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Published June 02, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "The Fox News Specialists," June 1, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
KATHERINE TIMPF, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Kat Timpf, along with Eric Bolling and Eboni K. Williams. We are The Fox News Specialists. Lots of breaking news today, chaos in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, after gunshots and explosions ring out at a major hotel and casino. We'll have an update on that shortly. But first, a short time ago President Trump dropping a climate deal bombshell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the nonbinding Paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the green climate fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TIMPF: I'm not very surprised by this at all.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: No one should be. Donald Trump candidate ran on it, the anti-globalist agenda. This by definition is a globalist idea, the Paris climate record, 195 countries. And we're going to get to the specifics of it in a couple minutes, but nobody should be surprised and don't be surprised also the coincidence of a brand-new stock market high on the very day that we pull out. Because pulling out of the Paris accord is very, very good for American business. We can argue whether he should get back in with a better deal or not, but certainly business leaders feel optimistic that this was a good idea for the country.
TIMPF: I think get in with a better deal but involving congress as you would with a treaty, which essentially what's this was even though technically not, should have been always treated that way, that's my opinion.
EBONI K. WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: Yeah. I think most people agree with you there. Here's the thing, I'm not bothered at all by this. This is exactly what he ran on, Eric's right. And even those that question, you know, Donald Trump and his issues with climate change or whatever, the point is the deal itself wasn't good. Every deal is not -- I think a lot of people don't really wrap their heads around that because the idea of a deal sounds like a good thing, it sounds positive and productive. But a deal is only as good as the terms it's based on and this one has unenforceable bad terms, they're not productive for American citizens.
TIMPF: Well, let's meet today's "Specialists." She's a New York Times bestseller, she's a Fox News contributor, and she's editor for TownHall.com, but she specializes in hunting and rafting on the Colorado River, Katie Pavlich is here. And he is the 1987 Brooklyn spelling bee champion, subject of the graphic novel, Ego and Hubris, and he's a columnist for The Observer, but he specialized in North Korea. That's right, he's the author of "Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Biography of Kim Jong Il," Michael Malice is here also.
All right. Katie, a lot of people are saying that the whole world is now going to be on fire. Do you think that that's true?
KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEW CONTRIBUTOR: No, it is not. The hysteria surrounding the United States leaving the Paris climate accord really is incredible, especially considering all the hysteria we've seen so far with the Trump administration. We have commentators at different network saying this is the day the United States stepped back and is no longer the leader of the free world. You have Tom Steyer, who, of course, is a big climate change proponents saying that the president has committed an act of treason against the American people for pulling out of this accord. That's not true. And when you look at the details of what this agreement would have required, you know, 400,000 manufacturing jobs in this country gone, not to mention maybe many millions, potentially down the road. A decrease, $20,000 per family of four in terms of household income, $3 trillion of lost GDP, according to the agreement.
And the issue also is the international community seems very upset that we're leaving. But what if the United States pulls out, will other countries pull out? Well, first of all, that shows that we're still leaders in the world, number one. And second of all, the United States for a very long time has been the founder of pet projects and slush funds for the international community. That's actually don't do a lot of good and don't handle the problem that it's supposed to do. I think that the president said that message in the campaign trail that those days are over and this is the first step to stop American taxpayers funding to go toward one of those slush funds that really wasn't going to solve the problem of climate change.
TIMPF: Absolutely. Again, climate change, I'm someone who certainly believed that it's real. I just really don't buy into the idea that regulations are always the answer. I'm one of those market people. I think things like property rights could get involved. And also, you can't have all these regulations if you want to create new businesses and that includes businesses that are green energy. So I would like to see to be some sort of deal though, Eric, something you said was if we get back in, I would like to see there be a some sort of a deal but follow the proper -- following the proper channels of a treaty.
BOLLING: Let's just talk a little bit. Katie points out that both the Heritage Foundation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimate the GDP loss somewhere around $2.5 or $3 trillion over 10 years. That is substantial. But here's why, I mean, let me explain exactly why it costs us GDP. A lot of this is focused on the automobile industry, so all these car companies are being told they have to increase cafe standards instead of miles per gallon standards. So they're forced to make a lighter and lighter car, cost a lot more money to use aluminum in a car than steel, so it cost them more. That goes on to the consumer. But also these cars are less safe, so the insurance costs are going up to the consumers as well. Also, natural gas is being forced under the accord. We have to pollute less so we have to move away from coal, which is one of our cheapest, most abundant fuel sources in America into a more expensive fuel source. That means our electric bills are going to go up as well. As these costs translate to the consumer, GDP goes down. You have less money.
WILLIAMS: But Michael -- I want to get Michael in this, too. But here's my thing, Eric. I don't mind being more expensive because I think to do the right thing by our ecosystem is going to maybe be more expensive. That's not even my problem with the deal. You know what it is? It's not enforceable. Those that don't agree to it, those who violate the terms of this agreement, how are you going to enforce it?
