syria and smash the fascist. The left named and shames the ideology behind the attacks in Charlotte white supremacy. But they will not to name shame the ideology behind the attacks in Barcelona, radical Islam, instead they want to say the van attack.
You know, it was perpetrated by a van, no, it was a driver of the van. Wolf Blitzer on CNN, wondered if this was a copycat crime on the heels of Charlotte. Like this radical Islamists were thinking, you know, what? The statues, yes, they have to come down, let's go kill some people. It is insane. These attacks using vehicles are now a pattern, but it also shows two things. One, it shows how effectively have been. Because you are not seeing the spectacular sophisticated attacks concerning airlines and technology like that.
But you are seeing more crude attacks with cars. And those can be just as deadly and disgusting. There is a video floating around, and we shouted at the top of the show where all the dead bodies are pixilated. I happened to see it un-pixilated by accident. And at first I thought it was a mistake, but then I realized, you know, it is not a mistake. Sometimes it is good to watch the grotesque nature of the evil that we face.
Because it reminds you about the enemy that we face. And it also shows how indiscriminate the attack was by going after innocent civilians, it's like punching a baby, the baby is not guilty, and it cannot defend itself. And you know, you are seeing these soft targets now come under attack a lot in Europe. I just hope that this is going to steal the -- and the war on terror because you remember what happened after the Madrid train attack, the Spanish government pulled out of the Bush/Iraq war coalition thinking, you know what, maybe the terrorists are going to leave us alone. But obviously, they are not.
GUILFOYLE: All right, Juan, it's very disturbing what happened today, and again, you know, in Europe, just really just getting pummeled with one terror attack after the next. And now Barcelona.
JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Right. So, it is a very interesting moment, because Spain after some of the prior attacks actually hardened so much of their infrastructure. Their transit, especially the trains come after that previous attack. But they have a high level of surveillance. They have been very aggressive with terrorists. They arrested nine back in April, they have heightened the security. And in parts because of our success, the United States led coalition success in places like Syria and Iraq, what you are seeing is ISIS now morphing, maybe I should say metastasizing like a cancer going elsewhere, looking for soft targets like this, like the concerts that we saw in Paris or in London.
GUILFOYLE: The path of least resistance.
WILLIAMS: Right. And that's what we see here. I think that I disagree with Greg, I agree with what Melissa said. When you see hatred growing in a society or globally, you have to attack it. You have to be aggressive about it.
GUTFELD: Did I not say that?
WILLIAMS: This is not right. So, if you see and this is what, you picked up on Jesse, if you see hateful statues in your society, I think you should say something about it. I don't think, oh, yes, just leave it. You know, that's it? No. I don't think we would have that kind of thing.
WATTERS: Well, I think I made a good point. The statues do not move.
WILLIAMS: Yes. But guess what --
WATTERS: And they are not killing anybody.
WILLIAMS: Yes. But people who killed that young woman in Charlottesville, they were moving, and they were in a car much like this guy.
WATTERS: Yes. But I don't think it was copycat.
WILLIAMS: I don't know about copycat. But I'm telling you that's what it is in terms of use. That today, what we heard from the acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke is, you know what? We are not only going to help out the Spanish, we are going to try to be tougher here at home and want to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the United States.
The question for Miss Duke and for all of us is, how do you deal with someone who gets a car or a truck, runs it and then suddenly slams into innocent people walking down the street? I don't want to accept this as the new normal in my life for my family, for my friends here on THE FIVE, that is not acceptable. It is also not rational to say to Elaine Duke and to President Trump, stop it now.
I mean, it's not like, I mean, I don't know where these people come up, oh, the liberals, the Democrats don't care about this, don't speak to it. Boy, have we spoken to it as an American people that we are not tolerating it. And we should not accept it as a new norm.
GUILFOYLE: Okay. Melissa, how do you relate and react to Juan's comments here?
FRANCIS: I mean, I'm at a loss for how you react against it. I mean, we've -- it seems like we pardon what targets we can, they find a new way to attack. If you're just going to rent a vehicle, we can stop people from renting vehicles, they are going to steal the vehicle and ram it into other people. I mean, you have to find the root cause of what is causing the hate and the radicalization to spread. I mean, what is the root cause? And that is the problem that no one can solve.
