Ingraham: Fauci acted as if he was accountable to no one, that changes tonight
'The Ingraham Angle' host questions whether Dr. Fauci's days are numbered
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," June 2, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington. In moments, Senator Rand Paul will join us. He is going to explain why he's calling for Dr. Fauci to be fired.
Plus, a former BLM chapter head says he knows the ugly truth about the group. Tonight he takes us inside the movement. But first, the man who cried COVID that's the focus of tonight's ANGLE.
Last week, we told you this Wuhan lab leak was a huge issue that could bring down the entire DC establishment. The public health officials, the expert class, Academia, Big Tech, the media, and of course the politicians who sought to exploit a virus to drive Trump out of office.
Well, now we know why the press started changing their story on this issue over the past two weeks. Emails to and from Anthony Fauci released through FOIA requests, show us how cozy his relationship was with China. At the very moment, he should have been transparent with Americans about the risky research that he knew was going on in the Wuhan lab.
Now from these emails we see that Fauci's deception and purposeful obfuscation was even worse than we previously thought. His nearly $420,000 salary is paid for by the American taxpayers. His agency is funded by the American taxpayers. He serves at the pleasure of the President, but he acted as though he was accountable to no one. Well, that changes tonight.
Much of what Fauci said about this virus, the drugs that could treat it, and the measures that could be taken to slow the spread was untrue. He knew it was untrue. We're going to go through the emails and new insights point by point, first on the masks. This was Fauci's big reversal on masks last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NIAID: The thinking is really now influenced by information that's coming in that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking. That may not necessarily need to be a classical mask, but could be some sort of facial covering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But a newly released email shows us that Fauci always knew that cloth masks did not work. On February 5, 2020, he wrote this email to Sylvia Burwell, the president of American University and former HHS Secretary. "Dear Sylvia, masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infections. The typical mask you buy in the drugstore is not really effective in keeping out virus. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location." That's nothing we didn't tell you last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: We're just trying to figure out why the messaging from medical professionals changed? Science didn't really change on the effectiveness of those homemade cloth masks.
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS HOST: Is there proof that these are effective?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the moment, there is no hard evidence to back this up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no evidence that shows that masks are going to be effective, except perhaps N-95 masks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: THE INGRAHAM ANGLE was called irresponsible for suggesting what studies on the CDC's own website about the influenza virus already said. Second, Fauci's emails on China and the lab leak theory are a goldmine. We now know there were scientists close to Fauci's office who saw China's malfeasance as a real possibility.
Check out this January 2020 email chain between Fauci and Scripps scientist, Kristian Andersen, regarding COVID origins article in the publication "Science". Fauci writes, "This just came out today. You may not have seen it. If not, it's of interest to the current discussion." To which Andersen responds, "The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome less than 0.1 percent, so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features potentially look engineered. Eddie, Bob, Mike, myself, all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory." Then there was a secret call with Andersen, Fauci and top virologist.
OK. Fast forward from that call to March 6, 2020, Andersen tells Fauci that a paper he wrote, now debunking the lab leak theory, is about to get published. Now, Andersen thanks Fauci, NIH Director Francis Collins, one other person for their advice, and leadership, as we've been working through the SARS-CoV-2 origins paper.
Now, mysteriously, Andersen's article debunking the lab leak theory, and also signed by other colleagues, of course, was a 180-degree turn from what he told Fauci in January. Then Fauci rushes out to the press to call the matter basically settled, citing that article, without revealing that he himself influenced it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: There was a study recently that we can make available to you where a group of highly-qualified evolutionary virologist looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve. And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Well, that was a lie. The former New York Times writer, Nicholas Wade, recently exposed that faulty analysis. Unfortunately, this was another case of poor science. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or serial passage, there's no way of knowing that this is the case.
Dr. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know. Well, of course, THE INGRAHAM ANGLE and a few others, were constantly pushing the origins issue long ago. Here's my February 2020 exchange with Fauci on the issue of China's transparency or lack thereof.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And we're sitting around saying, "Oh, yes, we believe, oh, it could have been caused by a rabid bat." And oh, no, just because there was a level four lab in the vicinity, it couldn't have been - I just think, I'm surprised that you would say that, given what we know about China's pattern of lying about critical issues, Dr. Fauci.
