Trump takes to Twitter to blast Mueller probe

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Trump takes to Twitter to blast Mueller probe

President says despite 'never ending and corrupt Russia investigation' there's 'no collusion or obstruction'; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 11, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

JESSE WATTERS, CO-HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters along with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Juan Williams, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld. It's 5 o'clock in New York City and this is "The Five."

We have just heard from the White House after President Trump sounded off, again, about the raids involving his personal attorney and the Russia probe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president, certainly, has been clear that he has very deep concern about the direction of the special counsel and other investigation it'd taken. This investigation started off as Russia collusion of which there was none. That has been very clear that nothing has come up over the last year, and the president has spoken at length on this topic. While the media continues to focus on this despite the fact that there's been no evidence after a year, we're going to continue to stay focused on the issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: This morning, the president fired off another serious tweet, calling the Russia investigation fake and corrupt, headed up by all the Democrat loyalists. He said Mueller is most conflicted of all except Rosenstein who signed the FISA and Comey letter. No collusion, so they go crazy. As the president fumes, some lawmakers are trying to get a bipartisan bill pass to head off any attempt by the president to fire the special counsel. Sarah Sanders said yesterday, it is within Mr. Trump's jurisdiction to do so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANDERS: I think that the president has been clear that he thinks that this has gone too far.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe he has the power to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller? Do you believe that's within his powers?

SANDERS: Certainly believe he has the power to do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: All right, Kimberly, let's start with the raid that we didn't get a chance to talk about the other day. It looks like they've been investigating Mr. Trump, and now President Trump, for almost two years. They've found no evidence of any crime, nor any Russian occlusion evidence. And they're now going off into his personal attorney, I guess, look for payments to Stormy Daniels. And now, it looks like it's an FEC violation. Where do you think that's headed?

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Well, can you imagine, though, with the exception where this investigation was supposed to go, and now where it has travelled, far beyond what the original initial scope is. Now, if you come across something while you're doing an investigation, that's one thing.

WATTERS: Right.

GUILFOYLE: But, nevertheless, there's been such, kind of a wide swath and net cast here, trying to get anything that they can, it seems, in terms of trying to bring something against the president through Michael Cohen, etcetera. Obviously, they're not going to overlook if there's any wrongdoing. But, nevertheless, let me tell you something because I had a case where I prosecuted for homicide. Two attorneys, very complicated to do because all of the things in their house when we have the search warrant issued had attorney-client privileged on them, their privilege fair confidential. You investigate a point that a special master to go through all of those documents to make sure that you are not taking anything improperly.

WATTERS: The clean team, right?

GUILFOYLE: And here they refer to it as the clean team, exactly. So, they had to go through his hotel room at the Loews, OK, his apartment, and the office. So, they got a judge to sign off on this. They have to have and they better have some really compelling probable cause and evidence to be able to support this kind of -- because every American, doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, a Republican, a libertarian, leaning green party, whatever you want to do, this can happen to you as well.

The safeguards of the law exist for a reason, so they will not be abused to protect the rights of American citizens. Guess what, including the President of the United States and his personal legal counsel. So, from here let's see what they're able to come up with. This is very aggressive and heavy-handed. There isn't any legal scholar that I've listen to that doesn't, you know, agree that this is an aggressive move and really unprecedented.

WATTERS: Yeah, Alan Dershowitz, the other day, said that the constitutional rights of Michael Cohen were violated. People are saying this is a little unfair when you look at how Hillary Clinton was treated. Michael Cohen has been cooperating with the special counsel. He's produced almost a million documents. And then, they raided his house. Hillary Clinton shredded a lot of documents and was exonerated. So, people think there's a little bit of an unfairness factor here, Dana.

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Perhaps, and the DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is investigating that piece.

WATTERS: Right.

PERINO: The -- Michael Cohen himself said yesterday on television that the FBI was very courteous and respectful. He had no problem -- he said it's unpleasant, he doesn't like it, but there's all that. Then, you find out that the process and the high bar that you have to clear with the judge and others, including political appointees like Rod Rosenstein, had to sign off on this type of thing. I don't know if it really is all about Stormy Daniels. I have no idea. But that whole payment situation it's such an own goal, and they -- whatever happened with the Wall Street Journal finding out the information in January, issuing that story, then she comes forward, and all of this stuff is coming all together. I know that -- all of this stuff happened before the election.

WATTERS: Right.

PERINO: But, if they brought it into the presidency--

WATTERS: Right.

PERINO: -- and so -- I don't know what all they're going to find. I think, obviously, the country has a lot going on with many different things, like we're going to talk about in the next segment of possible military action against a really bad actor. But, I also think that the system, looks to me, is working the way it's supposed to.