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: We were going to eat most of the cost or a big portion of the cost of this as -- I think we're the third largest -- second or third largest polluter -- the largest polluter, China, gets to continue to pollute more and more and more for 13 years going forward. It's insane.
TIMPF: I think it's important, Michael, to show that we do so care about this. We don't want to completely abandon clean energy, green energy because that's where the rest of the world is going. If we just want to stick with coal, we'll be by ourselves sticking with coal and that's not a good thing.
MICHAEL MALICE, THE OBSERVER: We'll by ourselves using (INAUDIBLE) and yards, and that's pretty fine with me. I agree with Katie. This isn't about leadership, this is about obedient and submission of the American government and the American people to a new world order. Now here's how I determine what the facts are here, if you look at markets and price determined information, if aluminum goes up that means there's either less demand, there's more demand, or less supply. If you look at all these predictions, they say that we're all going to be underwater and we should have been underwater in the '90s. If this was all true, beachfront property prices would be collapsing because all those people in the real estate industry will be selling because they're thinking the long game and they're like, well, this is going to worth in 20 years, and we're not seeing that. So I trust the people.
WILLIAMS: The views are too nice.
MALICE: I trust people who have skin in the game, not the coal industry people. And certainly not people who want the government to control every aspect of our lives. Listen, if you agree with the French proposal, put on a beret, go to -- and pay 85 percent of your income to the French government.
BOLLING: Understand this also, Elon Musk said that if we pull out of the Paris accord that he was going to pull out himself as somebody of the advisory boards that he's down with the Trump administration. Think about that for second, the guy who runs an electric car company, owns electric car company.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: . subsidized largely by the U.S. taxpayer no less, wants us to move away from fossil fuel generated burning cars right into his showroom.
PAVLICH: That's exactly the point.
BOLLING: But talk about this though, how do you produce electricity, with coal.
PAVLICH: But that goes exactly to the point of, is he really interested in the environment and clean energy, or he's interested in getting rich and electric cars because it benefits him? If he was really interested in helping the environment, which I think there are a lot of people in the Trump administration who are. America, by the way, is going to decrease its emissions without the Paris accord. We have decreased our emissions more than any other country in the world. But if you really care about the environment, he would stay as an advisor despite not getting his way on the Paris climate agreement.
WILLIAMS: A bit of a conflict. I agree with you there, Katie. And also, back to the deal itself, just bugs me, in the same way that the Iran deal bugged me. It's a bad deal. Good mission, good intentions, bad unenforceable terms of the deal, France, Germany, and Italy already saying that the deal, quote, cannot be renegotiated. That's ridiculous. Every deal can bind in definition be renegotiated.
BOLLING: Can we touch on one other thing, who signed this deal? Who thought it was a great idea for us to reduce our emissions by 28 percent, paid the vast majority of the money that's going -- transfer of wealth from us to developing nations, who did that? President Obama.
TIMPF: President Obama.
BOLLING: Thank you. One more, thank you.
TIMPF: All right, OK. Well, not surprisingly, the media are pouncing on the irreparable damage they claimed the president will cause by pulling out of the climate deal. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, CN)
UNINDENTIFIED MALE: With the U.S. pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, scientists are in agreement, a majority of them, anyway, that we are going to see temperatures rise. Let's first look scientifically what that means. Well, rising seas, we could see the seas continue to rise. We could see flooding in major cities like New York City to Shanghai. Deadlier heat waves would be more abundant. We'd see droughts, wildfires, mass extinction in the natural world. Eco-systems will be disruptive. Coral reefs would bleach out in the ocean. And get this, Jake, low-lying countries such as the Marshall Islands would disappear entirely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TIMPF: Eboni, he's saying this about this deal. We're talking about a deal. We're not talking about, ultimately, actions, what's ultimately going to happen in terms of emission and -- we're talking about a specific deal. Without this specific deal all that's going to happen, I feel like no.
MALICE: And if you listen it's sounds like the rapture.
TIMPF: Exactly.
MALICE: We've been hearing these predictions for at least 30 years. None of this has happened. And at no point are they like, wait a minute, maybe we got something wrong. The idea that climate change is automatically man- made and the idea that's automatically a catastrophe are two logical leaps that they're making whenever you talk about.
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: Let's slow it down though, Mike. So I agree that's a bit far of a leap. But I do think there are things we can and should be doing to be more responsible consumers (INAUDIBLE) but I think we're all in agreement here, that is very different than applauding this is as a good deal.
MALICE: Let me make one more point. If Trump pulls out of the agreement and said unilaterally we're still going to meet these goals, he would still get attacked because what they really want is for the U.S. to have some kind of international consensus as oppose than doing it on our own volition.
PAVLICH: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: I don't mind us having consensus personally, but not when it doesn't has an actual benefit.
