Wake Forest University holds segregated 'listening sessions' to promote inclusivity
Reaction and analysis from former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey and 'The Five' co-host Juan Williams on 'The Story.'
This is a rush transcript from "The Story," April 25, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARTHA MACCALLUM, HOST: That's a nice exception made by the Cow from Chick-fil-A. Hi, Chris.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to “The Story,” I'm Martha MacCallum. So, it's the third at-bat for Joe Biden who announced today that he is in the race. But here is his 1988 announcement which came during a similar boom time for the economy then, under Ronald Reagan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can deal with our trade problem and promote American job that pay real money, not, not poverty wages. We can do all this and much more. The next president of the United States has a phenomenal opportunity to make a contribution of this country in a way that's going to make life better for our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: But back then, America decided to stay the course with Bush 41. And now, 31 years later, once again in the midst of pretty good economic times under President Trump, Biden is trying again. This time, he is promising that what he will do is return the country back to normal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history look back on four years of this president, and all the embraces as an aberrant moment in time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: Now, that is an idea that could have some traction in places like the suburbs of Philadelphia that abandon Republicans in the midterms. But three decades after his first run, Joe Biden has decided that this time he can do what he has not done in the past. Make it all the way through that Democratic primary gauntlet to the starting gate.
And today, President Trump tweeted, "Welcome to the race, sleepy Joe." Saying that if he makes it, he will meet him there at that starting gate.
In moments, former DNC chair, Donna Brazile on all of this tonight. But first, we go to Bill Bennett as drug czar under President George H.W. Bush. He worked closely with then-Senator Biden, who was Judiciary Committee chairman at the time. He's also a Fox News contributor and the host of "THE WISE GUYS" on Fox News.
Bill, good to see tonight. Thank you for being here. You know, in another time, another election, Bill Clinton, the phrase was it's the economy stupid. And you look at these two periods of time, very tough to run against a very strong economy. And like Ronald Reagan's are currently the one under President Trump.
BILL BENNETT, CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Well, I noticed -- I guess, the advisor said let's not talk about the body politic because the political health and the -- and the economic health of the country is pretty good, very good. Let's talk about the soul of the country. And he puts a lot of weight on that. That'll persuade some, but I think most people will look at objective reality.
Now, I don't want to diminish his chances. Yes, what 20 or something like that candidates. And he is the establishment candidate. He has it almost to himself. And it's a big wide lane, and his name recognition is excellent. And he starts with high numbers. But he's got some gauntlets, he's going to have to run.
That old Joe Biden, the Joe Biden who -- should I say this, and hurt his chances who really liked me, and supported me, and supported a tough effort in the war on drugs, you know, I worked very closely with him. And he was very supportive of everything I was doing. But the new Joe Biden is something else. Again, or the attempt to be the new Joe Biden.
MACCALLUM: Here is Chris Christie talking about what it takes to win for a Democrat. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY: Someone who could give him a run as Joe Biden. And the reason I say that is because in essence, this election was decided by about 80,000 voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And most of those voters were white working-class voters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: So, that makes the question, Bill. How did -- how would -- and we're -- you know, we're jumping ahead here. As I said, he's got a long way to go through 20 candidates if he is to succeed.
BENNETT: Yes.
MACCALLUM: Where he has not succeeded in the past. But how would President Trump, if it is Joe Biden, run against him in places like these suburbs in Philadelphia where you have a lot of -- you know, women which they did not do well within the midterms, who seem to be turned off by what they're seeing.
BENNETT: Well, first of all, let's talk about those white working-class voters. A lot of them, if you know, took a chance, they took a leap on Donald Trump and said, let's give it a try.
A lot of guys in the labor unions which is the Biden strength took a chance on Donald Trump. Now, they know it was more than a chance. Now, they're seeing this advantage in their paychecks.
Look, suburban women have to be reminded of the things in the end that matter most. I understand why the style, the approach, the tweets, other things have put a lot of people off. But let's look at the real world. Not only economic growth but real efforts to secure the well-being of this country.
What are the president's agenda? Secure the border, the opioid: a meeting he went to yesterday, they're trying to tackle that. The ISIS has been -- has been, wiped out. Security safety, these are things that matter in the end.