WATTERS: So, I guess, on a technicality, you're right, it is. But, I mean, if you make up payment, Greg, to someone for $130,000 in the midst of a campaign and you don't reported to the FEC, I guess that's some sort of campaign finance violation. You can serve up to five years in prison and face $25,000 in fines. That would probably be how they're trying to squeeze Cohen, maybe to flip Cohen on Donald Trump.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: Yeah, perhaps. I think -- didn't something similar with Obama and a campaign violation he had to pay a fine for, but you can look that up if you want. Look, you brought up Dershowitz briefly. He's no fan of Trump. He voted for Hillary. He doesn't event think -- I don't even think he thinks Trump is a good president. But, I haven't seen one person disagree with Dershowitz without first impugning his motives. And that's always a sign for me that they can't argue with Dershowitz. If you have to go straight to insulting him, like, what I think was Toobin said to him. Couple of weeks ago, said like what happened to you? That's when you know you're winning.

But here's the narrative. So, you've got this outsider, right? Who's elected to disrupt the system and, boy, did he disrupt the system. This is a truly radical presidency and we're watching it all over the place, from North Korea to what's happening with China and everything. The system is disruptive. The media is convulsing. The Democratic Party is wandering in a haze.

So, the opposition is going through all their tools to unseat this guy. And they find this one weapon that they weren't originally looking for to remove him, and it's something that happened before the election. Nothing I said here is false. That's exactly what's happening. We had a radical elected to the government who's disrupted the system, and now there's an opposition trying to unseat him with something that happened before the election.

GUILFOYLE: They tried to do it with the Access Hollywood tape.

GUTFELD: Right. The public is going to sense this. This is why I have to wonder if the anti-Trumpers are thinking this all the way through, because the public will sense that this is a political coup using past personal behavior, and this is going to turn Donald Trump into a folk hero, a combination of Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan, because he's going to appear to be the victim because you're taking him out, not over policy. You're taking them out over personal behavior that occurred prior to the election. If you hate Trump, get a load of Pence. That's all I got to say. He's going to make Ronald Reagan look like Abbie Hoffman.

WATTERS: OK, Juan, do you think there is any over reason in terms of raiding the president personal attorney's house and office and hotel room.

JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST: No. But if there is, it would be a tremendous act of indiscretion, as we've just heard Kimberly describe, I thought, quite accurately. But -- asked all of you to consider for a moment that, in fact, the people who approved this, Jesse, are all Republicans.

WATTERS: Right.

WILLIAMS: We're talking about the FBI Director Christopher Wray. We're talking about Rod Rosenstein--

WATTERS: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- a Trump appointee as the deputy attorney general. We're talking about Jeffrey Berman, who is the U.S. attorney in New York. They all had to approve of this step of the FBI going in to Cohen's hotel room.

WATTERS: Did Berman recuse? I think he might have recused.

WILLIAMS: No, I don't know that. I don't know that for a fact. But, what I do know is this. That Trump, in essence, brought this on himself. So, we can talk about, oh, people who hate Trump and all that, but it was President Trump who said last week that he knew nothing about the payment of money by Michael Cohen, technically, his lawyer. Some people say he's a fixer to this woman, Stephanie Clifford, Stormy Daniels. Then, it turns out that once he says that, there is no lawyer-client privilege, because if that's the case, he's not representing the President of the United States, and the President of the United States is now in a position where he's either lying about not knowing about this money, or there is some secret benefactor who has given money for this and therefore has leverage to potentially blackmail the President of the United States, which is why I think it has set off alarms not only in law enforcement community but nationwide.

WATTERS: OK, let's talk about Rosenstein, because you've said that he's Republican. A lot of Republicans approve this. He does have some conflicts. We know the president mentioned those during his tweet storm, as they like to say. I mean, he's overseeing an investigation of obstruction of justice over the firing of James Comey, and he was one that authored the letter recommending the firing of James Comey.

And then, he was the one who appointed Mueller. He also signed off on all those surveillance warrants. And now, it's his own department that's stonewalling congress to find out the documentation about the warrant. So, and now he's overseeing this entire investigation. It just seems like, when you look at the way Hillary was treated, and you look at the conflicts that Rosenstein has, president feels like he's being unfairly treated here, Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

WATTERS: And rules apply to other people that don't apply to him and vice versa.

GUILFOYLE: Well, he's been, you know, quite vocal and transparent about his upset and the fact that he thinks that this was unfair that this investigation was supposed to be about one thing but now it seems to be very personal in a way to try to unseat the American president, duly elected. And that's what a lot of people are going to feel very strongly about across the country. You've seen some of the reaction about it, and Greg has touched on this point. But, now, he's faced with another decision, which is -- he's upset about it.

WATTERS: Right.