FAUCI: The Chinese scientists, we've dealt with I've dealt with myself personally for years, if not decades. Many of them have trained here in the United States. I have faith that they are not distorting things.
INGRAHAM: So you're satisfied with all of the transparency coming out of China today about the trajectory of the disease and the origin of the disease?
FAUCI: My direct interaction with Chinese scientists and Chinese health officials. I can believe what they're telling me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Given what he already knew that we now know he already knew about the virus potentially being engineered in the lab, Fauci was at the very least totally reckless in not pressing on the origins issue, information that could have been used to develop possible therapies to curb COVID-19.
Now, of course, that's not even the worst of it. Emails also show a freakout by Fauci's team when they realize that NIH money went toward dangerous research being carried out by the Wuhan lab's bat lady. I'll dive the bat into that a little bit more with Rand Paul in a few moments, but instead of working to discover if NIH's funding was actually used directly to enhance deadly viruses. Fauci focused on maintaining his close collaboration with China.
Now one email was from his Chinese counterpart, who apologize for how he had been quoted in interview in Science Magazine. Then he wrote, "Well, let's work together to get the virus out of the earth". Fauci responds the way an old friend would. "Thanks for the note. I understand completely. No problem. We'll get through this together."
If only he felt the same way about American physicians like Dr. Scott Atlas, who raised legitimate questions about the wisdom of things like damaging lockdowns. Now, these emails should mark the end of the road for Fauci. He allowed taxpayer dollars to fund the Chinese lab that may have created the virus that crippled the world and killed millions. And as these emails show, he and his cronies launched a desperate campaign to cover that up. Now was it because they were worried about their own reputations?
As for the media's role in the cover up, they didn't just protect Fauci, they deified him in their obsession to drive Trump out of office. And that, yes, and that all continued today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: There's no doubt that there are people out there who for one reason or other resent me for what I did in the last administration, which was not anything that was anti-Trump at all. It was just trying to get the right information.
As you learn more and more, you've got to continue to evolve with the data. And that's what I was trying to do is to always tell the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Is that where we're calling it, evolving? Now, here's Wallace's tough follow-up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLLE WALLACE, MCNBC HOST: For the true mark of someone is if they look good even when their personal emails come out, so you passed the test that very few of us would pass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That's funny, really funny. They trusted the CCP more than they trusted the American people with the truth. We know that lots of people inside our government in Big Tech, in the media, were not motivated by the science or health, but they were motivated about what was going to help them defeat Trump?
Now, this is why conservatives don't trust the experts and the globalists that they serve. Trump didn't destroy their credibility. They did it to themselves. Now most of us are simply going to ignore them. They've proven to be liars, calculating enough to use public fear to drive irrational policies, what the same time rejecting beneficial therapies like ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine.
THE ANGLE got it right on most of the big issues. Why? Well, we developed our own independent, reliable sources of information. Frontline doctors who actually treated hundreds of COVID patients, along with researchers and academics who weren't afraid of being censored. Going forward, we need every document about the management of this pandemic, the Wuhan lab, gain of function, all of it to be released without any redactions, except for some extraneous personal information who can redact that?
Americans need to see the full picture of what happened, and who was driving it. Fauci and everyone who aided and abetted him should have been terminated long ago. If Democrats really cared about restoring the public's trust, they would immediately call for hearings. And the questions would be something unusual for the Democrats. They'd be objective, serious, and probing. And that's THE ANGLE.
All right. Joining us now is one of the few who questioned Dr. Fauci's expertise and motives as early as we did. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator, you're now calling for the firing of Anthony Fauci. What can you do in the Senate to get more answers than the ones that we have from these emails, which are still redacted?
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I think we've had a sea change of opinion. Everybody left to center were saying this was a conspiracy. No way could it have happened to the Wuhan lab. Now even Dr. Fauci is saying that we should investigate it. But the emails paint a disturbing picture, a disturbing picture of Dr. Fauci from the very beginning, worrying that he had been funding gain-of-function research and he knows it to this day, but hasn't admitted.
