The case against convicting a former president of impeachable offenses

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The case against convicting a former president of impeachable offenses

FOX News contributor Jonathan Turley discusses Democrats' unconstitutional trial of Trump on 'The Ingraham Angle'

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle" January 22, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle" on a busy Friday night. "An Ugly Feudal Farce," that's the focus of "Tonight's Angle."

Today, Democrats showed the country that they have zero clue about how to govern in a post Trump age.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I've spoken to Speaker Pelosi who informed me that the articles will be delivered to the Senate on Monday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Obviously, fearful of a primary challenge from AOC down the road, Chuck Schumer is pushing forward with a trial, almost one year after the first impeachment farce that focused on Ukraine.

Now, after initially suggesting a trial next week, the Senate reached an agreement earlier tonight to push it till February 9th. But folks that doesn't change the facts. This is an egregious, vicious act of political violence against the U.S. Constitution and our country. It's also an incredibly stupid mistake, that's going to hurt Joe Biden.

Now, first, I want to tell everyone, they have to spare us the claim that Democrats and a handful of Republicans are trying to make that they truly care about punishing individuals who incite political violence.

Where was their sanctimony and demands for justice when Minneapolis was smoldering? How about when businesses and innocent people in L.A. and New York were under attack? Or how about with rioters and looters using the George Floyd case as an excuse to rampage across cities across this nation? And don't forget how left wingers in Wisconsin occupied the state capitol several years ago to protest actions that they didn't like? Where are all the concerns raised then?

Second, the entire exercise is unconstitutional. As former federal appellate Judge Ken Starr said last night,

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN STARR, FORMER UNITED STATES SOLICITOR GENERAL: The President is gone. He's off to San Clemente. This is done, it's over with. That's the relevant president, not an obscure 1876 proceeding against a secretary of war.

That I find it painful that very, very able people, some of whom are my friends, are saying, well, there is the key precedent. It's just not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And by the way, are Democrats actually saying that it would have been constitutional for Republicans to have demanded articles of impeachment against former Vice President Joe Biden last year, over what he really knew about hunter Biden's China payoff? mean, long out of office, but I mean, could they be impeachable crimes? What would they have said about that?

Third, this impeachment action is as pointless as it is vindictive. "The Hill" reporting that, only five or six Republican senators at the most seem likely to vote for impeachment. And a conviction would require at least 17 GOP votes if every Democrat vote to convict Trump.

So, it's like watching a football game, you already know what the score is going to be at the end. So, since we already know that impeachment will fail, Democrats plus senator - I like to call them Romkowski (ph), must believe that their votes to convict will put them on the right side of history. What self-indulgent, self-righteous goofballs they are?

You don't have to believe that President Trump did everything right post election and I don't to find the impeachment mob sickening. They're not trying to address a constitutional problem here. They're trying to tag all Trump supporters as dangerous white supremacist who want to overthrow the government.

Right now, it's unclear who will even preside over the sham of an impeachment trial. But if its Chief Justice John Roberts, if they want him, he should refuse on grounds that Trump's no longer president. But relying on him to do the right thing, by the way, is like relying on a 13-year-old boy to remember to clean his room before going to bed.

INGRAHAM: Another point, going after Trump makes the Biden administration look weak. Remember, when Obama pursued Bush and Cheney for war crimes? Well, of course you don't, because Obama was much too smart for that. He had too much sense.

And if Democrats really believe that Donald Trump is disgraced and washed up with no political future, man, they're acting really insecure about that concept. Why are they so hell bent on a second unconstitutional impeachment trial? Don't they believe that they beat him and his ideas legitimately?

Finally, a word about Republicans who think impeachment will help them score points for the Democratic establishment and maybe even convince Republicans to turn their backs on Trump, you guys are suckers, and you're fools.

Most of the GOP don't believe for a moment that Trump actually wanted the rioters to take over the Capitol and carry out a coup. That idea is patently absurd. There was no malicious intent in Trump's words to be, "strong and fight for him." Things, by the way, he said many times over the past five years. And look at what happened to poor Liz Cheney after her impeachment grandstanding. She's already chalked up a primary challenger.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is a running joke even in his home state of Utah. I mean, does he really believe the Democrats who savaged him as an out of touch Thurston Howell, the third type elite in 2012, now are clamoring to collaborate with him on policy. They despise him now as much as they did back then.