GUILFOYLE: But it is an ongoing investigation. What does he do about it? What is he legally able to do, what's within his rights, and what's politically smart for him to do? Again, there's some decisions here that would be a problem for him if he were to fire Mueller, OK? Then, there's also the option which is been widely discussed over the last 24 hours as to whether or not he should remove Rosenstein due to some, you know, conflicts of interest that have presented across-the-board here in terms of some of the investigation. There's tie-ins to Comey, to Mueller, what's going on here.

Should there be another special counsel assigned to investigate that, whether or not there's any kind of underhanded things going on, or some collusion there in terms of a concerted efforts. We don't know. But, that's something that a special counsel could also take a look at. And you've seen some people talking across television and writing about that today as well. I think the president is going to sit back for a bit here and see what happens and transpires, because I think the problem would be to, if he were to act, you know, hastily, it's sort of like, right now, OK, we're circling, seeing what we're going to do about Syria. He's circling, seeing what he's going to do about the situation here.

WILLIAMS: If he starts firing Mueller--

WATTERS: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- you've got Republicans, today, beginning with senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, saying don't do that.

WATTERS: Well, I get the sense that people in the senate want him to fire Mueller.

WILLIAMS: No.

WATTERS: They've been goading the president to fire Mueller--

WILLIAMS: Not at all. I think--

(CROSSTALK)

PERINO: Not Mitch McConnell.

WATTERS: No, not Mitch McConnell. But I feel like the rest of the senators and members of congress have been daring the president to do that, especially the media.

WILLIAMS: I'm just going to reiterate what Dana just said. I think you could make the case that there're some Democrats who see him stepping in a bucket if he was to do that. But you have Republicans, Jesse, lining up and saying, don't do that. That would be the end of your -- we will not back you. There's a lot of Democrats who feel like, people like Paul Ryan, who made the big announcement today, been totally spineless in the face of a guy who is anti-immigration, has blown up the budget, who doesn't believe in trade. But they have backed Trump. But on this one, they're saying don't touch Mueller.

GUILFOYLE: Well, Lindsey Graham--

WATTERS: Greg?

GUILFOYLE: -- saying not to do it.

GUTFELD: I'm just trying to step back and look at the long-term here because all the people that are involved in this do not have a plan. They are running, barreling towards this impeachment nirvana and they have nothing after that. The point is this is -- Donald Trump is not a normal politician that you can nail on affairs or on sex. You're taking out the most disruptive political outsider that I've seen in my history, whether you like him or not. That's what he is. He's not a traditional politician. So, if you take him out in a manner in which feels like cheap, or seedy, or too, or unjust, because it's about sex that happened before. You're going to have half the country going like, OK, you took the biggest threat that we've ever seen in our political lifetime out over a role in the hey.

PERINO: I don't see how he's in trouble in any way about Stormy Daniels, to your point. I think Michael Cohen could possibly be because of that decision. But, I don't see it actually bearing any problems for President Trump--

GUTFELD: OK.

PERINO: -- except for, possibly, P.R. But, you can't impeach somebody for that. I know that they don't like him.

GUTFELD: No. I probably conflated two things. What I've been reading is that they're hoping for such a wave of Democrats that they will do the impeachment.

PERINO: Right. But, it's not going to be because of Stormy Daniels and sex--

GUTFELD: Yeah. They're hoping--

PERINO: I don't think that's a problem.

GUILFOYLE: Dana, to your point, it's interesting because unless this president have already prior, like gone in and made statements and was interviewed by Mueller, and perhaps inconsistent statements, false statements, anything like that, which then they could, you know, impeach him with materials that were found, obtained, and there will be legal battles over whether any of that can be, you know, introduced or used as well. Was it lawfully obtained? So -- I mean, this is --they're not going -- sad to say it's not going to end quickly.

WATTERS: No. I think it's safe to say the president will not be sitting down with the special counsel's office after today.

GUILFOYLE: Not anymore.

WATTERS: President Trump delivers an ominous warning to Syria, and tells Russia to get ready, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUILFOYLE: Get ready. President Trump sending out very serious warnings to Vladimir Putin today after his country warned the U.S. against striking its ally, Syria. He says Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired. Get ready, Russia, because they will be coming. Nice and new and smart. You shouldn't be partners with a gas killing animal who killed his people and enjoys it, said with emphasis. New satellite images show Russians are preparing for possible strikes. And earlier today, 11 Russian battleships were stationed at the Syrian port of Tartus, now they're presumed to be at sea. Only a single submarine remains. All right, get ready, Russia, strong and clear, just like when he said it to North Korea.