WATTERS: Yes. Well, I mean, the root cause is obviously the ideology, and that's why President Trump went over to Saudi Arabia and gave that very impactful speech earlier this year when he said that, we need to drive out the wicked ideology from the Middle East. And he tried to enlist leaders locally and on a governmental level to help do that. Because until they do that in their own backyard, you're going to continue to see them spread and spread into Europe. And then eventually the United States.
WILLIAMS: You know what is interesting here is by the way, we are talking about Spain tonight and the terror that took place there, is that Spain has become a transit point for these terrorists coming from around the world.
WATTERS: -- coast from Barcelona.
WILLIAMS: Yes. That's right, Jesse. So, they are using Spain as a transit point to get into places in Syria --
WATTERS: Right.
WILLIAMS: -- and Iraq, and so that's why now you see more and more of these kinds of events existing in Spain. And again, I don't think that we can say, Spain has been lax, no, in fact, they have been tougher. It is still going on.
GUILFOYLE: I know Greg, we're going to discuss more, you had some more ideas in your monologue about how to prevent, you know, terrorism. But, you know, if you are somebody who lives in Barcelona and also you've seen these attacks in other important cities throughout Europe, people are able to move freely.
GUTFELD: It is the thing that as an American when you travel through Europe, since 9/11, how disturbing, because I am already neurotic, but I am constantly thinking -- I'm always thinking --
WATTERS: I agree with that.
GUTFELD: -- like a terrorist. When I am sitting, whether it is a double double-decker bus in London, when I lived in London or when I'm on vacation somewhere on a train, I am appalled at the lack of security. I will not say where I was a few weeks ago, but I was -- there was no security, and I was amazed in every any backpacker can tell you how easy it is to go through Europe, and it does not matter who you are, there's not checking. It is just easy to travel.
And so people ask or people wonder how America can be so worried about their borders and how worried about mass migration and what we have been trying to articulate at the risk of sounding like bigots is that we are worried about the needle in the haystack. We want to have the extreme vetting exist because of things like this. We want to know who these people are when they come here so that we can reduce this.
GUILFOYLE: Yes, Jesse, is this unreasonable? I mean, this is a lot of what President Trump campaigned on a national security, securing our borders and making sure that we are to the extent, you know, humanly possible impenetrable from these types of attacks on U.S. soil. We have seen them happen, we have seen them happen. And that is part of the extreme vetting, the people call it the travel ban, et cetera. And now you see this all coalescing again, another real-life example.
WATTERS: Luckily America is separated by the oceans, thank God. But on the Southern border with Mexico, that's why the wall has to be built. If you ever had a terrorist cell come through Mexico into the United States, I bet half the Democrats in Congress would vote to fund that wall. Second of all, Greg was saying, you can float freely throughout the European continent, that's because the European Union allows that.
And that's a different mentality. And they decided to do that. They voted on that. Americans do not really understand that. They are moving away from the nation-state, and they are kind of going into this big, kind of economic system, and they are getting away from what they have seen over the last century. And that is pardon borders and nationalism, but when you lose nationalism, you lose safety to a certain extent. Because if you are not going to protect nationalism with borders and border security, then you're going to see more of this stuff happen. And that's what the terrorists are taking advantage of.
WILLIAMS: You know, I think that kind of thinking is, you know, I appreciate it, because I think you and I are on the same team here. We want to stop terrorism. But I think that kind of thinking Jesse is outdated in the sense that the way that this ideology is being communicated is through social media. And it is being aimed at young people, for the most part, and especially insecure troubled souls who do not know what they are doing.
May be subject to some kind of crazed ideology, or anger at the larger society. And they go off and they think I am going to be a martyr, I'm going to be a hero, I'm going to fight. I don't know what they are thinking, but they go off. And that's why you see them moving around and then going to the battlefield. And now even not going to the battlefield, they are reading some of these magazines and to the terrorist magazines have been going on for the last few months about the use of vehicles, trucks in specific.
GUILFOYLE: Well, they give specifics.
GUTFELD: And that is harder to stop and you can do better on the border.
GUILFOYLE: Real quick, Catherine Herridge is waiting.