Republicans supporting impeachment believe that conviction would be worth it in order to get the Trump cancer out of the Republican Party. That's the real reason they're doing it. Yet no serious political observer could possibly think that the party that turned out in historic numbers for Trump is about to boomerang back to the policies of the Bush-Cheney era.

Let's hope with this delay, that Republicans will have more time to grow a backbone. We hope they hear from you, many of their constituents to tell them that we want you to fight for conservative policies and against the ridiculous Democrat sham that we're seeing in the Biden administration tonight.

They want to bury the America first populist movement - the Democrats do. It's up to Republicans to prevent them from doing it, resist all the way. But my friends, if Democrats insist on going through with this unconstitutional impeachment, Republicans have to ensure that they pay a heavy political price.

And if Joe Biden, by the way thinking about all of this, if you were really smart, if he really had his wits about him, truly capable of saying what it, how this would be actually in his own interest to do this, he would call Schumer and call off the impeachment dogs.

But Joe's not going to do that, because he's just too weak to steer his party away from its own self-destructive ways, and that's "The Angle."

Joining me now is Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor and Constitutional Law Expert and Fox News Contributor. Jonathan, is there any way that John Roberts could decide that he will not preside over this impeachment? Could he just refuse?

JONATHAN TURLEY, FOX NEW CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he can. He doesn't - he's not a business, he doesn't pick up everyone that he stops next to. He has to determine whether this is a function that is given to him by the Constitution.

The problem is that the Constitution states that the Chief Justice shall preside of a trial of the President. The President in this trial will be Joe Biden. And I doubt the Democrats want to remove him. And so there's a threshold issue for Roberts. He might not even be asked.

But that will beg the question of who is being tried? It's clearly not the president, and it's clearly not to remove him from office. It is a private citizen. Who the Senate will vote on removing from an office that he's already left.

Now, that creates a serious threshold issue for the Senate. In fact, they may have the most consequential vote ahead of them in their entire tenure as senators, and that is whether to go forward with this trial.

The Constitution states that the principal question for impeachment is whether to remove the president. And that creates a rather curious vote. And the problem is that constitutional novelties can easily become constitutional nuisances.

We've already had a snap impeachment, where the House didn't even hold a single hearing to consider the language or implications of the impeachment, give a formal opportunity for the President to respond. And now we're going to hand a snap impeachment over to a retroactive trial. That is a very serious question for all these senators to weigh.

I'll point out one other thing. There were only two cases in history where this type of retroactive measure was used. And the first one was with William Blunt. And when that happened, many of the signers of the Constitution were in Congress. Most of them were still alive.

Blunt himself was a signer. And he was a former - he was a senator who had been expelled from the Senate. The Senate refused to hold the trial. So when the ink had just barely dried on the Constitution, the Senate had a threshold vote, and said we're not going to do this.

INGRAHAM: Now, you could pretty much understand the intent of the framers. Well, a lot of the framers were right there. You didn't have to do it, go much into the legislative history even if you believe that, because they were there. That's a fascinating point, Jonathan.

Also, I want to point out to something that a lot of legal scholars have said in response to your argument just now about the removal. You can't remove him from office because he's already gone from office. So, a group of these scholars penned an open letter - don't even love the open letters? That argues that the, disqualification from holding future office is equal to the removal from the office and the Constitution.

Now, I don't understand how that could be possibly read into the Constitution. But these are some very well-respected constitutional scholars who are arguing with us. Why are they wrong?

TURLEY: Well, I know, and like many of them. I actually responded to that letter on my blog today, because I believe it's ultimately wrong. But I have to stress, these are good faith arguments. This has been an open debate. I've wrestled with this since 1999. I talked about the value of even retroactive trials.

But what I believe today is that those values are outweighed by the costs. And I don't agree with what the letter says. Disqualification is an optional penalty that the Senate may impose. But it is only considered after the main task of impeachment has done, you've tried and removed a president.

And when they talk about future disqualification, it's in a sense that is meant to limit the power of the Senate to say you can't go beyond removal or disqualification. So, I don't think that these things are equal in that sense.