PAVLICH: You have to look at the end result. Is the Paris climate accord actually going to reduce the Earth's temperature by 4 degrees? Absolutely not. And these ideas that they have all these predictions which I was confuse that Al Gore and that anchor from another network there -- all those prediction I'm pretty sure I saw Al Gore make in 2002, when his film that came out, "An Inconvenient Truth," completely debunked, yet used in classrooms across the country to sell climate change. As you've said, in the '80s and '70s, we were told that the Earth was going to freeze. He was talking about rising sea levels. I'm from Arizona.
(LAUGHTER)
PAVLICH: Arizona used to be under an ocean. You can find seashells at the top of the Grand Canyon. Yes, the climate changes. It has been changing for a very, very long time. Yes, man may have some kind of impact on it. But to act like some international community is going to use American taxpayer dollars to reduce the earth's temperature by 4 degrees is a fantasy land and I'm glad that the president is not behind it.
BOLLING: If you want to play fantasy land, that's fine. If you want to get behind a president that says let's do this fantasy land, but as long as everyone is plain with the same set of rules, in other words, we can't be forced into $3 trillion of reduced GDP while China continues to eat our lunch in business and manufacturing and put us at a competitive disadvantage to China, when they're going to be allowed -- think about this, they're the number one polluter on the planet. They're going to be allowed to increase their pollution for 13 more years. Yet we're required to pull back or we're fine.
PAVLICH: There's a difference between pollution and climate change. I think they mixed the two. Nobody wants to be a polluter.
(CROSSTALK)
PAVLICH: Right. No one wants to be a polluter. We can reduce pollution. But this idea of climate change embodying everything doesn't really add up.
WILLIAMS: And to Eric's point, even when China does continue to do that even if -- when the day comes where they're restricted, how do we enforce that? It's an unenforceable deal.
TIMPF: Well, this deal didn't have any enforcement (INAUDIBLE) did it. So maybe some of those would have been a good start for that, OK. All right. Well, gunshots and explosions at a hotel and casino in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, sparking havoc. We'll have the latest right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: Explosions and gunfire erupting at a big hotel and casino resort in Manila, forcing the facility to lockdown and civilians fleeing to the darken street.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNINDENTIFIED MALE: I can hear gunshots.
(SCREAMING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: Now there are a lot of conflicting reports. During his speech in the Rose Garden just a short time ago, President Trump refer to it as a terrorist attack, and there've been local reports of multiple injured. But the country's national police chief is now saying that it may have been a robbery as the motive. Clearly, a chaotic situation, and this comes after ISIS-linked militants have laid siege to the country's south over the last 10 days. But, there is some good news coming out of the fight against ISIS, today one of the founders of ISIS's propaganda arm reportedly was killed in his hometown during a coalition airstrike in Eastern Syria.
Katie, I'll start with you today. ISIS took credit for this at one point, now the police saying it may have been robbery. Either way, we're concern that ISIS and terrorist spreading to the Asian countries, spreading throughout the globe.
PAVLICH: Regardless of what this situation turns out to be, the Philippines has a serious problem when it comes to ISIS gaining a foothold and a stronghold in the south of the country. The president there has said that it's a very serious issue. They need help with the issue. ISIS militants in the Philippines just kidnapped a Christian priest and they sent out a hostage video. So, it's certainly a concern not just in the Philippines, but also throughout Southeast Asia as well.
BOLLING: What do you make of this, Eboni.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, we know it's wrong. We've been talking about it for days now, ISIS black flags going up everywhere. Yes, Katie's absolutely right whether this individual instance turns out to be that or not, should not dictate our level grave concern that we should have over this growing problem. And again, we've just really have to figure out -- I know the whack a mole thing, I keep saying it, but how do we get it out of its root, you know, and really stop it so it stops keep emerging in new places every day.
BOLLING: Kat, what do you think of the Syrian air strike that killed one of these ISIS founders, one of the original ISIS leaders?
TIMPF: I am happy that an airstrike killed an ISIS leader, Eric. Absolutely, of course, I am. Again, as Eboni was saying, this is something that's spreading. It pops up over here, over here, over there. It's obviously at the root, an ideological problem, and there's going to be a lot more involved in eventually eradicating it. Again, we don't have the response or not ISIS, as you were saying in the break, all the time claims responsibility for things that actually didn't do. Why wouldn't, it makes them look more powerful. The thing about terror and ISIS is a lot of their warfare is psychological, making sure that things are horrific, and making sure that they're in our minds because obviously they don't have a defense like a country like the United States does as a terror group and hoping to destroy our way of life through fear. So it's also important to not let that happen.
BOLLING: And like this -- we saw the video that certainly looks more like -- I mean, look, I'm speculating, looks more like terror than a robbery.
MALICE: Well, if you look at the Philippine President Duterte, he's kind of a strongman, and strongman strive on chaos and carnage, and he's already declared martial law in parts of the Philippines. And we don't know where he's going to go from this. He might be looking at kind of things like people being thrown out of helicopters. They are looking for excuses to crack down on radical Islam just like back in the day, it was communism that's spreading throughout the world, and people took a harsh stand that we didn't approve of transition right. And if you look at Hungary with a Viktor Orban, and if you look at the Philippines, these people are drawing a line and the backlash is going to start coming and it's not going to be coming from the United States, it's been coming from these countries where the people of the top really are uninhibited and kind of rebel of the fact that they're strongman.