GUTFELD: Juan mentioned a pretty popular myth that this is spread by the internet, and what their finding is actually not true. That is who you know. If you look at the close circle, terror connections are actually people you know, it is not necessarily picking people off, that it's very rare. It is who you know.
GUILFOYLE: It is. And same when you do gang analysis and they put up the board and one of the relationships --
GUTFELD: Yes.
GUILFOYLE: And they go look for the tentacles and who your associates are. Well, the United States government is closely monitoring the developments in Spain tonight.
And chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge is here with the very latest from Washington. Catherine?
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Kimberly, I want to take a moment now to just kind of connect some of the dots for people at home so that they can understand the bigger picture of what has happened in the last 24 hours. We had the van attack in Barcelona. But now we understand that an explosion in a town about 100 miles southwest called Alcanar is directly connected according to the Spanish police.
Initially they thought that the explosion last night was just due to a gas leak, but then on closer inspection, they realize the building had been flattened because they found at least 20 canisters of butane and propane, so it appeared to be a bomb making factory. And you know from your experience investigating these styles of cases that once a layer is removed and a plot is exposed, the individuals start to scatter. And they move quickly, not necessarily on their own timetable.
So, we had the attack in Barcelona, and now we have confirmation this evening of another terrorist event in the town of Cambrils, which is in between these two locations. It is a coastal resort, police there are reporting that in the early hours of Friday, their time, a white van rammed pedestrians on a boulevard, one of the walkways along the ocean, they injured people, and then when they were confronted by police, there was a shoot down, and four people were killed. So, we have three very significant events, Spanish police are saying that at least two are connected. And the third, they are also describing tonight as a terrorist plot, Kimberly.
GUILFOYLE: All right. We will going to take it around the table. We have some questions for you, Catherine. Thank you for that update.
HERRIDGE: Sure.
GUILFOYLE: We will begin with Greg.
GUTFELD: Yes. I was just wondering, I probably know the answer, but I just want to ask if U.S. Intel had any information or knew of a cell like this or had any hints that these people were operating there.
HERRIDGE: Well, I know from my reporting today through a counterterrorism contact who does a lot of tracking of extremists on social media that Spain has not really been part of their online conversation in a very big way, but in early July and ISIS affiliated telegram account posted specifically about the Barcelona. And used the language that was very threatening. This was considered so significant that it was flagged to some of the law enforcement agencies.
Spanish media is reporting that there was a specific warning from the CIA to authorities in Barcelona. And that La Rambla, this promenade in the center of the city, the equivalent of like Times Square or the Champs- Elysees in Paris, was a specific target of ISIS terrorist. So, what we can say at least tonight is that there was a growing body of evidence either from social media or in the intelligence stream that these groups were getting very focused on the port city of Barcelona and what they would consider a very symbolic high profile target in the center of that city.
GUILFOYLE: Okay, Melissa.
FRANCIS: Catherine, it's Melissa Francis. What do we know so far? I mean, now we have three locations, three different events, I understand that there were two people in the custody, what do we know about the perpetrators here? The original van driver, what do we have?
HERRIDGE: Well, it's been a very next picture today, our latest information when it comes from Spanish police is that at least two people are in custody, but they are not describing them as the driver of the van in Barcelona, which leaves open the possibility that this individual is on the run and under pressure. You have to consider that the person who drove that van was willing to die today. So they would be extremely high risk in the hours that they're trying to track them.
We also know that someone was injured in Cambrils. This is the sea side town. I mentioned earlier where there was another attack on Spanish media with the white van targeting pedestrians on the coast. So, another person was injured. We believe that they have also been taken into custody. And a fourth individual was injured in the explosion at that home in Alcanar. This is the town that is about 100 miles southwest of Barcelona. So, they may also have pertinent information -- Melissa.
GUILFOYLE: All right. Jesse?
WATTERS: All right. So the cell right now, it's pretty clear it is a cell. Do we believe it was operating under the direction of ISIS leadership in Syria? Were they operating independently? Were they copycats? What do we know about any sort of coordination?
HERRIDGE: Well, the Spanish authorities have described both incidents, the one in Barcelona, and then the one this evening as terrorist attacks or terrorism related. They have not used the word sell at this point, but you are quite right in your analysis that there are so many moving parts that it goes beyond the lone actor or a single individual who was radicalized.