INGRAHAM: And by the way, Richard Blumenthal says that we can do this trial in just a matter of days, Jonathan. But isn't that also up to the President's defense team? I mean, what if they want to put on a multi-day or even a few weeks defense? We're going to have the presiding judge say no, you can only do X number of days. So, they want to they want to have a snap impeachment happen really fast, and they hope to take him out by - at the knees.

TURLEY: Right, this is all improvisational, and that's dangerous, when it has to be also constitutional. And, I did the last traditional impeachment trial with colleagues that was held in the Senate. And it took us months to present that case. They're about to try a president in a blink without a hearing in the House, in a snap now, and now a retroactive trial.

INGRAHAM: No, no. Jonathan Turley, thank you so much for being here tonight. And one of the destructive byproducts a post presidency trial will have. Now, will this House and Senate chambers serve just as prosecutorial cudgel, instead of its intended purpose of writing laws? Well, Schumer seems OK with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHUMER: It makes no sense whatsoever that a president or any official could commit a heinous crime against our country and then be permitted to resign so as to avoid accountability and a vote to disbar them from future office. Makes no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Who gets to decide what's a heinous crime against our country? A few power-hungry partisans?

Here now is Congressman Lee Zeldin. He was part of Trump's impeachment defense last time. Turley was as well. Also, with me former Congressman Bob Barr, he's served as an impeachment manager during the Clinton trial.

Congressman Zeldin, would it be OK for a Republican controlled Congress to impeach Obama for drowning an American citizen abroad, I guess, we could just do that all, go back many years?

REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): Of course not, and that's the important double standard check that is here at play. After we just witnessed over the course of the last four years, dozens of Democrats boycotted President Trump's inauguration.

They actually first had a vote on impeachment before they had even identified what the impeachment charge was even going to be. That was early on in his presidency. Then they actually impeached him. And now they want to do it again.

I was asked in 2020 about House Democrats keeping the majority, what their priorities would be. And I said that the only thing if House Democrats keep the majority that they know for sure they want to accomplish in 2021 is that they would want to make Donald Trump the first president to be impeached twice.

The answer to your question, if the shoe was on your foot, we know exactly what Democrats would say, and Republicans would be consistent on it, absolutely not, Of course not.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Barr, when you really think about this, and really get your mind wrapped around what's about to happen. You think to yourself, god the Democrats don't seem all that confident in their ability to beat Trump. Let's say he runs again? I have no idea what he's going to do.

But let's say he runs again in 2024? I mean, you would think that after what they did to him over years, that they would feel like, Oh, God, we got this - well, we beat him in 2020. We're going to easily beat him in - but they're afraid he's going to win. Isn't that what this is all about?

BOB BARR, FORMER CLINTON IMPEACHMENT MANAGER: It's really hard to tell what this is all about, because nothing about it makes any sense whatsoever. I mean, you don't have to be a student of history. You don't have to be a student of the law. But you do have to be able to read what is actually in the Constitution.

And the Constitution says that a president, not a former president, not an ex-president, can be removed from office only upon conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors - impeachment for that. So there is no jurisdiction here.

What the president's lawyers ought to do - if McConnell proceeds in this idiotic move to hold the trial, what the republicans ought to do is they ought to support a presidential motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The Senate has no jurisdiction over Donald Trump. Period, end of argument

INGRAHAM: Immediately, and then Congressman Zeldin, presumably that would go to the Chief Justice, if he's presiding over this impeachment trial. But we don't know if he's going to preside over it.

I mean, as a law geek or a former law geek, I find it - it's fascinating to debate these issues. But these are real world consequences for not only President Trump personally, but precedent going forward. And Bernie Sanders even chimed in on all this. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT): I want to see this impeachment process move forward. I want to see him convicted as quickly as possible. We have got to show the American people that we can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. We don't have the time to spend weeks and months on impeachment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And maybe I'll wear some mittens during the trial. Congressman Zeldin, they want to do it as soon as possible. That's also any notion of due process, which obviously doesn't necessarily apply here. But in theory, due process is out the window. Just you got to get him, prevent him from running again and move on to destroying the country.