We have to get Democrat counterparts that will actually use the committee hearings to investigate this. But so far, it's been such a partisan support for Dr. Fauci that he can do no wrong. But really, there's a lot of evidence that he has a great deal of conflict of interest and that if it turns out this virus came from the Wuhan lab, which it looks like it did, that there's a great deal of culpability and that he was a big supporter of the funding. But he also was a big supporters to this day of saying we can trust the Chinese on this, we can trust the Chinese scientists. And I think that's quite naive, and really should preclude him from the position that he's in.
INGRAHAM: And referencing the point you just made, Senator, the emails, they show that Fauci was scrambling in those early days of the pandemic to find out the links between the NIH funded gain-of-function research and COVID.
Now here's how one of his NIH underlings responded to this email about a 2015 gain-of-function study that was co-authored by the Wuhan Institute of Virology's bat lady. And he said "The paper you sent me says the experiments were performed before the gain-of-function pause, but have since been reviewed and approved by NIH. Not sure what this means since Emily is sure that no Coronavirus work has gone through the P3 framework." Explain that, Senator. Why is that so significant?
PAUL: Here's, Laura, what makes it worse. Two weeks ago in committee hearing, he said they did not find any gain-of-function research. I quoted that specific paper. So the very paper that he puts in the email he says, "Oh my goodness, we need to read this paper because we - it looks like we are actually funding gain-of-function research, which is where we juice up these viruses, take them from animals and infect them into humans". He's admitting that to his underlings. He's worried about this in February of last year, but only two weeks ago he tells me "Oh, it wasn't gain-of- function research, but in his email in the subject line, he says, "Gain of function research". He was admitting it to his private underlings, 7, 8, 9 months ago.
INGRAHAM: I mean, could there be criminal culpability here, given the repeated failures of Dr. Fauci, who was basically in charge of much of our messaging on this and advice on this? Could there be criminal culpability here of fraud or ongoing collaboration with the Chinese when he was making excuses for them?
PAUL: At the very least, there's moral culpability. In the research done by the bat scientist in Wuhan, she gives him credit. She lists the exact NIH grant with a 10 numeral disclaimer or ID number, listing the money and thanking the NIH for the money. It's clearly gain-of-function. There are several scientists who are in this field, cellular biologist, they all say that taking a SARS virus and adding an S protein to it to make it infect human cells, that is the very definition of gain-of-function. It's very dangerous. We shouldn't be doing it here or there. But Dr. Fauci has denied it to this day, but the private emails show that he was acknowledging that it was gain-of-function. Nobody was questioning it.
The scientific community needs to look at this, because he hides behind this veil of the lab coat that nobody can question him. And I believe and by looking at the evidence that it absolutely was gain-of-function research, and he was funding it. And to this day, he's still saying you would do it again, because he trusts the Chinese scientist.
INGRAHAM: Well, one of those emails obtained by BuzzFeed, Senator, was from Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance. Now he was the one pushing this and doing this research that was funded by NIH in Wuhan. So he wrote to Fauci on April 18, 2020. "I just wanted to say a personal thank you for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19. Not a lab release from the Wuhan." It's unbelievable.
PAUL: But here's the thing, Laura, Peter Daszak is not a disinterested party. He's not just looking for the truth, he was the funder of the research in Wuhan. So he has a self interest in not revealing this, because it turns out the lab - the virus came from the lab. That's my point too. This is a big deal. So any investigation going forward, it can't include Peter - Tony Fauci, can't include Peter Daszak, because they were the ones who funded the lab. They have a conflict of interest with coming to the truth.
INGRAHAM: We want to ask one more question, which is about the timing of the lift of the moratorium on this type of research, Senator. In January 9 of 2017, the NIAD released this statement saying, "We have gone through the reviews, basically we have all these recommendations as to why this type of research should be permitted. It was 11 days before Donald Trump is inaugurated. And it's like a four or five page memorandum. Do you find that timing to be interesting?
PAUL: Absolutely. So the NIH realized the gain-of-function was dangerous. They banned it for three years. And then right before Donald Trump becomes president, they allow it again. They start granting exemptions, all approved by Dr. Fauci, the committee's secret. They won't let you know everybody on the committee, but you know Dr. Fauci knows who's on the committee and reviews this stuff. But then they also allowed some of the research in Wuhan not to go before the committee. And when they were asked, why was this not reviewed by this committee on safety? They said, "Well, it wasn't gain-of-function research."