BOLLING: And Katie, and we've talked about this time and time again. A lot of the victims, most of the victims, in fact, of ISIS terror are Muslims.
PAVLICH: Well, just this week we saw a horrible truck bombing in Kabul. We saw over the weekend the suicide bombing after the Ramadan ended in Baghdad. I mean, this is a problem that affects everybody. And I think if you go back to what the president said during his foreign trip, there are a lot of leaders in this community who are going to have to deal with how to stop this from spreading in their own communities, but also spreading throughout the world. And as the point that you made, these different governments are going to have to decide what works for them. There can't be a one-size-fits-all policy when it comes to fighting terror. Every country is different. Every countries is going to have a different sector of Islamic terrorism. We've seen it all over the world. Different terror groups banding together with each other, so they're going to have to take a hard look at what's happening in their own countries and the United States are going to be there to help them in terms of providing counterintelligence and methods to stop the ideology.
TIMPF: And within countries these things are also going to be changing all the time, but all of these areas are really unstable.
BOLLING: We'll leave it right there. A lot more show coming up. President Trump calls unmasking the big story in the Russian probe with three top former Obama administration officials now under scrutiny by the house intel committee. We've got the very latest coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: With the number of Trump allies getting dragged into the Russian probe growing, President Trump took to twitter earlier today, ripping the Obama administration over questions of unmasking, writing, quote, the big story is the unmasking and surveillance of people that took place during the Obama administration. On Wednesday, the house intel committee served the CIA, NSA, and FBI with subpoenas for documents relating to three former Obama aides, Susan Rice, John Brennan, and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power. Now the inclusion of Samantha Power has raised some red flags from some analysist. Earlier today, Judge Andrew Napolitano said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: She should have had nothing to do with this unless it was for political purposes. So the unmasking is a below the radar screen crisis. Occurred at the tail end of the Obama administration when they began to fear, hey, Donald Trump might really win, we've got to something about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: OK, Michael, I appreciate the judge's enthusiasm there.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: Here's the truth thought, right. We all know, as much as we don't like it, unmasking is not illegal, and we the definition -- it's really a totally subjective standard. And I think that's what's really frustrating. And Eric, you point out yesterday how dangerous ultimately that is, so we need to look at the standard. But as it stands now, all anybody has to say and Susan Rice had said this is she felt a need to know. She said contacts. I needed to know who these people are. So even if you don't buy that, where's the crime?
MALICE: We have political warfare in this country. We've had it for decades. And it's only now that the right has started fighting the left on -- terms. Yesterday we saw that awful comedian with that horrible cartoon.
WILLIAMS: Who?
MALICE: Kathy Lee Gifford I think it is.
(LAUGHTER)
MALICE: I'm not even mention it, but the point is it's only when you hit these people where it hurts is that when behavior starts to change, and that's only when the corporate press thinks it's a problem. When Republicans do something, they have complete meltdowns, but when they do it they get a free pass, so they have to be held with their feet to the fire regardless of the truth.
BOLLING: I want to push back a little bit here.
WILLIAMS: Bring it.
BOLLING: So unmasking itself may or may not be illegal. I'm not sure it's not.
TIMPF: It's not.
BOLLING: Done properly it's legal. But here's the problem, you need to go to a FISA court to get the information, and the FISA court is very secretive, has to see national security at risk, and if you can include a U.S. person who is not the target of the investigation, you have to mask their name. So if you start unmasking people's names, you're violating their constitutional rights by doing so, unless there is a national security risk at heart. And Susan Rice unmasked General Flynn without any national security risk whatsoever for purely political reasons.
WILLIAMS: We don't know that.
BOLLING: The reason that's important is because you could have an administration or president who could just want to unmask everyone and ruin their lives and ruin American lives.
WILLIAMS: I appreciate that. With Eric, and you're exactly right, which is why my answer to it is reevaluate the standard in which we can unmask. That's the difference because you might be right about Susan Rice and all her political motivation, but the problem is from a legal standpoint, now simple issue, you might have a lawsuit there. Michael said might sue her on that issue. But criminally there is no crime there because all she has to say is she felt the need to know, and how do you prove she didn't.
PAVLICH: I have a question for you.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
PAVLICH: . on a legal aspect of this. If Susan Rice is going to the FISA court and saying I need this person unmasked because national security is at stake, but her real motivation is for political purposes, isn't that lying to the court?
WILLIAMS: It might be lying to the courts, Katie, but again, how do you prove it?
(CROSSTALK)
TIMPF: Yes, sometimes people do lie. Sometimes people do lie.
BOLLING: When the CIA, the NSA and the FBI say he's -- there's no -- he poses no national security risk by remaining masked.
WILLIAMS: Oh, I have an answer. Go ahead, go ahead.