WATTERS: Right.
HERRIDGE: Especially now that the Spanish police have made the connection between the explosion in the home where it looks like it was a bomb making factory or may have been a bomb making facility, and then also Barcelona. But the key question right now is whether these are individuals who became radicalized by consuming ISIS ideology online and reading these kind of how-two terror magazines --
GUILFOYLE: Uh-hum.
HERRIDGE: Or maybe if this was something sort of darker and deeper and more complex that it was crafted with the help of ISIS operatives and then directed by them, either from Syria, or even from Libya where they maintain a much smaller footprint than they did a year ago. But you are really on to the right focus here whether it was inspired and sort of a self-starter kind of plot or whether it had sort of the hand of ISIS reaching in and helping direct the operation.
GUILFOYLE: Yes. Customer complex detail ahead, coordination.
WATTERS: That's right.
GUILFOYLE: All right. Juan has a follow-up in the question.
WILLIAMS: So, Catherine, I am so interested in the idea that people are going through Spain on their way to fight elsewhere, to fight in Syria, in Iraq, and the like. Is that part of the picture that you can see, you know, taking a step back and trying to understand what is taking place and why we have seen more terrorist type activity in Spain?
HERRIDGE: Well, Spain has actually not been a big part of the ISIS social media, online conversation in the last couple of years. But that tone seemed to change in the last six months or so when there were more messages about reclaiming their stake to this territory as a Muslim land. And then also the social media post that I mentioned in July. And then the report of the warning by the CIA.
I would offer you just this idea, because it has often been true in other cases, which is that if a terror group is using a port city as a transit point, they are very reluctant to launch attacks in that area, because they want to preserve it as a way to move their people, to move weapons, and to move money. So, they do not want to attract unnecessary attention. But I think that you are really onto something here. Which is the movement out of, not only Syria, but I would get people to pay attention to the North Africa question as well.
Libya had really been sort of the second element of the caliphate up until recently. Their footprints, ISIS's footprint there has really been reduced, but they still have a stakeholder and they tried and move people up into Europe through those areas.
WILLIAMS: So, you are saying that in fact they are moving from the Middle East towards North Africa?
HERRIDGE: You really have two things going on here. You have ISIS in Syria, and Iraq, and then about four years ago, they established a satellite operation in Libya. It was kind of like a plan B, like if things went bad for them in Syria and Iraq, they had a leadership structure in Libya. And it was a way to shield some of the leadership and use it as a launching pad into Europe. Now I say that, but in the last year, our special operations forces have really done a lot to degrade and really reduced the footprint in Libya. They have taken out, they say over 3000 fighters that were primarily located in the Eastern part of the country. But ISIS still has a much smaller footprint, but the goal has been to use that as a launching pad into Europe.
GUILFOYLE: All right. A lot of information, Catherine, honestly excellent reporting as always.
HERRIDGE: Thank you.
GUILFOYLE: Thank you so much.
HERRIDGE: Thanks for having me.
GUILFOYLE: All right. A pleasure. And when we come back, a Gutfeld monologue on the terror in Spain and what we can do to prevent this from happening.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: ISIS has taken credit for this barbaric attack. But whoever is responsible should know that the United States over the America together with our allies will find and punish those responsible and drive the evil of radical Islamic terror from the face of the Earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Pretty clear.
So, another terror attack involving a car ramming a crowd, why is this so common? Well, it is harder to hit other targets as we've said. And this tactic is pretty simple. You rent a heavy object, you hurl it into a vulnerable crowd. So, even as ISIS dies, these attacks will go on as long as scum sell martyrdom, there will always be martyrs.
Our response? What is needed as always is more intelligence, surveillance and cooperation. Meaning an adult grasp of freedoms fragility. You cannot be free unless you are secure. It is why we must always try to harden every soft target: buildings, trains, everything. When you hear commentators remind you of the low risk of attack, they do it from a secure location. You ever see those absurdly large flower pots in front of media towers like the one I am sitting in right now? It's not because we like plants. Those plants prevent ramming. We saw it in Charlottesville: What prevented many more deaths? A stationary car that was blocking the killer's path. It was for many a life-saving barrier. Of course, create a barrier, the target always moves farther out.