GUTFELD: It was really great to see the media and the Democrats applaud Trump's incredibly strong words against Russia. You didn't see that, actually. It's hilarious because that's what they've been asking for forever. And they've always been accusing Donald Trump of being incredibly soft on Russia and Putin. Now, they're getting tough words and what do they say? Well, you hear people saying, oh, he's just -- this is a distraction away from Stormy, or this is just irrational and crazy, can't have it either way.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah, they can't ignore this happened.

GUTFELD: Yeah.

GUILFOYLE: He gassed his own people, and women and children. And there has to be an appropriate, you know, show of force against him.

PERINO: Well, it's super tense. And you have all of the different entities there. Israel, sort of -- their saying, OK, guys, what are we doing here, because they're trying to talk to the Russians. You know, Putin called Netanyahu today -- we've been on the phone with them as well. So, you have a situation where the Russians say they will fight back. And I imagine that -- when General Mattis is at the White House today, they're mapping all of this out. Interesting about the tweet when he says that Assad is this animal that gasses his own people using nerve agents, well, so is Putin. I mean, the young woman who was poisoned along with her father, she left the hospital yesterday. Today, apparently, the Russian consulate reached out to her to ask her if she wanted any of their help.

GUILFOYLE: Give them more poison?

PERINO: She turned them down. But, you know, we're dealing with a lot of bad actors there. But, I'm sure they're trying to plan because what happens if there's a missile strike, what happens after that? And what do we do about Assad, et cetera. The U.N. is going to be of no help. Nikki Haley has been trying to get them all on board.

GUILFOYLE: Sure.

PERINO: That's not going to happen.

GUTFELD: Nah.

GUILFOYLE: OK. So we have, obviously, some movement, you know, from Russia. Eight Russia warships departed from the port of Tartus in Syria. But, nevertheless, the Russians in terms of their military capability is their show of force and where they have the strongest positioning as it relates to nuclear, but, we, at far, beat them in terms of our capability, militarily, with capability to, you know, strike and use missiles. So that, I think, we have a far greater advantage to them. So, what can they really do? I don't think President Trump is in a bad position by being strong with Russia because they've done some of the same things that Assad is accused of.

WATTERS: Well, we're in a very strong position. We have the USS Donald Cook in the Mediterranean right now, very aggressive posture. It has 60 tomahawk missiles ready to go.

GUILFOYLE: Breaking Donald.

WATTERS: Exactly. And the Russians are kind of buzzing the destroyer, and, you know, it's tense. And we have USS Harry Truman just departed from Norfolk. It should get to the Mediterranean in little less than a week. And we've seen increasing military activity in our base in Cyprus, the British base as well, and our base in Qatar. So, looks like it's ramping up pretty hard. The decision the president is going to have to make, is it going to be a punitive strike which was last time, where it's, kind of, you're just sending a message that, you know, this is unacceptable, and we're trying to maintain U.S. credibility.

Or is it going to be a strike really degrading the Syrian government's ability to deliver chemical weapons. You're going to hit command and control, airfield, ballistic missiles areas, artillery areas. And that really ramps it up to a whole new level, because at that point you're attacking the Syrian government and there's a risk of hitting Russian forces, whether those are actual Russian forces or mercenaries, that's going to decide the political fallout. But, I know the president canceled his trip to Peru, so I think he means business.

GUILFOYLE: Indeed, he does. Because, right now, that theater -- a lot of activity. It's very tense geopolitically. There's going to have to be some rapid-fire decisions made. And now, also, added into the mix, Iran--

WATTERS: Yeah.

GUILFOYLE: -- who is going to side with Russia and with Assad, Juanito?

WILLIAMS: Oh, yes, I think that they are. And that's why -- what concerns me is, you know, you've got to think through, are we starting a world war in the Middle East? I mean, you've got to think through, what are we doing here? And I think that's why you hear from people like Senator McCain, you know, you've watch out for being wobbly in their course. Earlier, in this discussion, they're people who are saying it's a wag-a-dog scenario for Trump. But what concern me at the moment is what John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, as his top national security advisor, the instinct to quickly respond, impulsively strike back without thinking it through. I don't think there's any question Bashar al-Assad is a horrific character. But that tweet, the reason it concerns Democrats, Greg, is because it seems like someone who was not -- who was flailing, or angry, or opposed to someone who is thinking through what he's going to do. This is why people get upset with him exchanging, sort of, name-calling and bullying--

GUTFELD: Right.

WILLIAMS: -- with Kim Jong-un.

GUTFELD: So that's not--

WILLIAMS: Not that Kim Jong-un is a good guy. It's that our guy seems like he's not under control.

GUTFELD: Except that -- that is something that we've been watching now for two years, and we continue to be proven wrong thinking he's impulsive.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah.