BOLLING: By remaining masked. And then a political staffer, White House staffer unmasks this man's name. The system is broken.
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: I've got to answer. No, here's the issue. Her answer is context. She says, "I needed to have the name revealed to me so I could understand the gravity and the importance of the report." That is what she is on record saying, and I'd challenge anybody to prove her otherwise.
PAVLICH: OK. So on the record, Susan Rice, she specifically was asked in an interview with PBS, I believe it was, did you know anything about unmasking when it came to the Trump administration, the Trump transition team. She said, "Absolutely not."
WILLIAMS: That's a lie.
RICE: I was very surprised that -- that Congressman Nunes brought that up, that that was something that was going on.
And then she got caught doing it, and then she said, and changed her story like she usually does and sad, "Well, I did unmask people, but it was for the good of the country."
WILLIAMS: Right, so that's a lie.
PAVLICH: She is lying on the front end.
TIMPF: But the issue is still, as Eboni has been saying, the issue is still that you do have that excuse. If you dud want to do something for political purposes, whether Susan Rice -- my suspicion is, certainly, that she did this for political purposes. Absolutely, I agree with you on that, Eric.
But the point is people have this sort of -- they have this way to do things for political purposes in the future.
BOLLING: That's criminal.
WILLIAMS: No, it's not.
TIMPF: Because the standard is -- excuse me Eric. The standard is, and I quote, "has to provide some -- some value to foreign intelligence." Some.
WILLIAMS: That's called subjective standard.
BOLLING: That is criminal.
WILLIAMS: Very subjective. Very subjective standard.
BOLLING: If you're using the FISA court for -- to promote a political agenda.
TIMPF: But all you have to do is say it, and I agree that's not enough. And that's what libertarians have been saying. That's why we need to look at the system that creates these kind of problems and not just the individuals that are involved, because this happens to be a Republican and not a Democrat.
MALICE: The only consequence that Susan Rice will ever have will be in the sphere of public opinion. She will never have legal consequence for action, like most people in any administration.
WILLIAMS: Well, and also, she didn't actually break the law. That is important, Eric.
BOLLING: We don't know.
WILLIAMS: I understand what you're saying.
BOLLING: We don't know. I'd love to see some -- some context. I would love to see some emails. I would love to see...
WILLIAMS: But here's the thing. You know what? It it was an objective standard...
BOLLING: ... if Susan Rice talks to some CIA -- John Brennan, for example, and says, "Yes, I'm going to unmask it. I know you didn't need to, but I'm going to unmask it."
WILLIAMS: Like a confession?
BOLLING: Well, I don't know.
WILLIAMS: I think we'll be holding our breath for that.
BOLLING: No, like an email, a smoking gun email. Listen, I still think they're there. I think they're -- and by the way, Susan Rice is no stranger to lying to the American people.
PAVLICH: No, she's not.
WILLIAMS: And nobody is saying that she didn't lie. But again...
BOLLING: A lot of people are saying that.
WILLIAMS: But again, I have to see the crime.
PAVLICH: They can testify.
WILLIAMS: James Comey officially set to testify in front of the Senate one week from today, but the White House could potentially stop it. Coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: We're still arguing about FISA court's warrants and unmasking. But welcome back to "The Fox News Specialists." Our specialists are Katie Pavlich and Michael Malice. And we're going to continue the conversation right now.
James Comey, the former FBI director, will officially testify before the Senate Intel Committee next Thursday, one week from today, June 8, over the Russia probe.
It will be Comey's first public remarks since the reports that claimed President Trump urged him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Mike Flynn.
However, one idea being floated is whether the White House would try to block Comey from testifying, citing executive privilege over their personal conversations. Don't know about that, but I want to go to Eboni on this.
Comey has already somehow leaked or told the investigators that he was going to talk about Donald Trump leaning on him to drop the investigation. Prior to him testifying under oath, is this a good idea for him to be talking about what he's going to testify to?
WILLIAMS: No, I don't think it's a good idea. I think it's "CYA." I think that's certainly why he's doing it. He's trying to get a narrative out there so that people can kind of have expectation as to what he's going to say.
Look, this is a he said-he said, ultimately. Absent tapes and absent some memo that's been authenticated by no way I can think of, this is ultimately going to be about the credibility of President Trump and what's left of the credibility of Jim Comey.
BOLLING: But it's going to be watchable TV. Because it's going to be an open hearing and then a private hearing after.
TIMPF: Yes, it's going to -- definitely going to be great TV, yes. Comey says this, and then Trump will say he's lying. And Comey will say he's lying, and people will think Trump is lying. People will think Comey is lying. Everyone on the Internet will try to work it out in the court of blog with their little legal hats on from watching "Law & Order: SVU" or however everyone seems to be an expert on all of this.
It's -- people have so little trust in the government or its officials right now that stuff like this, it doesn't hardly even matter to the average American. Which, it matters -- what actually happened absolutely matters. But in terms of the proceedings, people don't know who to believe. Or they've already decided ahead of time who to believe, and the other person is definitely a liar. Nobody knows who to trust. I don't know who to trust. It's very, very hard.