There will always be vulnerability and those who exploit it. That is the essence of terror. Which is why security as an industry should be bigger than technology or media, because without security, you would have no technology or media.
This is what the best and the brightest should be studying. If you can major in physics, you should be able to major in security too, it could be your life's work. And as long as there is a toxic doctrine infecting lost souls, that work will never end.
Kimberly, we always end up like in the second day of a terror attack coverage, there's always becomes this argument between freedom and security as if these are polar opposites. And I always maintain it is a fallacy that they exist together, they are siblings together. One complements the other. I want to head that debate off today.
(LAUGHTER) KIMBERLY GUIFOYLE, THE FIVE HOST: Yes, let's set it off. Let's settle this once and for all. Yes, not two binary choices.
GUTFELD: Yeah.
GUIFOYLE: Not black and white. There has to be a blend. And in order to have a free and safe society, you have to be willing to give up some of those freedoms so that you can be properly protected. We need to engage in very aggressive and thorough intelligence gatherings that are lawful, and make sure that we understand the complicated terror webs of the relationship of where they go back to. And now it's an international focus. Who are they talking to in Syria? Who is responsible for this? Is this someone with known association with ISIS, or is this something coming from a different group, AQAP, or another type of group that's trying to gain entry into this area?
And you see with this situation, it's very challenging to be able to prevent something like a car being weaponized and use to create this kind of damage with the number of lives lost, a hundred injured, 15 of those very seriously, and you see this happening with more frequency and regularity because of the success of the terror mission. So they want to copy what works. They'll try to go for the path of least resistance, and when they find a weakness that's penetrable, they will cease it and take advantage of it, which is why we have to be ever vigilant and constantly evolving to match the ferocity of the threat that we face.
GUTFELD: Melissa, maybe I'm missing something, but in college you can study humanities, you can study economics, you can study physics, you can study mathematics, why isn't security a science? I mean, I don't understand why people don't devote -- A, it's lucrative, and B, it's meaningful.
MELISSA FRANCIS, THE FIVE HOST: Well, I don't know. I'm sure it is. I mean, I'm sure it comes with technology, and it's about coding, and it's about all of that kind of stuff. I mean, I agree with you in the sense that I don't mind if you want to search my first --. I don't mind walking through metal detectors, all these sorts of physical security. I do worry a little bit, though, as we try and look at the technology, and who is talking to who? Who is planning what, because that's the way to catch people. Immediately, I'm thinking about what we were just talking about with the Obama administration unmasking, various people listening in on calls, when you have the wrong people that are sitting at the switches and using it for political purposes over security. I mean.
(CROSSTALK)
GUIFOYLE: They're listening to Trump. Unmasking Trump associates versus worrying about ISIS, is the first problem.
FRANCIS: I worry about the people sitting at the computers that they have the right intentions as they're shifting through -- they're not getting -- you know, going down some political event instead of actually protecting us against terror.
GUTFELD: Jesse, we are the luckiest people in the media because we can sit here and talk about all these wonderful issues, in nuanced terms, surrounded by barricades and well-armed men.
JESSE WATTERS, THE FIVE HOST: You're not supposed to tell the enemy that we have potted plants.
GUTFELD: I might add, bulletproof glass.
WATTERS: Yes. So don't even try it. You know, I agree, America needs a text search to defeat terrorism. Maybe that fire google engineer could work for a defense contractor. We need to fund and put more manpower onto things like satellite technology, laser weaponry, drones, facial recognition technology, eavesdropping, all of that stuff. I think the most important thing is -- you know, it's not patriotic necessarily to work for Facebook, it's very patriotic to work for something that can protect American lives. We also need human intelligence, and you just talked on that, too. You have to have guys, not necessarily Americans, because they're going to get busted, you need Sunni Arabs from our allies.
GUIFOYLE: Partners.
WATTERS: . to get into these cells, and to crack the cells, and to disrupt the plots before they're hatched. That means we need to support the CIA, and we've got to support our Sunni friends in the region. Ultimately, though, and I said this on the last segment, you've got to drive the ideology out, and that's why need Saudi Arabia and the Jordanians to really drive these people out, because without that help, we're going to see more and more of Barcelona.