ZELDIN: Yes, I mean, irony alert, it was Senator Sanders when he was asked about his position of allowing people to vote who are convicted. That he was asked specifically about the Boston Marathon bomber. And his position was that the Boston Marathon bomber should be able to vote in the U.S. elections.

So the extent that Bernie Sanders is willing to go to take positions of be it mass prison release, to allow felons to have their vote again, even if it's a terrorist like the Boston Marathon bomber. And here, you're looking at due process where he's supporting a House impeaching the president for a second time, within hours. We ain't talking about a few weeks, within hours.

And now he wants the Senate to do it as quickly as possible? It's completely contradictory and hypocritical to everything Senator Sanders has stood for in - over the course of multiple presidential races and his entire career in public service. It shows the hypocrisy, the double standard and the hate that they have for Donald Trump.

INGRAHAM: No, they despise him. Speaking of personal animosity, Congressman Barr, very quickly here, what's Mitch McConnell up to? Is he trying to hold together the Republican coalition with Murkowski, Romney and a few of the other stragglers? Is this personal with him and Trump? What is it?

BARR: I think it's both personal, but also he seems to be trying to out John Roberts, John Roberts, by appearing so nice to Chuck Schumer that maybe some crumbs will be thrown his way, if in fact, we proceed with a 50/50 split in the Senate. It makes no sense whatsoever, and it makes him look like a complete fool.

INGRAHAM: And especially after President Trump went in to help him win reelection and handily. I think after Trump went in to help him and campaign for him, he went up - I thought he went double-digits in the polls. So--

BARR: He did.

INGRAHAM: --he really - he reached out to President Trump when he needed him. And now it's - for a lot of people, shoving him in the back. All right, gentlemen, thank you so much. Great to see you.

And if there was any doubt that Biden couldn't give a rip about this concept of unity, well look at his divisive and destructive executive orders rolled out this week. We're going to explain why the self-proclaimed champion of women just set them back decades.

Plus, how his appeal to the working-class men and women of this country, were a crock. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATASHA ALFORD, "THEGRIO" VP OF DIGITAL CONTENT: A glass ceiling had been shattered and this was a pivotal moment for America.

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Multiple proverbial glass ceilings shattered.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Shattered so many glass ceilings. This is history that we're watching. Let's scratch that. This is her story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, that's really nauseating. Do you get it, her story, not history? How many words we're going to have to change? Man cover - manhole cover women - person hole cover? Well, you heard a lot about this during the campaign that the Biden administration was supposedly shattering the glass ceiling for women everywhere.

But their actual policies tell a different story. In an inauguration day executive order that elated the transgender community, the Biden administration pledged to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity - gender identity. And said children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they'll be denied access to the restroom or locker room or school sports.

What does that mean? That means biological boys will be in the locker rooms with biological girls. And their speculation that public schools could end up having funding polled federal funds if they don't adhere to this.

Female athletes saying, Joe Biden is erasing what it is to be a female athlete in the United States. Author Abigail Shrier put it bluntly, "A new glass ceiling was just placed over girls."

And by the way, don't think any of these changes with hormone treatment or makes competition fairer among biological boys, between boys and girls, because a recent study discovered that hormone therapy does not suddenly remove the natural athletic benefits that biological men naturally have over women. It was published last month in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Now, the study's lead author Dr. Timothy Roberts said, at one year the transwomen on average still have an advantage over the biological women - they call cis women. So is this why Joe Biden was elected? Was this part of his mandate? So much for unity.

Well, from gender to good paying jobs, the Biden administration seems intent on destroying it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRYAN STEIL (R-WI): Joe Biden's first day in office, he killed thousands of American jobs. Joe Biden killed hundreds of Wisconsin jobs.

REP. GLENN GROTHMAN (R-WI): You're talking about 10,000 jobs in the $80,000 to $90,000 an hour range that are gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now is Andy Black, President and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines. Andy, I know the Canadians are up in arms. They've already laid all this pipe. I don't know what are they going to do with all that pipe that they've already laid down and all the technology that's already in place? How much in terms of job losses are we looking at here? And then we're going to get to how much money is taken out of American pockets.