GUTFELD: Yeah. I mean, it's like what he did with North Korea, remember fire and fury? How did that work out? When he talked about trade, how's that worked out? So, I think this is part of a system that he himself understands and that we're just keeping up.

GUILFOYLE: Yeah. Well, he's been advised to strike his delivery systems, where they keep the warheads, and seeks all the sub-commanding factions of this. So, that seems to make a lot of sense to me. So, Facebook founder back on the hill for day two of questioning. He revealed something you might be surprised to hear. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: Mark Zuckerberg return to the hill today for a second day of testimony on the privacy breach that affected up to 87 million Facebook users. And we've learned earlier, he was one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Well, Facebook has certainly grown. I worry it may not have matured. I think it's time to ask whether Facebook may have moved too fast and broken too many things.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was your data included in the data sold to the malicious third-parties? Your personal data?

MARK ZUCKERBERG, FACEBOOK CEO/FOUNDER: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you willing to change your business model in the interests of protecting individual privacy?

ZUCKERBERG: Congresswoman, I'm not sure what that means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Oh, well. Zuckerberg also admitted that his company's decision to reject content from some conservative pages is a mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is Facebook censoring conservative bloggers such as Diamond and Silk?

ZUCKERBERG: Congressman, in that specific case, our team made an enforcement error. And we have already gotten in touch with them to reverse it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: Dana, just give me a bottom line. How did Zuckerberg do in two days of hearings?

PERINO: I think that if you're the Facebook P.R. team right now, you feel like that was an absolute home run over two days.

I think that their approach of him being apologetic -- and to me, I feel like he's like a little too apologetic. But also, he is exceedingly polite and extremely patient with members of Congress who only get 4 minutes to ask questions. So they've got to showboat a little bit. They also don't really understand the model. And it's the gulf between the millennial at the table answering questions and the members of Congress who are basically trying to figure out with their staffs had written down for them was really quite stark.

GUTFELD: Painful.

PERINO: When he leaves Washington today and heads back to Silicon Valley I think he can feel pretty good about himself.

WILLIAMS: Kimberly, would you agree?

GUILFOYLE: Yes, I think that he has actually performed very well. It shows that there was a very serious level of preparation by his team, which I think was quite impressive. It can be intimidating, even if you're the founder of Facebook, to be able to, you know, go in front of Congress to answer these questions in front of a committee and be able to not expose your company to further, you know, liability. And I think that he has actually done a very, very good job of handling himself.

And I really paid close attention to his answers, including you know, the call of the questions. So I think Facebook is in a very good position. I think you saw the market rally after he was performing very well under intense, you know, pressure yesterday. And it stabilized things somewhat economically.

WILLIAMS: So he was contrite, Jesse, but at the same time if you ask a basic question like what happened with Cambridge Analytica, I don't sense that we got a clear answer.

WATTERS: People say, "I will direct my team to look into that and I'll get back to you." This guy was so smooth.

GUILFOYLE: Greg's new line.

WATTERS: We were joking about that the other day.

Listen, he was obviously very well-prepped. He acted and sounded human, which was a very high bar for him. And I think he achieved (ph) that.

But what struck me was how dumb our representatives are.

PERINO: Aww.

WATTERS: The senators and the congressman. It was such an embarrassing display of preening, as you said, but just of -- just not understanding the basics of the Internet. And what Facebook actually is. It was one of those moments where you're like, "I cannot believe these are our elected officials. These people are idiots."

The three things that stuck out --

PERINO: Not all of them.

WATTERS: -- to me -- well, some of them. Ted Cruz really did --

GUILFOYLE: Right.

WATTERS: -- a nice job, I thought. And that issue is whether Facebook is biased against conservatives. And I know, because I've heard from a lot of people that run big sites and also just regular conservatives that, when they put in this new algorithm to flow traffic to these websites, after that they've seen their traffic drop. And that's a big issue that needs to be explored.

Also, what is hate speech? He couldn't define it, but he says, "We're going to have a computer figure out what it is." So he's going to use artificial intelligence to determine what hate speech is? It just seems like we can't even, as humans, make that decision. How can a computer do it?

And then thirdly, people are saying that Facebook is racist, because they're helping people target a certain demographic. I mean, that's what all companies do when they advertise on TV. And that's what politicians do when they want to win elections. They get a certain demographic and try to appeal to them. So those were my three things.

WILLIAMS: Well, we can discuss that, but Greg I want to come to you, because I think you know a lot about the Internet, unlike the people that Jesse skewered. But my point to you is I think if there's news out of this for the general audience, it would be Zuckerberg agrees the U.S. Government can regulate Facebook.

GUTFELD: I -- I think that was lip service. I think the lesson that Zuckerberg got and most of America who watched, is that we need term limits. We need term limits badly.