FRANCIS: Who would you trust the eavesdropping technology, though, you slid that in the middle there. That makes me very nervous, who are you going to lead in the government to eavesdrop on who?
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: They know everything you're texting, Melissa. They know everything Greg is texting. They know everything already. But I mean, listen, publicly -- was happening in Barcelona, so there's always more to be done.
GUTFELD: The war is going to be fought in technology, especially with cyber terror, it's a reality. If you want to enjoy this fun time on The Five talking about it, you better accept the fact that it's the future. Juan, another problem with this.
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: . is that we always talk about if you see something, say something. But, as you know, if you say something, you're often seen as a bigot. If you actually report, you think that there's something fishy going on.
GUIFOYLE: They say a racist.
GUTFELD: Yeah. So, I mean, how do you overcome that? I mean, as someone who has observed things in the past and been nailed for it.
JUAN WILLIAMS, THE FIVE HOST: I've been nailed for it. What I said was, clearly, I get nervous when I'm on a plane, I see people dressed in Muslim garments after 9/11.
GUTFELD: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: I didn't say stop anybody. I hope they went through the same metal detector that I went through. I hope they were searched and properly vetted.
GUTFELD: I hope they properly vetted you, Juan.
(LAUGHTER) WILLIAMS: Oh, they tickled.
(LAUGHTER)
WATTERS: We vet Juan for every show.
WILLIAMS: Every show. Every show. Let me just say, I have tremendous respect for our CIA and for our national intelligence folks. And I think you're underselling the idea of how much surveillance and how much energy and budget we put into having knowledge about what's going on.
GUTFELD: There's a strategy to the underselling, because I want more.
WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah. But I'm just telling you, we do so much to Melissa's point. At some point, you do have to say, are you a fan of big government? Are you willing to trust big government to watch your every step?
GUIFOYLE: That's a libertarian approach.
WILLIAMS: No, no, no, I'm not libertarian.
GUIFOYLE: It's about balancing privacy, right?
WILLIAMS: Correct. In this era, the founding fathers would be outweighed that we have cameras right out here on most big streets, you know, going down in front of the White House.
WATTERS: Ripping down all their monuments, Juan. There's no concern about?
WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah. I'm not ripping down founding fathers.
(CROSSTALK) GUTFELD: You know what the founding fathers would say if they saw those cameras? They'll go, what is that? That's awesome. What's that material?
(CROSSTALK) GUIFOYLE: The founding fathers had the intelligence to want to protect this country. And they would evolve. I mean, they're not stuck in.
WILLIAMS: When the founding fathers were battling the British, the British were sticking their troops inside people's homes and saying, we're going to take your property and we're going to know what you're doing. They were not happy folks. But in this era, protecting us is essential. But it's not to the point where you want to give up being an American.
GUTFELD: The whole point of this dialogue that began was that I was trying to say, we have to stop polarizing this topic as a security for this freedom. They are siblings.
WILLIAMS: I think we have to have security. That's what we have at the airports. As we have as you were playing -- you're saying at this institution. But Greg, understand, if you only pick up the phone and you say, hey, wait a minute, I don't think the government should be on my phone if I'm talking to my wife, what the hell is this?
WATTERS: Nobody wants to hear that, Juan.
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: On that note, President Trump weighing in again on the divide over confederate statues and monuments in America. His latest comments next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FRANCIS: Welcome back. The white nationalist violence over the weekend in Charlottesville, has sparked an intense debate about the hundreds of confederate memorials and statues around the country. President Trump left no doubt about where he stands on the issue, tweeting out this morning, quote, sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, who's next? Washington, Jefferson? So foolish, unquote. Juan, I'm going to start with you. Why is this not a slippery slope?
WILLIAMS: I think it's pretty clear that what we're talking about here are people who were about taking apart the United States. They were traitors to the American flag. And they wanted to take up guns. They did take up guns, Melissa, against the American people. They were succession, and they were fighting for and immoral cause defending slavery. So the question to me is not about history, because I love history, I've written history, I delight in it, so I would not engage in any effort to change history, revise history, that's American history.