ANDY BLACK, CEO, ASSOCIATION OF OIL PIPE LINES: Before Wednesday, had ended on President Biden's first day, 1,000 people who had been working, were told they won't have jobs anymore. Another 10,000 American union jobs were expected - they expected good paying jobs that could support a family, provide health care, those won't happen now.

INGRAHAM: Well, Andy, we're showing the video of what the area around the pipeline looks like, and some of this is in Canada and other parts in the United States. But what happens with all of that infrastructure, Andy, that's in place?

BLACK: Well, it's a symbol of a wasted opportunity. Americans would benefit from that pipeline, bringing Western Canadian crude oil down to America where it's turned into products that we use every day to get us where we need to go. Now, it turns out that money was wrongly spent.

INGRAHAM: And by the way, Joe Biden, I should say, is bragging that he's going to create all these great Union jobs. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I think of climate change, I think about jobs, good paying Union jobs. Union workers have been holding this country together during this crisis. That the middle class built this country and Unions built the middle class.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Andy, those were all in the past month. Do you think Union members who voted for Biden feel like they've been just hosed here?

BLACK: This is a president who said he wanted to be the most pro-Union president ever. Yet on the first day 11,000 American Union workers knew they weren't going to be able to build. Build back better means build.

INGRAHAM: Well, Andy, the cost to the average American family - I know these are hard numbers to always quantify. But in terms of energy costs, and our desire to be energy independent, which obviously this gave us an incredible boost in an already strong energy sector, but what does it mean to the average family? Is it like a blip, or is it significant dollars?

ANDY BLACK, CEO, ASSOCIATION OF OIL PIPE LINES: Americans don't want to have to pay more for energy, and when they go to the service station to fill up with gasoline or diesel, they want to know that that fuel is there. Now we have a question about whether we can expand pipeline capacity as we need for the fuels that we use in our daily lives. When we get this economy going again, people are going to be wanting to take trips to go see family in the car, take flights on vacation or see their relatives. We need to make sure that as our demand for energy grows, we are able to have pipelines bring them the fuels that they need. Without enough pipeline capacity, you either have shortages or you have higher prices.

INGRAHAM: Maybe we're all looking forward to having rolling blackouts like in California. Apparently, that's the gold standard, Andy. The government gets to decide who has the energy and when. Maybe we can do odd and even days at the gas pump like we did in the late 70s under Jimmy Carter. Andy, great to see you tonight, and we hope we can somehow turn that around. But people have to know what they're getting into.

Was Joe Biden's polished delivery of his inaugural address and one off? And who has the media taken to describing a superheroes? Raymond Arroyo explains in Friday Follies next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's Friday, and that means it's time for Friday Follies. Where else are you going to go for that? FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, the newly inaugurated Biden, he sounded a lot like candidate Biden this week, didn't he?

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Come on, man. He's being consistent, Laura. Joe Biden's first remarks on his first full day in office were, well, Biden-esque.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Yesterday during my inaugural address, I offered a salient prayer and a silent prayer.

The pandemically -- the pandemic, excuse me.

It consists of my transition team's task force, Tony Fauci and the team here today and other experts this plan together. It is so detailed, it is over -- it's 198 pages. And complete detail what we're going to do. We will make sure that science and -- scientists and public health experts will speak directly to you.

Wear a mask, no vaccines, the fact is it's the single best thing we can do, more important than the vaccines.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: Now, bear in mind, Laura, this is with a teleprompter, OK. He is just as unsteady on his feet and incapable of retaining basic facts as he ever was. And now this was a COVID event, so as you might expect, masks came up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yesterday I signed an executive action requires masks and social distancing on federal property.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: Only one problem, Laura, he wasn't wearing a mask there. And then the night before at the Lincoln Memorial, Biden appeared confused on federal property without a mask. Very sad.

INGRAHAM: It's OK, Raymond, because Biden's press secretary had a fabulous explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why weren't President Biden and all members of the Biden family masked at all times on federal lands last night?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He was celebrating an evening of a historic day in our country, and I think we have bigger issues to worry about at this moment in time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, oh.