So they basically defined it out of the purview of the committee that was supposed to be assessing safety and preventing dangerous experiments from going on. So yes, there's something rotten in Denmark, and somebody needs to get to the bottom of this. But it can't include Tony Fauci investigating himself. It's got to be an independent bipartisan commission.
INGRAHAM: Senator, do you have any faith that as a bipartisan commission, given the lies that have been put out there? 500,000 dead and people are just looking the other way.
PAUL: Yes. We can't even get a hearing, but realize what they were studying in that lab they've admitted to was 15 times more deadly than the virus we're dealing with. COVID-19 has about 1 percent mortality, and that's a lot of people. But SARS, the one from 2004, has 15 percent mortality, and they were taking SARS and juicing it up and making it more infectious to human airway cells. That's a really scary thing to do, particularly for the Chinese communists, who I don't think are the most trustworthy of partners.
INGRAHAM: Yes. And at least partly funded by the U.S. taxpayers. That is a scandal. Senator, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
PAUL: Thanks, Laura.
INGRAHAM: And he founded the Black Lives Matter chapter in St. Paul, but now says that within a year he learned of the movement's true motives. Up next, Rashad Turner is here to tell his story. You're not going to want to miss it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: For much of the last year, THE ANGLE warned you that the Black Lives Matter movement not only was going to bring destruction and chaos to inner city communities across the country, but that it wanted to destroy the nuclear family structure while lining their own pockets.
Now thankfully, we're not the only ones who saw BLM for what it really was. Our next guest gives us an inside look at why he left the St. Paul chapter of BLM shortly after joining.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RASHAD TURNER, MN PARENT UNION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: After a year on the inside, I learned I had little concern for rebuilding black families. And they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis. That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Rashad Turner is now the executive director of the Minnesota parent union and he joins us now. Rashad, thank you so much for joining us.
RASHAD TURNER, MN PARENT UNION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Hi, good evening, Laura. Thanks for having me.
INGRAHAM: Do you expect more BLM members to come to the same conclusion that you have, especially on this schools issue?
TURNER: I mean, I'm hoping so. When you look at the education gaps here in Minnesota, black kids compared to white kids, it just baffles me that Black Lives Matter as a national organization is not taking a close look at the black minds that are being affected every day due to policies that teachers unions like education Minnesota, and their leader Denise Specht put into place. So I'm very - still very frustrated, right? It's hard to truly believe that people feel like black lives matter if black minds don't matter.
INGRAHAM: Well, BLM co-founder, Patrisse Cullors, has made it abundantly clear a shot about what her organization is really all about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRISSE CULLORS, BLM CO-FOUNDER: I need to set the record straight. Am I a Marxist? I do believe in Marxism. It's a philosophy that I learned really early on because the U.S. is so good at propaganda and being like - it has still the idea of the American dream and that's tied into capitalism and well. It's much harder to sell communism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Or a shot. It's much harder to sell communism. So the American Dream is just a propaganda ploy. So is that really what young black youth - yet black youth need to hear today?
TURNER: Well, I'll tell you this. If we're thinking about the American dream, you are not going to realize that American dream if you cannot read, right, so Patrisse Cullors and other leaders like herself should be focused on illiteracy rates, instead of talking about this country being a propaganda machine.
One of the things that I want to point out to you, Laura, is that when I hear things like that, and I think about the fact that BLM has been co- opted by the American Federation of Teachers, I think that's where those messages come from. BLM has been co-opted. And when I say co-opted, I mean, teachers unions who show up to these woke BLM marches, they have their signs, you might see the sign in their yard that says Black Lives Matter. But Monday through Friday, teachers unions are killing our children's hopes and dreams.
So for talking about propaganda, we need to be looking at the teachers unions, and the sickness that they're putting out there that's keeping our children out of schools these past couple of years, keeping the mask on our children. We need to unmask the illiteracy machine that is here in Minnesota with our education system.
INGRAHAM: And the critical race theory in Minnesota that's obviously taking hold, how is that affecting the minds of black youth?