But you have to understand that these monuments are here for the living. And what we have seen is that now they have become a cause for the left, for people who are neo-Nazis, white supremacist, they see this as a rallying cause. You've got to remember, most of these monuments were not even constructed in the immediate aftermath of the civil war. They were put up in the early part of the 20th century when the KKK was marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, again, to remind black folks of white supremacy.
FRANCIS: Jesse, what's wrong with that argument?
WATTERS: You make a good point, Juan. I just want to remind you of one thing. All of the statues of the confederate soldiers are Democrats.
(CROSSTALK) WILLIAMS: Go Republicans. Go, go Republicans. Rip them down.
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: Those were the people that were fighting for -- or the cause. You can't change history, but you can definitely showcase it differently. And I would support localities voting to decide for themselves what they want to do with these statues, or if you want to erect a different statue of Martin Luther King, adjacent to this guy. I have no problem with that. What I don't like is this. I don't like radicals tearing it down criminally, I might add, that's what the Taliban does. The Taliban tears down historical monuments. Americans don't do that. Destroying cultural symbolism is Marxism. That's what Marxists do.
And I know, you know, Greg has some information about this woman that tore this down, and he can get to that in a minute. I believe it's gotten out of hand now. Vice Nous put out something about how they want to get rid of Mount Rushmore. Abraham Lincoln statue was torched in Chicago. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, so that's either by people that are historically illiterate, hate America, or just don't know what they're talking about. And then for Nancy Pelosi, all of a sudden to come around and say these confederate statues need to come out of the capital, she's been working in the capital for like, what, 20 years? And today she decided she wants to get rid of them? Where has she been? She's a political opportunist.
WILLIAMS: Wait a second, I think Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey, is now trying to introduce legislation.
WATTERS: That's fun.
WILLIAMS: . that's why Nancy Pelosi spoke out. But the fact.
WATTERS: Where was she the last 30 years?
WILLIAMS: This is just not a big issue for most people, but at this moment, it's taken on.
WATTERS: Sixty percent of the public supports preserving them for historical record. So if Democrats want to fight the identity politics battle about statues, let them trouble fight for jobs.
WILLIAMS: It's not identity politics. By the way, Steve Bannon said that in this controversial interview he gave. He said, you know what, if the left wants to play identity politics and fight this racial issue, great, I'll beat them. But you know what, you give up your soul. You say, hey, we're not American. We don't look out for minorities. We don't stand for equal rights for all.
(CROSSTALK) WATTERS: I still have a soul, Juan.
GUTFELD: That's a tough debate.
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: Whatever side you're on, on this. And I think that both of you are actually correct on this, which is interesting to me, because this is a deeper argument than what the people we see on TV are making. The people on both sides of this debate are the worst persuaders. Guys with Tiki torches, they don't persuade me. They want me to tear the monument down. Then when I see these vandals destroyed property, they want me to keep the monuments up. But what the point is, I am persuadable to people that intellectually attack an argument.
Jesse is right about the opportunism because they were pretty much -- they're pretty silent over this during Obama, and now they're not silent over Trump. So that reeks of opportunism. Republicans and conservatives should not get suckered into the fight. The Democrats were on the wrong side of this war, the civil war. They fought to defend slavery, and now they're trying to pretend that defending statues is worse than defending slavery. Now try to put your head around that. The fact is, you don't want any part of this. Don't let them sucker you into this. Let it go.
Look, Separate Lee, I agree with Juan. I don't understand why these statues are there. I don't get it. This is not a slippery slope, I think you can talk about having those removed, and then have a separate discussion about Washington and Jefferson, because we're talking a context in history when it was just different and it was bad, and it was different, it was bad, but there was a slave trade, there were Africans who sold the slaves to white people. So we know that this is a very conflicted history. However, however, however, the Democrats were on the wrong side of this war. And right now they're re-litigating the war and pretending that it's Republicans that are defending slavery.
(CROSSTALK) WILLIAMS: This is a different time. But I just want to say, first of all, how incredible that the party of Lincoln would somehow get confused about this issue.
GUTFELD: I think the Democrats were very smart and getting them in this corner. They got -- they saw an issue that they could spring on him and they knew that there were suckers that would go for it.