ARROYO: Well, Laura, there you go. If COVID is allergic to celebrating, I hope we can have Mardi Gras.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

ARROYO: But the good news, Laura, is things are getting back to normal. Biden is confused again. The elites are making their own rules again. And you can just shut up again. Ain't normal grand?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The fact that it went off without a hitch, so perfectly produced, and so perfectly normal and beautiful and American, that was what was so moving.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After four years we had almost forgotten what normal sounded like.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it wasn't like a boring normal. It was an amazing return to normalcy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: An amazing normal, Laura. Welcome to the old normal, Laura Ingraham, where the media fawns, heavily edits the candidate of their choice, and miss-serves and disserves the public they are here to give information to and to challenge the people we elect. They are integral to this republic, and they have fallen down on their responsibility. This is not good.

INGRAHAM: OK, Raymond, your being very harsh. I'm feeling the harshness come across the teleprompter right at me.

(LAUGHTER)

ARROYO: OK.

INGRAHAM: And I would just say I look forward to the day when Joe Biden emerges from the surf, let's say in Rehoboth, Delaware, with his glistening pectoralis muscles as they described Obama. Remember?

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Was Obama in Hawaii or was that after the oil spill when he came out of the surf, I can't remember. But it was like his glistening pecs. That might not be written about by the press, but who knows. Biden, he is a fit senior, so you never know.

ARROYO: He is. He's got the aviators. What's really normal is the medias default to gratuitous, worshipful, over-the-top rates for the establishment, or should I say the Justice League?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sight of the Clintons and the Bushs and the Obamas, the Avengers, the Marvel superheroes back up there together all in one place with their friend, Joe Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It also felt like the Avengers. It felt like we are being rescued from this craziness that we've all lived through in the last four years, and now here are the superheroes to come and save us all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A glorious moment of fashion perfection, side-by-side with the former president, just like they just come straight from Wakanda.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Wait a second, wait a second, weren't most of those same people calling Bush a warmonger and a dumb frat boy just 12 years ago? Wait a second.

ARROYO: He's a superhero.

INGRAHAM: Oh, yes, Marvel Comics. Michelle Obama even came to the inauguration dressed kind of like a superhero, Raymond. Look at that belt. That was quite a statement.

ARROYO: Its' kind of a Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch mashup. Look, I understand the obsequious superhero referencing regarding the Obamas, but it's good to know they're extending it to Bush now. Who knows, there is hope for Donald Trump, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Why not? And I can say that Melania Trump was never -- they never discussed her fashion. She's obviously very beautiful, objectively speaking. But Michelle Obama's, what is that, a maroon or purple combo? It was a beautiful outfit, but that was the talk for 36 hours. You couldn't get past that pantsuit for 36 hours, at least, but Melania, she's like at Kmart.

ARROYO: I don't know if I would have called them the Avengers. You might call them the Revengers, that group. They are looking for blood. But we'll see what happens in the days ahead with this --

INGRAHAM: Raymond, I don't like that. That's a lot of negativity on your part, Raymond, a lot of negativity.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Much of this week's coverage of the dawn of the Biden administration focused on emotions and feeling, but this one took the cake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: We need a catharsis, and I think Joe Biden is a human catharsis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: Laura, I'm glad the country wasn't constipated. We didn't need relief from that.

The thing here, the thing you have to give everybody credit for on the Biden side, they kept their messaging tight, from the young poet laureate to the performers at that inaugural concert, it was that light is back. The darkness is being scattered. And that was reflected in speeches, performances, music, every way possible. The Republicans could learn a lot from that group.

INGRAHAM: Raymond, it's going to be a dark winter going into a dark fall and maybe the Rose Parade in 2025, OK. That's what Fauci --

ARROYO: Morning has broken, Laura, morning has broken.

INGRAHAM: Yes, of course. Raymond, thanks so much. Have a great weekend.

And the Biden administration rejoins the WHO just as they finally admit something that will likely drive COVID case numbers down. What a coincidence, just a few days after the inauguration. Former U.K. Parliament member Richard Tice has been sounding the alarm on this for months. He joins the Angle next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Among President Biden's first actions was, big shock, rejoining the World Health Organization despite its shilling for the Chinese Communist Party. And guess who Biden put in charge of our delegation to that nest of commie sycophants?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I join my fellow representatives in thanking the World Health Organization for its role in leading the global public health response to this pandemic. I am honored to announce that the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, that looked like a hostage tape. I don't know what was going on there. But this comes as a WHO finally admitted what we the Angle have been saying for, I don't know, five months, that the explosion of positive COVID results could be riddled with false positives, something my next guest has also been predicting for months. Joining me now is Richard Tice, businessman, former E.U. Parliament member and chair of the U.K. Reform Party. Richard, thanks for staying up for us tonight.