Ninety-nine percent of those inquisitors didn't know squat about what they were talking about. It was the best argument for small government I've ever seen.

I would have to say that the only person there that impressed me was Orrin Hatch.

The bottom line, Facebook is free to use, because it's an advertising-based product. We have people on our sales staff for TV shows and for magazines, they have to go to media buyers and they have to present the demographic. We all understand this.

"The Five" has a great demographic. You know, affluent people who like to travel and like to entertain. So maybe we can get advertisers for automobiles or for cruise lines or for beer because what we're doing is we're using our audience to attract advertisers, which pays for the shows so the viewers can use it.

Facebook is exactly that model. And he had to explain that to these idiots. But the only person who got it was Orrin Hatch when he facetiously said, "So Facebook is free, right?" He goes, "How do you pay for it?"

"Advertising."

And Hatch just smiled and looks around, basically saying, "You guys are idiots."

OK. That's the funny part.

GUILFOYLE: Look at Juan's face.

GUTFELD: The bigger problem that they completely missed, except for one person, the creation of fake videos that appear real in order to create fear and foment panic. There's new technology now where they can take your head and put it on a body, right? So it makes it look like, hey, a world leader could have just killed a child. But that's not how it's going to work. What they're going to do --

GUILFOYLE: Oh, my God.

GUTFELD: -- is they're going to be bad actors. Remember the Nigerian emails? It's going to be like that times 1,000. There's going to be groups of people that send out thousands of videos to people online of their heads on bodies doing things to extort you. This will be a problem.

And this is a problem that private enterprises, places like Facebook, are going to have to deal with. The government's going to have to help them out. It's something we're all going to be faced with. As technology improves, videos will be almost imperceptible. You will not be able to tell what is real and what's fake. That's the scary part. They didn't talk about it.

GUILFOYLE: That was another segment within a segment.

WILLIAMS: Yes, it was. But I must say, I think you read Orrin Hatch totally different. I think -- I'm with Jesse on this.

GUTFELD: Read the whole context, Juan. Read the whole context. Trust me. If you read everything before it, he says exactly what he's about to say, and it's brilliant.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know what? I think you will run for Senate in Utah soon, Greg.

A surprise announcement today, upsetting to some, from House Speaker Paul Ryan. Why he's leaving Congress and when he's leaving Congress. That's next on "The Five."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE PAUL RYAN, R-WIS.: This is a job that does not last forever. It's fleeting, and that inspires you to do great things. There are other things in life that can be fleeting, as well. Namely, your time as a husband and a dad, which is the other great honor of my life. That's why today I am announcing that this year will be my last one as a member of the House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Paul Ryan announcing today he has no regrets but the time is come to move on. He's not resigning. He'll be retiring from Congress when his term ends in January.

I spoke with the speaker a short while ago on "The Daily Briefing" and asked whether he thinks his departure will affect Republicans in this tough midterm season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: I don't think anybody's election is going to hinge on whether or not Paul Ryan is speaker of the House. I think we're going to have a strong record to run on. We're going to have the resources to communicate our stories. So I feel very good about things.

The reason you see a lot of retirements among us in the House is because we have term limits. We have term limits on committee chairmen. And most of those chairmanships are now ending, and so people naturally retire when there chairmanships end. So that's why, I think, you have a lot of that.

And plus, we've gotten a lot done. We really feel like we're leaving the majority in good hands to Republicans, because we have a really good record to run on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Kimberly, some people were surprised, because he met his fundraising goal, which was a record, seven months before he needed to. So he's been out there campaigning, looking like he was doing everything he could --

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

PERINO: -- to be the speaker again, but he's decided to retire.

GUILFOYLE: He's operating from a position of strength. He's leaving with a legacy of accomplishments.

I know that he struggled personally with the decision to accept the speakership. There was a lot of pressure on him to take it to begin with, because he was putting his family first, and he has young children. He wanted to spend time with them, which I think it's very admirable.

He's worked very hard. There was a lot of things he wanted to accomplish, and I think it was nice that President Trump also said that he would be leaving, you know, with a legacy of accomplishment. So I'm just quite curious to see, you know, what he is going to do next. And then who will, in fact, you know, take his place.

PERINO: One thing he said, Jesse, is he is not going to run for president. Ever. He said he's done.

WATTERS: I've heard that before. No, I'm kidding.

He's had a very interesting career. Remember, he came up as this young fiscal hawk conservative, entitlement reform guy. He was the V.P. and people loved him, because he was tough on that. And then he became this, I guess, to some people, this you know, squishy, never-Trumper, establishment RINO.

I think both characterizations are unfair. He never did get the entitlement reform he so wanted. But if you look at just his -- the last year he's had, I mean, he had tax cuts.

PERINO: Right.