BOLLING: Katie, I want to see James Comey, after he's sworn in, tell the court that he -- that Donald Trump leaned on him and that would be probably close to impeachable, maybe not. But on the borderline of impeachable offense, a high crime and misdemeanor. And then explain why he didn't talk about when he was asked about it in front of a Senate hearing about a month ago.
PAVLICH: I'm sure he'll be asked that question. But I think we should back up to this idea of the White House trying to stop this testimony from going forward.
They should want James Comey to testify.
BOLLING: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Agreed.
PAVLICH: If the president is going to send a threatening message on Twitter to say, "James Comey better be careful about tapes," well, let's hear James Comey's side of the story.
Jim Comey also has to look at his testimony from early May, on May 3...
BOLLING: Yes, yes.
PAVLICH: ... and reconcile what he said there when he said nobody at the Justice Department -- at the Justice Department -- has tried to stop our investigation into Russia or to drop the Flynn investigation.
BOLLING: And he went further...
PAVLICH: Following that up -- go...
BOLLING: ... and said that would be very bad. That would be illegal.
PAVLICH: It would be illegal, and for political purposes, the FBI has never done anything like that.
Following that up, the acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe, also said the same thing. He said nobody ever -- no one in the White House, no one at the Justice Department -- has tried to impede our Russian investigation. It is something that is of the highest priority.
So I think that we're getting ahead of ourselves when it comes to what we think he's going to say, and we should just let him talk about the things he will say.
BOLLING: You know what's scary to me, Michael, is when our intel chiefs -- I mean, back in the day these guys -- these spies were secret. They were below the radar. They were off the public spectrum.
Meanwhile, we're -- James Comey, John Brennan, they're all becoming household names. This is dangerous for us, isn't it?
MALICE: I think it's wonderful. I think the more skepticism we have toward the government and these people who are spying on us, the better. I was born in the Soviet Union, and one of the great accomplishments of the right wing was to destroy that. And now we have imported the KGB in the form of the NSA, which listens to all our phone calls, reads all our emails.
So I think a healthy distrusts of the government is just the best possible thing for the nation.
But let me just get back to this point. Trump comes from a real estate background. You can very easily see him having nothing to do with Russia and telling Comey, like, "Come on, let's cut the crap and move on." And yet, that's going to be twisted into something like this is the president telling him. And basically, both sides are telling the truth.
TIMPF: I should say, I completely agree with him that distrust is a good thing. Thank you. You should not...
BOLLING: You can have a healthy distrust, but I certainly -- and I do. I am with you on the NSA. I think that Snowden was a hero, not a traitor. But I also think...
WILLIAMS: I don't know that.
TIMPF: I agree with him.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: The point is, I would also love to see our intel chiefs under the radar, quietly investigating, speaking.
MALICE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
BOLLING: No, not Americans. On foreign bad guys.
MALICE: Oh, yes. Absolutely.
BOLLING: Not on Americans.
MALICE: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: You know, I agree, Eric. I was thinking about that with Jim Comey. And I've spent a long time defending him, because I know people that work for him and have great things to say about him.
TIMPF: Right
WILLIAMS: And he enjoyed a great reputation for a long time.
But I kind of think he got into the wrong gig. Like, maybe he should have ran for office or something if he wanted -- no, it seems to me he wants a bit of a public profile.
TIMPF: Instagram.
PAVLICH: Not his fault. I mean, we have all of these politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, dragging people like James Comey in front of Congress to testify. And all they do is ask them political questions and demand answers. And they inherently put them into a bad place under oath.
WILLIAMS: Here's where I disagree, Katie. Yes, at this point he's being dragged in. But before all that, James Comey marched out there, because he felt the need to update the American people on what was going on with Hillary.
BOLLING: Even before that, he was an investigator on one of the Clinton -- I think one of the Travelgate or one of those things.
PAVLICH: Whitewater.
BOLLING: Whitewater. There you go. Katie Pavlich.
All right. The U.S. now holding massive military exercises off the Korean Peninsula after a successful anti-intercontinental missile test. Will the show of force push Kim Jong-un to back down? Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: Many are saying the U.S. is sending a loud and clear message to Kim Jong-un. Two carrier strike groups launching a big show of force off the Korean Peninsula today, conducting military exercises with Japanese navy ships.
According to the military, a total of 12 warships and two carrier air wings are involved in the drills. They come just two days after the U.S. military successfully shot down a mock intercontinental missile for the first time.
Michael, we'll start with you, since you're the expert on North Korea. What say you?
MALICE: Well, I don't think this is a loud and clear message at all. The only message is that we have ships.
So we've been sending them...
WILLIAMS: Grr.
MALICE: We've been sending them ambiguous messages, which is the way to do it. You had President Trump praising Kim Jong-un, saying he'd like to talk to him, saying he's doing a good job being a leader. And then you have Pence and other members of the administration saying, "We're done talking. We're going to take action."