WILLIAMS: But there is something bigger in the water with a white supremacist movement growing in this country.
GUTFELD: I think the camera is growing.
(CROSSTALK) GUIFOYLE: That movement story, I think it gets small in number, I think it is heinous and despicable. And no one should even try to equivocate or explain it. It's disgusting. It has no place in America and in this country. We have come so far. I choose for us to join and be together and not fall prey to this divisiveness and this vitriol and this hate, and that's the bottom line.
WILLIAMS: Can I hug, Jesse?
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: Kumbaya.
(CROSSTALK)
FRANCIS: Up next, Al Sharpton is at it again. You won't believe what he's saying now. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: President Trump is warning that if Americans start taking down confederate monuments, soon he argues founding fathers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, both slave owners, will have their memorials toppled too. Well, if you listen to Al Sharpton, he has something to say. Mr. Trump may be right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Do they take down Jefferson memorial?
UNINDENTIFIED MALE: I think that people need to understand when people that were enslaved and robbed of even the right to marry, and had forced sex with their slave masters, this is personal justice. When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you're asking me to subsidize.
UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Thomas Jefferson?
UNINDENTIFIED MALE: . the public should not be paying to oppose somebody who has that kind of background.
(END VIDEO CLIP) WILLIAMS: This is where I jump off the ship, because to me, Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemmings, and all -- you want to talk about, I'm not sure about it. But even so, founding father is Thomas Jefferson. And he has written into that document some things that I find heartwarming, in fact, inspiring to this day. So I don't see that. But now, I listen to him, Jesse, and he says, that his family -- that he, as a black person in America, feels personally offended that he has to pay to support this man's monument. What do you think?
WATTERS: I think we found the one thing Al Sharpton does not want the government to spend money on. We finally found it. Listen, if there is a statue of anybody that sins, then we have to take down Bill Clinton's presidential library. Where do you stop? Where do you stop? Are you going to tear up the constitution, you're going to tear up the declaration of independence? At some point it's become enough, Al.
WILLIAMS: Wait a second. I'll stop there. But Melissa, the key point here is that I think Sharpton is saying we all pay tax dollars, should we support something that is offensive to a segment of the population?
FRANCIS: I love his idea of being able to select out the things that you don't want to support with your tax dollars. I have -- my list, I could go on and on and on. I will start with the IRS, and just keep going from there. I mean, the irony, the richness of Al Sharpton talking about being mad about his tax dollars going somewhere, I mean -- I think we could all make the biggest list on the planet about that.
WATTERS: Washington, D.C., are we going to rename the capitol, Al? Come on.
GUTFELD: That's actually a good point. You know what, Juan.
GUIFOYLE: That's next, just like the football team.
(CROSSTALK) WATTERS: We thought Redskins was the bad part of Washington Redskins. What are we going to call it?
(CROSSTALK) WILLIAMS: No, I'm fine with the Washington part. You know, Washington is a great hero of mine. But, no, I don't like the football team.
GUTFELD: I'm skeptical of the slippery slope argument until we get into this area, because it's now getting pretty slippery. Al Sharpton shouldn't talk about public funds. He still owes money to the people that he put the lives in ruin?
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: . hoax, he was sued, I don't know if he's paid all that off yet.
GUIFOYLE: He should bring back that tracksuit he wore for that interview.
(CROSSTALK)
GUIFOYLE: But what about the taxes?
(CROSSTALK) WILLIAMS: But deal with the substance of the argument very quickly.
GUIFOYLE: Look, I mean, I think that Al Sharpton is constantly trying to poke the cage, and he's a sensationalist. He's trying to bring back sex into it and the whole thing. I don't really give a lot of credence to what he has to say, because I think he's somebody who inflames situations, and also has prospered false narratives in the past. Not saying that this is, but I have no bid for him.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think he's sincere, it's just that I disagree with him on Jefferson. I remain a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. More to come, The Five returns in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUIFOYLE: Welcome back. And once again, we want to extend our condolences to the loved ones of the 13 victims killed in Barcelona today, we pray for them and the many seriously injured in the devastating massacre overseas. Hope to see you back here tomorrow. Stay with the Fox News Channel for continuing to development throughout the night. Sean Hannity is up next.
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