WATTERS: Sanctuary city legislation, repeal and replace Obamacare. Dodd- Frank. I mean, he was getting a lot of stuff out of that House that Mitch McConnell was not able to do. And you know, he has a mixed-bag legacy, but I wish him well.

PERINO: Greg, your thoughts.

GUTFELD: Two things. And I've said this before. For once -- I'm so tired of people saying, "I'm going to spend more time with my family." For once, I'd love someone to say, "I'm going to continue avoiding my family completely by locking myself in my man cave, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching 'Die Hard' sequels." Once say the truth.

But for his future, I see FOX News contributor --

WATTERS: Ooh.

GUTFELD: -- Sunday show cohosting with Hillary. "Crossfire Meets Crossfit." He could work out while she complains.

PERINO: An idea. All right. Last word to you, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Boy, you guys got this one way wrong. Twenty-five Republicans in the House leaving. Three in the Senate. They see a huge Democratic wave coming. And there's just no way that they can survive. And, you know, this has been rumored in Washington for the last three weeks intensely. And everybody on the Republican House side says, "Well, if Paul Ryan doesn't think he can survive, why would I think I can?"

PERINO: He wasn't worried about his race.

WILLIAMS: Well, I don't think that he would have survived as speaker. Nancy Pelosi would be the speaker, and then Paul Ryan would be --

GUILFOYLE: I think he'd be fine with that.

WILLIAMS: -- the minority.

WATTERS: Please don't say that.

WILLIAMS: And I don't think Paul Ryan wants it. That's what's going on here. Paul Ryan's record as speaker is negligible to zero.

WATTERS: That's not true!

GUILFOYLE: Gosh!

PERINO: I would actually argue with you if we had time. We don't.

WATTERS: Here are your crumbs back, Juan.

PERINO: We have something special to celebrate up ahead, so stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: So while the media hopes to unseat a president they despise, here's what's actually happening around the world: Chinese President Xi Jinping just announced his country would significantly lower tariffs on vehicle imports. Now maybe he's responding to President Trump's complaints over unfair trade practices. It's a signal toward a compromise after Trump made a huge stink about it.

So what's next after this huge stink? A sigh of relief, which sounds familiar. It was only months ago that the media claimed nuclear war with North Korea was certain. But then that chaos gave way to calm.

And remember all the noise before the tax cuts? It evaporated as bonuses flowed.

People screamed about the apocalypse after we ditched the Paris Accords. Where did all that fear go?

Same thing with TPP.

So are you sensing a pattern? Trump kicks up the conflict to set a table for negotiation and what you end up with is progress. It's very old school. So old, in fact, reporters under 40 don't know what it is.

Where's the "paralysis of analysis" that we're so used to? China reducing tariffs. North Korea talking about denuclearization. ISIS gone -- for now, I hope forever. What does this tell us?

After eight years of the floundering, inept new school, it's an old-school dude in his 70s getting crap done. And if you don't get it, maybe it's because you've never seen it before in your adult lifetime. Enjoy it while it lasts.

All right. Let's go around the horn. We've got 37 seconds. Am I right or wrong, Kimberly? Yes, no or 12.

GUILFOYLE: It pains me to say so. You're correct. And I do believe that's your head on your body.

GUTFELD: That is my head on my body.

GUILFOYLE: Keep it that way.

GUTFELD: Yes, I'm not doing anything illegal.

GUILFOYLE: Thank you.

All right. China needs to access U.S. technology. This is something I believe that China is making a concession towards the United States, because they know that Donald Trump is somebody who is a different kind of breed. This is a disrupter. This is someone that's willing to take risks. This is a businessman that's in the Oval Office. And he is going to say we need to even the playing field out and not make this so imbalanced and unjust in terms of the United States relationship with China, as it relates to tariffs and whatnot.

So I think this is a step in the right direction that the United States is going, and China, and hopefully, this is going to smooth out a little bit more and be a little more even.

GUTFELD: Multiple choice, Dana. A, B, B-A, C, bananas.

PERINO: Bananas. Here's the thing. I agree with you on almost everything except for the tariff part. These tariffs that China announced, they had already been a part of the equation, and I think Xi has played this very well. Because President Trump is complaining about this. Meantime, what we really are asking them for is to stop subsidizing their high-tech industry. China has not budged on that at all.

But China goes back out and says, "Oh, by the way, we'll do these vehicle things," and then we all say, "Oh, that's amazing. OK, great." And they're like -- Xi is like, "Oh, yes, well, I already announced that." He feels good about it.

And I think that the tariff thing is actually probably going to work itself out fine in the long run, but this one I don't think is the big win.

GUTFELD: Jesse, did Dana completely agree with me, totally agree with me, or absolutely agree with me?

WATTERS: I think -- what was the option again?