TURNER: Well, I'll tell you this, right. And some folks, you know, I've been getting sort of beat up by the woke folks all day. So I do want to send a shout out to all of the patriots who have been very supportive since this video is dropped, right? But I haven't seen an acronym come through our schools, whether it's CRT, A, B, C, D, E, F, you name it. None of those acronyms have led to more black children being able to read.
So if we're talking about something that's critical, let's talk about a critical literacy theory. Let's talk about critical theories around quality education. If Black lives truly matter, teachers unions and the status quo left, the folks who claim to be woke, they need to be voting for the expansion of parent choice. They need to make quality education a civil right for our children. That's how they can show us that Black lives truly matter, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Rashad, it's such a powerful video and a powerful message. Thank you for being here tonight.
And it's not just BLM that has been exposed, but also the media's incessant lies about the violence that that movement sewed, especially in places like Portland. My next guest, Andy Ngo, recently returned there to document the cities continued struggle against the Antifa led violence. It took just one night for suspected thugs of the Antifa nature to find Andy and send him to the hospital.
Joining me now, Andy Ngo, editor at large of "The Post Millennial," author of "Unmasked." He is joining us from an undisclosed location which we're not going to reveal for his own safety. Andy, how were they able to find you and attack you so quickly?
ANDY NGO, AUTHOR, "UNMASKED": So as your viewers probably know, just about two years ago I was beaten badly by them when I was covering a public demonstration in downtown Portland. But that didn't silence me, I continue to do my reporting, come up with different ways, I wised up. This particular time I was actually undercover fully in their uniform marching along with them.
I think what gave it away, though, is they paid attention to the fact that I wasn't engaging in the criminal activities with them such as throwing projectiles at law enforcement or trying to damage the central police station. So they sent people over to interrogate me, and then they pulled off my mask and my goggles and shouted, that's him, get him, get him. And I ran for my life throughout downtown Portland in the middle of the street. There was no police. The fastest one in the mob caught up to me, tackled me to the ground and was repeatedly punching me on the back of my head and my face. And I was pleading for mercy.
He got distracted. I got up and ran into the nearest thing that was open, because most of the businesses in downtown Portland are boarded up, which was the Nines Hotel. When I got in, I pled with the hotel security and staff to call 911, and they told me that I needed to put on a mask and that I had to leave.
INGRAHAM: Oh, God. I want to show an image of someone you say may have assaulted you. She also reportedly yelled we're going to beat the blank out of you, b. Andy have you given this photo to police. I don't know, you can't really see much in that photo. Of course, the mask, another reason we don't want the masks is you can't identify anyone committing acts of criminality. Have you heard from the police?
NGO: I have not heard back from a detective at all, which, I have more than two dozen reports to police of death threats, people showing up at my family's home. That was the reason why I had to flee Portland last year. The reason why I came back was to care for my elderly parents on a certain family matter. And it's important for journalists to be on the ground to see --
INGRAHAM: It's important to be on the ground, Andy, but apparently you have a target on your back. And you can't just keep getting beaten in the head, it's just not going to be good for you. You just can't. Someone else is going to have to pick up the mantle here, because they know who you are and they're just going to beat you and they're probably going to try to kill you. And they would if they could.
Andy, thank you for your continued reporting, but you've got to be careful out there. Thank you.
And FOX Nation is making sure that you never miss an episode of the FOX News primetime lineup. Full episodes of Tucker, Hannity, and our show, THE INGRAHAM ANGLE, will now be available the morning after on FOX Nation. So go to FOXnation.com to sign up, look for "FOX News Primetime All the Time: to watch on demand.
And the Obamas launch their own version of "Schoolhouse Rock," and Biden announces suds for COVID-19 jabs. Raymond Arroyo has at all, "Seen and Unseen" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we unpack the big cultural stories of the day. And for that we turn to FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, now, Biden has picked up his month of action. What is it?