These are contradictory messages, because we don't know what they're going to be doing, and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors when you're dealing with this country.
Now, we've seen something like this. This has gone back. In the '70s. In the '70s, the Americans wanted to prune a tree on the border between North Korea and South Korea, the DMZ; and the North Koreans took that axe, chopped up those Americans. That axe is still on display. I've seen it in North Korea. And did we do? We launched Operation Paul Bunyan. We came back with a huge amount of troops and a huge amount of ships, and we pruned that tree, and we left the stump to give the finger to the North Korean government. So this has been going on for decades. This is not new.
BOLLING: I think it's new. You don't think anything is new about this?
MALICE: No.
BOLLING: You have Donald Trump as commander-in-chief.
MALICE: That part's new.
TIMPF: That's definitely new.
BOLLING: Who sent 59 tomahawk missiles into Syria. He dropped a MOAB over Afghanistan. And now he's put -- listen to these numbers. He's put three aircraft carriers -- two there, one on its way -- in the region. Six destroyers will help those three strike groups. Two cruisers, 200-plus aircraft on those aircraft carriers. Ninety-six vertical missile launchers. It goes on and on. And each one of these carrier strike groups typically travels, very quietly, with a submarine, as well. These are nuclear vessels. If you have that much firepower. Look at those pictures. Do you think Kim Jong-un is looking out with those, you know, binoculars going, "Uh-oh."
TIMPF: And then -- and then he's sending the message in the media to all people of North Korea that this is us trying to start a war with them.
MALICE: Correct. And we have been engaged in annual military exercises with North and South Korea since the '70s. They're called the Team Spirit (ph) exercise. I talked about this in my book. And this is a source of complaint from them, because they're like, "Look, you guys are basically threatening us off our shores."
BOLLING: But Michael, when was the last time you had three carrier strike groups in one place?
MALICE: They have the nukes. I mean, we're not going to be striking them, because...
BOLLING: This is not -- this is not an exercise. This is a clear warning shot...
MALICE: It's literally an exercise.
PAVLICH: Literally.
BOLLING: ... like "Shut up or you're gone."
MALICE: No, it's not shut up. The idea that we're really going to say "Shut up and we're gone" and provoke them, a nuclear-armed country who can hit Seoul with 10 million people, it's not that simple and there's no way. Every person in the administration has agreed that any strike in North Korea will have absolutely devastatingly catastrophic consequences.
And this is a government that chose to let 10 percent of its population starve in the '90s, rather than let in the U.N. and give them food. So they have no respect for human life, even of their own citizens.
WILLIAMS: Would that be a declaration of war? I mean -- completely, right?
PAVLICH: Sure. If the United States launches any kind of real military action against North Korea, then they will retaliate against South Korea.
They say all this time that they're developing a missile that can hit the western coast of the United States. That's obviously not true, and we have ways to stop their missile tests, to blow them up while we're doing it.
WILLIAMS: Thank God.
PAVLICH: Right. But I just have to say, even though the ships are just sitting there, I'm glad that the Ronald Reagan is there.
BOLLING: The Ronald Reagan is there.
PAVLICH: Makes me happy.
BOLLING: Can I ask Michael something, though?
Michael, we have intel, right?
MALICE: Yes.
BOLLING: We have very good intel. If they do load a nuclear warhead into one of those ICBMs...
MALICE: Right.
BOLLING: Even if one that's not -- has the range to hit the U.S., has the range to hit, certainly hit South Korea, say Japan.
MALICE: Right. Right.
BOLLING: We don't do a preemptive strike on that missile?
MALICE: I'm absolutely certain that President Trump sat down with the Chinese president at Mar-a-Lago and figured out what's the line beyond which we're going -- we're not going to allow?
BOLLING: Well, that would be it, wouldn't it?
MALICE: We don't know -- I'm sure that it will probably be even further than that. Because we don't want to be like Obama with Syria where there's a line, and then we don't enforce it. And don't -- just one more point. We don't want to tell North Korea what that line is. We have to hold our cards close to the chest.
TIMPF: He's just having such a good time right now, showing off. All this.
MALICE: Right.
TIMPF: He doesn't care what other people do. He doesn't -- people say, "Oh, your people are starving." He says, "And so what? I'm stuffed."
MALICE: Right.
TIMPF: He does not care at all, which is what makes this so complicated. And the way he views himself. I mean, he believed he was the sexiest man. Remember that?
WILLIAMS: What?
MALICE: And they boast...
TIMPF: He's a very sexy, wonderful, powerful man, and he doesn't want anyone to take that away.
MALICE: They boast that they're a shrimp among whales, and they push around bigger countries than themselves. It's a source of pride for them.
WILLIAMS: Yes, this is very special kind of crazy.
MALICE: Yes.
WILLIAMS: From what you've seen, right?