GUTFELD: All of the above.

GUILFOYLE: Banana.

WATTERS: Dana is right in the sense that they've made a lot of promises, but we actually have to see what they're really going to do about it.

With that said, this is the second time this has happened with the tariffs. He promised to slap tariffs on South Korea and then, all of a sudden they caved and opened up their car markets and said they'd decrease their steel exports to us by 30 percent.

And the way he's doing this, he's monetizing our security relationships. He's doing this with the European Union and NATO. He's doing this with South Korea because of the North Korean crisis. It's a whole new way of doing things. Hopefully, it keeps moving this direction.

GUILFOYLE: We have more leverage than we even think. And they need to open up their markets, and they should, to U.S. companies and -- they need our technology.

WATTERS: That's right.

GUILFOYLE: And intellectual property.

GUTFELD: Final question to Juan. Should you say, "'One More Thing' is up next?"

WILLIAMS: You know, I should. But before I do -- I'm glad to help you out, but I think it's important to understand that President Xi said that he was going to do the tariffs.

GUTFELD: No one is happy. No one's ever happy.

WILLIAMS: I think the people who are most upset by this are people like farmers out in Iowa and Nebraska who --

GUTFELD: Voted for Trump.

WILLIAMS: -- say, "Oh, my God. All of a sudden, our value, our crops are less valuable under Trump. And we" -- you know, a lot of people voted for Trump. Well, you got what you voted for.

GUTFELD: All right, "One More Thing" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WATTERS: It's time now for "One More Thing" -- Dana.

PERINO: Well, yesterday we didn't have a show because of the Facebook hearing. But today we get a chance to celebrate Juan's birthday. Happy birthday, Juan. Happy birthday. Your favorite banana pudding and some chocolate cake. You get to go next.

WILLIAMS: It can't be beat.

GUILFOYLE: This is his favorite.

PERINO: And you get to go next, I guess.

WILLIAMS: Well, thank you, Dana. And I want to say thanks to my weekday family, "The Five." It's a blessing in my life.

Over the weekend my daughter made me an incredible cake. Take a look. Yes. It looks like a leather bound book with my initials in gold on the cover.

GUTFELD: Wow.

WILLIAMS: And if you want to see a moment of pure joy, here I am with my granddaughters and grandson blowing out the candles. To paraphrase the Beatles, who asked will you still need me, will you still feed me? Apparently, you can still be loved when you're 64.

WATTERS: That's great.

GUILFOYLE: Cut your cake.

WATTERS: Happy birthday, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, guys.

WATTERS: OK. I'd like to congratulate my sister, Eliza Watters. She won the Johns Hopkins Excellence in Teaching Award.

WILLIAMS: Wow.

WATTERS: She's a writing professor there. She already won the teaching award at Harvard.

PERINO: Wow.

WATTERS: So she's really showing off. One of her students says, "Dr. Watters transformed my experience of the humanities at Johns Hopkins. So many struggle with the gap between science and writing. But she made it seamless. I learned to translate complicated scientific data and processes into eloquent and concise synopses, a skill I will use for the rest of my career."

Also, I want to wish my mother a happy birthday. There she is, Anne Watters. She's going to be 70 years old tomorrow. I'm not going to be here tomorrow.

PERINO: Happy birthday.

WATTERS: Happy pre-birthday, mom.

WILLIAMS: Yay.

WATTERS: Kimberly.

GUILFOYLE: OK, well, I had the pleasure of speaking at the University of Texas - Tyler for their distinguished lecture series. I spoke about the current media environment and many lessons I've learned personally and professionally throughout my life. And I met some phenomenal people. You can take a look here. Dr. and Mrs. Michael and Karen Tidwell. He is the president of the University of Texas at Tyler. And I want to thank him for having me and having a woman and a Latina there. It was fantastic, and he's doing a great job. Dr. Svetlana (ph) and Lawrence Anderson, that sponsored the lecture.

And then last, you see Jim and Missy Teeter, who sponsored the Greg Gutfeld lecture when he was there. So I follow in my colleagues' footsteps. And past speakers, besides Greg, Ambassador John Bolton, George Bush Sr., Martin Luther King III, Ann Coulter, et cetera.

WATTERS: Now Greg.

GUTFELD: All right. This is not for the faint of heart. Go see my podcast at FOXNews.podcast.com. I interview Dr. Sandra Lee. She's got over a billion views on her dermatological videos. I won't tell you much about them. I just warn you it's the most interesting thing you might see today.

WATTERS: Besides "The Five."

GUTFELD: Of course. Yes.

GUILFOYLE: Are you a customer?

WATTERS: "Special Report" is up next -- Bret.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: Thank you, Jesse. And happy birthday, Juan.

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