RICHARD TICE, CHAIRMAN OF REFORM PARTY U.K.: No problem, great to be with you.

INGRAHAM: Do you put any stock in the timing of the U.S. rejoining the WHO and this the new news about the vaunted PCR test?

TICE: This is extraordinary. The World Health Organization is now admitting what many of us have known for months, which is that there is an unknown but potentially huge quantity of what they call false positives test results using the supposed gold standard PCR test. And here in the United Kingdom, for example, our own government, despite doing some half-a-million tests every single day, has also admitted in the house of Parliament, it doesn't know what its operational false-positive rate is.

And here we've got to the World Health Organization finally say, actually, you need to review every result, and you need to look at the symptoms of the potential patient, the potential person carrying the disease. And you then need to look at the strength of the test, or the weakness of the test to see whether actually you need to do a second confirmatory test if it's a weak one to see whether or not it's a true result or actually is it a false, or what I term an irrelevant positive, where it's, yes, there's a tiny bit of something, but it's so small and it's taken so many magnifications to find it that actually it's irrelevant and you don't need to worry about it.

INGRAHAM: Richard, are you as concerned as I am about the politicization of medicine, globally, frankly, or the sheer ignorance -- I don't know what it is. I'm not a doctor, but we knew the thing about the cycling of the PCR test back in June, and they are just getting around to admitting this now? And they are still calling this the gold standard?

TICE: Let's be very clear. If it's done, if this PCR test is done as it was supposed to be done, which is in a specialized laboratory by specialized technicians, then yes, it is gold standard. But if it's done on an industrial scale in temporary laboratories using unqualified people, than the risk of contamination, Laura, is huge. And that's the problem that we've got in the United Kingdom. That's the problem that I feel may be taking place around the rest of the world.

And on that basis, it then becomes not gold standard. It becomes I think a rather dirty standard, unless it is double checked. And interestingly, Laura, in Norway for example, wherever they get a positive result from someone who doesn't have any symptoms, they always double-check with a second test. And guess what, they have a much, much lower overall positive case rate than we have here in the United Kingdom.

INGRAHAM: Richard, it's the case that the U.K. elections could be put off because of the case numbers even though when you look at the chart from the COVID world meter, whatever it is, the plateau seems to be a surety. It looks like the peak in the U.K. was two weeks ago. But it looks like you guys could be putting off elections because of this?

TICE: It's absolutely appalling. They have taken away our liberties. We are locked up, locked down. They've taken away our right to free speech in many cases. YouTube takes down things if it doesn't accord with government information. And now they're going to take away our democracy, it seems, by taking away the ballot box, which is absolutely ridiculous. One senior politician suggested he was a bit worried about COVID on the pencils. I said listen, for heaven's sake, if you're short of pencils, I will sort it out. This is ridiculous. You've just had a big election, over 150 million people voted. We can have it over two days, three days, it will be warm. We can have it outside. Where there's a will, there's a way, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Richard, thank you for speaking out on this. We need more honest voices like yours out there. Come back soon. Thanks so much.

Governor Andrew Cuomo finds a new way to embarrass himself. The Last Bite explains.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: We have showed that we can control the beast. We have the beast on the run. There's no doubt about it.

I'm going to celebrate. I deserve to celebrate. I was good. I am on Santa's good list.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: This was the actual swab that was being used to fit up that double barrel shotgun that you have mounted on the front of your pretty face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Governor Cuomo was fairly deadly, was he not, to his constituents throughout the entirety of this pandemic, but through it all he sounded a lot like you just heard. He even wrote a book saying how well he responded. Now Governor Cuomo is singing a different tune.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: Never get cocky with COVID. Truer words were never spoken. I will take credit for that quote -- never get cocky with COVID.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, my God. New York, you have to deserve better than that.

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