So when we Circle Back, we will have the new appalling behavior in the wake of Kathy Griffin's Trump beheading video. After this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TIMPF: Time to "Circle Back" with our specialists, Katie Pavlich and Michael Malice.
All right. Let's "Circle Back" to the Kathy Griffin controversy, which is inspiring more gross behavior. Ken Jennings, the former big-time "Jeopardy" champion, is mocking reports that President Trump's 11-year-old son Barron saw the Griffin photo and feared it was actually his father." Jennings tweeted, quote, "Barron Trump saw a very long necktie on a heap of expired deli meat in a Dumpster. He thought it was his dad and his little heart is breaking."
Donald Trump Jr., Barron's half-older brother, shot back, tweeting, "It takes a real man to pick on an 11-year-old. Yet another low from the left, but they'll rationalize it with excuses."
Comedian Jim Carrey is standing by Kathy Griffin, saying, quote, "We're the last line of defense, and comedians are the last voice of truth in this whole thing."
You know what? I agree with Jim Carrey on that. I agree with him on that. I absolutely agree with him on that. I think that the jokes are gross, but I think it's also wonderful that we live in a country where you can make fun of and criticize your leader in that way and not go to jail like you would in North Korea.
MALICE: Hold on. I'm a humorist and a North Korea guy, and I agree with him in theory that comedians are the last voice of truth.
What was the truth behind this picture? If you're going to make -- look I've made all sorts of offensive jokes about subjects I can't even mention at 5 p.m. But the point is, the darker the joke, the more it has to land.
TIMPF: Right.
MALICE: There was no punchline there. And that's where that comment of Barron Trump, the idea that an 11-year-old wouldn't be upset by seeing his father's bloody head, I mean, that's just crazy.
TIMPF: They were bad jokes for absolute sure. I don't even get what the joke was.
WILLIAMS: It wasn't a joke. No, it was not a joke. It literally -- and that's the thing. I love comedians. I love Chris Rock and different -- Richard Pryor. They'll be provocative and say things to make you uncomfortable.
At what point do you not just get the slap label "comedian" -- this is for you two, because you're humorists -- you get to slap that label on anything? Because where is Kathy Griffin being a comedian in that moment?
MALICE: When your face is funnier than your jokes, that's when you're not a humorist.
WILLIAMS: Ooh.
TIMPF: Ooh, burn. That's going to be tough for you on the Internet later.
MALICE: I understand. I'm fine with it.
PAVLICH: Look, I think that Donald Trump Jr. issued the correct response to the attack on his little brother. The kid's 11. He didn't ask for the life that he's in. Leave him alone.
MALICE: And he's adorable.
PAVLICH: Yes. And if you really feel like you have to make news by attacking an 11-year-old child, then that says more about you than it does about him.
WILLIAMS: Good point.
TIMPF: Bolling.
BOLLING: So there are two things here. Obviously, Kathy Griffin was despicable, in my mind. I understand the free speech argument, but when you're talking about the president of the United States, there are things you cannot do. I don't think you can threaten the president of the United States.
TIMPF: She didn't threaten. She didn't threaten. It wasn't a willing -- to meet the legal standard, it has to be a willing...
BOLLING: As I pointed out yesterday, Kat, Madonna said we can blow up the White House. Snoop Dogg points a gun at the image of a president.
MALICE: Those aren't jokes.
BOLLING: But my point is...
TIMPF: But don't you look at Kathy Griffin doing that and say -- you look at that, and you say, "I am free. We are truly free in this country." That you can't worry about government retaliation for doing something like that against the government.
BOLLING: Yes, she is free to be an absolute moron. And I think CNN was free to -- CNN was smart and wise to cut ties with her.
But this is different. This Ken Jennings loser is so desperate for attention, he's got to attack an 11-year-old boy? I mean, unbelievable.
(CROSSTALK)
MALICE: There are no boundaries -- there are no boundaries on the left when it comes to the Trump family, and that's how they have to be dealt with in response.
WILLIAMS: Well, I will say this, though. That's -- you can have that argument. That's fine, Michael. But people did horrible and gross things to President Obama. I saw President Obama in a noose. I saw President Obama with a target on his face. And many people were not protecting or defending Malia or Sasha around that either. So I agree with the notion that the kids, especially when they're under 18, should just be off-limits, period.
PAVLICH: I would just hope that we can come to a place, in a very divided time, that you don't attack children, despite how you abhorrent you feel about their president -- their parents.
MALICE: Unless they're annoying.
PAVLICH: Unless they're annoying, right. Yes.
WILLIAMS: Oh, the kids.
PAVLICH: Well, yes, but I don't think it was right for people to attack the Obama girls. And it's not right to attack Barron.
MALICE: A hundred percent.
TIMPF: Right, absolutely.
Well, thank you to our "Fox News Specialists" today, Katie Pavlich and Michael Malice.
And we thank you all for watching. Make sure to follow us on social media, @SpecialistsFNC on Twitter and Facebook. Remember, 5 o'clock will never be the same. "Special Report" is next.
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