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You might call it Biden's arms race, Laura. He wants to inject your arm with COVID vaccine. And that's to hit his goal of immunizing 70,000, or 70 percent, rather, of Americans. The White House is offering all sorts of arguments, though a clarity vaccine might be needed first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fully vaccinated people are safely shedding their masks, driving stronger growth, not just this year, but in years to come. Now, how do we keep these viruses as we enter the fall after summer -- it says January 20. We are talking now about 15 months ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Boy, it's hard to follow some of this. Currently only about 63 percent of Americans are vaccinated, Laura. So the White House is offering all kinds of gifts and prizes if you take the jab.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anheuser-Busch announced that beer is on them on July 4th. That's right, get a shot and have a beer. Free beer for everyone 21 years or over to celebrate the independence from the virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Booze it up. They warned us that COVID was not a good idea around the booze, remember? It would make you more vulnerable. Kroger is giving away $1 million a week to those who get the shot. In West Virginia they are raffling off custom rifles and trucks to the vaccinated.
INGRAHAM: That's good.
ARROYO: CBS is giving away cruises and Super Bowl tickets. But wait, there's more. They are upping the ante here, Laura, which I think only heightens the public's suspicion about these vaccines.
INGRAHAM: I like the Ginsu knife ad from the old days -- and then there's more, and if you act now. But there's something about the hard sell that makes people go why the hard sell?
ARROYO: People are going to say let's wait a few more months and then I might make the showcase showdown, get the really big prize. We'll see.
INGRAHAM: Exactly.
ARROYO: And Barack and Michelle Obama are launching something, Laura, you must hear about. They are calling it a civics remix, along with artists like Brandi Carlile and Lin-Manuel Miranda. They've announced a Netflix series of shorts that is kind of a "Schoolhouse Rock" for the protest set.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: You saw the clenched fist there, Laura. This feels like "Schoolhouse throw a rock." President Obama said today this is a lot better than what we had in school. I want your thoughts. You watched "Schoolhouse Rock"?
INGRAHAM: "Schoolhouse Rock" was awesome, I can still sing all the songs, number one. Number too, there was every flag in that poorly animated presentation, except there wasn't a lot of American flags. Maybe I lost it in the midst of the blur of all the really bad rhyming that was going on.
ARROYO: My difficulty is this one, Laura. Again, we are watching a preview, so I don't want to make too many judgments here, but I will say this, just from what we've seen, "Schoolhouse Rock" celebrated the glories of America and the wonders of the system. This seems to be pointing to protests as a means of changing America into something that's ideal. It looks like kind of a lolly, lolly, lolly, get your Molotovs here. You've got to protest to make the change. I worry that we are replacing patriotism and pride with revolution and protest. We will see how the flies.
INGRAHAM: Conjunction junction, what is your function, Raymond Arroyo?
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: I don't know what my function is, but we're going to find out.
INGRAHAM: No, conjunction junction, what's your gain of function? We should keep this all on Fauci.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: There you go.
INGRAHAM: I knew it was there somewhere.
ARROYO: I'm just a bill waiting for the filibuster to go away. That's the next version of that.
INGRAHAM: OK, I thought you were making a Clinton joke there. Raymond, thank you. It's great to see you.
And you probably haven't heard that a case related to the January 6th riot just collapsed. We're going to tell you why. Plus, the reason it's being buried, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While Republicans coalesce behind one Donald Trump and the rewriting of January 6th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've also engaged in a rewrite and a whitewash campaign of January 6th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So Republicans are trying to rewrite the history of January 6th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, we keep hearing that over and over, but who is really twisting history?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: January 6th was an attempt as the violent overthrow of an electoral result.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an armed insurrection, no matter what anybody says.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The attempted coup of our federal government on January 6th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attempted to overthrow a free and fair election.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had an armed insurrection, an attack on our capital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But what they won't tell you is that the fed's case against one of these so-called insurrectionist's has totally collapsed. Just yesterday prosecutors announced they were dropping Capitol riot charges against a New York man over lack of evidence. It turns out that a confidential informant incorrectly I.D.-ed him as being in the building.
Joining me now is Chris Bedford, senior editor of "The Federalist," and Matt Walsh, contributor to "The Daily Wire" and host of "The Matt Walsh Show." Chris, is this the beginning of a deluge of other cases that are going to be dropped?
CHRIS BEDFORD, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": It seems like this, because the prosecutors have overreached pretty dramatically on this. We've been covering this from the beginning. I was there at the riot covering it, just as I had been at protests since George W. Bush and riots here in D.C. over the last five years since Donald Trump was first elected.
And this basically fit the mold for that, other than the huge symbolism that we saw. And we covered it that night here talking about just the sad facts, not the politics. Unfortunately, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and especially the Democrats and media have severely overreached on that. Whether it's raiding houses in Alaska or racking up charges against people who were trespassing.
It looks like a majority of these people who were implicated in this are going to get away with simple trespassing charges. But what's really embarrassing about this whole thing is how silent Republicans have been on American citizens have been held in solitary confinement the entire time. It's wild. And Democrats like Liz Warren have ended up speaking up for them. That's sad.
INGRAHAM: And Matt, Adam Schiff knows the real threat to our democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADAM SCHIFF, (D-CA) HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: The big lie didn't end on Election Day or thereafter. This incendiary nonsense has some people may believe. Appealing to this QAnon crowd that just metastasizes online, and it's a real threat. We had an insurrection here, and we can't pretend that these things are no longer possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: So matt, QAnon is the real threat, not China, made this virus in a lab and killed millions of people, let's not do that at all, though.
MATT WALSH, HOST, "THE MATT WALSH SHOW": We know Democrats live in a fantasy world. They want us to join them in a fantasy world where men can get pregnant and white supremacy and QAnon on are the greatest threats we face as a world, second only maybe to climate change. And also where January 6th was the worst thing, maybe worse than 9/11 -- an attempted coup. By the way, a coup is an organized attempt to overthrow the government. No honest person can look at what happened on January 6th and say there was ever any chance of the government or even an attempt to actually overthrow the government. And that's clearly not what happened.
And by the way, talk about rewriting history or rewriting what happened. The media and Democrats for months claimed that this was a deadly riot. Five people were killed, they said, by rioters. And we know now, it's been confirmed, long since confirmed, that the only person killed by violence in the riots was Ashli Babbitt who was killed by a Capitol police officer. That's the only one. And I don't see any of these people coming back around and saying hey, by the way, we got that wrong. Let's correct the record. Of course, they are not doing that.
INGRAHAM: Chris, I want to go back to what you said a few moments ago, which is that American citizens being held in solitary confinement -- and we don't really know the terms of all of this, or the details of all of this, but we do have reports that a number of these people who were arrested, because they got their photo sent around, were held and are still being held in solitary. And you're right, Republicans are so afraid of January 6th, which, look, I was one of the first people to say that Trump need to get this place cleared right away. The failure to bring up civil liberties and the issue of civil liberties at this moment is -- I think that's a black mark on the Republicans. They've got to be standing up on this.
BEDFORD: You were one of the first to talk about it, and you are absolutely right. The Republicans are completely unwilling to deal with the issues that are going on here. And the obvious political persecution when they have been riots across this country, none of which should be tolerated, all of which are very bad for law and order, where no one has been held accountable. Actually, dozens of people were killed over the summer in some of the violent race riots this country saw. People not held accountable like this.
The only person killed was shot by a police officer. No one else was killed despite the fact that that was hidden from us from a long time. "The New York Times" lied about it. Republicans are silent, and leftwing Democrats in Massachusetts are willing to set up to this. Not only that, but Nancy Pelosi has invoked the memory of 9/11, which is really shameful, for a commission that has unfettered access. That's absolutely wild.
INGRAHAM: And I just have one more question, Matt. The clinging to January 6th -- they cling to it like they cling to the mask, right, or to systemic racism. Why? Why did they do that? Because their policies don't deliver, correct? Real quick, we have 15.
WALSH: Yes, obviously it's politically convenient for them. We know that, because they don't want to talk about the BLM riots. But I think also another reason why they talk about this rather than the BLM riots aside from the obvious political thing is that this happened close to them, and all of the people had their lives and businesses destroyed in cities across the country.
INGRAHAM: They can't confront it. Sorry to cut you off there, but we have the Last Bite up next. You don't want to miss it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Former Obama national security advisor Ben Rhodes really is most comfortable handing gifts to our enemies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEN RHODES, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA: Whether we are dealing with Russia or China, the most important thing the United States can do is not any foreign policy. We have to get our own act together. The most powerful thing that people want from us around the world is not any one foreign policy. It's that we can demonstrate that a multiethnic, multiracial democracy can work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Thanks, Ben.
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