Now, is Joe Biden have some strength in these areas? Yes and no, he's been pretty much wrong on most aspects of foreign policy. But, you know, if he tries to do this imitation of a woke guy, which I think he may try to do, it's just not -- it's just not going to work.
There's this too much history there, he should be who he is. You know, he should be himself. If he tries to be somebody else, go most counterfeit- ly, as someone else that Shakespeare would say, it's not going to work.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
BENNETT: And their sides, he's trying to be the new millennial, Joe Biden, and he ain't no millennial.
MACCALLUM: Well, I -- yes. I mean, I think it's always the best advice in politics to be who you are and that comes loaded with a lot of gaffes for Joe Biden in the past.
BENNETT: Yes. That's right.
MACCALLUM: And he's been forgiven for many of them. You know, I think back to when he talked about Barack Obama, the Senator, and called him, you know, the first mainstream African American clean bright articulate young man.
BENNETT: Yes.
MACCALLUM: Which a lot of people I think, just, you know, sat back and sat upright and said, you know, what did he just say when he said that?
BENNETT: Yes. Yes, yes, I know, he's going to be taking language lessons and look lessons in -- you know, newspeak, and we'll see. But, you know, there are these old positions, and although I agreed with a lot of them.
As I said that we work closely on the drug effort. He urged me to spend more on law enforcement that might come as a shock to some people. But he thought it was very, very important. I'd like to hear him respond to some of the folks running for president on the Democrat side who want to release, "nonviolent" drug dealers from prison.
You know, you can be a non-violent drug dealer who deals in a million dollars' worth of illegal drugs and be responsible at the end of the day for the death of a lot of people.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
BENNETT: And he's going to have to deal with that. Look, you know if Joe Biden were a monument, a statue, these folks would be taking him down. Know, he's a real live breathing human being, we shall see. But it's going to be interesting. You know, also the guy, I thought it was kind of charming sometimes. But he's kind of gaffe-prone. And he's going to be talking a lot, we'll see.
MACCALLUM: Looking this poll before I let you go, 56 percent of I believe -- yes, this is a 56 percent of Democrats polled said that they would rather have a candidate that they don't agree with, but who they think is stronger against Trump?
I mean, obviously, as in any election, Democrats want to win, Bill, before I let you go.
BENNETT: Yes. Well, we'll see about that. I mean, the test will be when he's on with you and Brett, right? On Fox.
MACCALLUM: We look forward to that.
BENNETT: He has to -- he has to do that. That's a -- that's a gauntlet he has to run, and we shall see. But you know, that's in a kind of an abstract judgment, Martha. You know, let's get someone who can be Trump.
At the end of the day, people like to have a kind of a real deep affection and passion for a candidate. Whether he can generate that or not remains to be seen. But I like the old Joe, I'm not sure about the new Joe, the new and improved Joe. I don't know if he can make the case that he is, and there'll be a lot of people on that side saying, the old Joe just won't do anymore. It's going to be really --
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: Going to be -- yes, it's going to be very -- it's really all about who is the Democratic Party today. And I think we're about to find out.
BENNETT: That's right.
MACCALLUM: Bill, thank you very much. Bill Bennett, good to see you tonight.
BENNETT: Thank you, Martha.
MACCALLUM: Here now to react and to answer that question, Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, and a Fox News contributor. Donna, great to have you back with us this evening.
You know, one of the things that came up today is that President Obama did not come right out and endorse the man who was his vice president, and a close friend over the course of eight years. Here is the -- here's Vice President Biden's reaction to that. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I asked President Obama not to endorse, and he doesn't want this we should -- whoever wins this nomination, should win it on their own merits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: What do you think about that, Donna?
DONNA BRAZILE, CONTRIBUTOR: I think that's a great move. Look, President Obama as well as a former First Lady Michelle Obama, they've been very deeply involved in helping to enlarge the electorate. Encourage young people to run for office, they've been training a new generation of leaders in. Helping to get new people to register to vote. So, I think the president made a wise decision not to get involved.
Look, this is up to the voters, and the voters are looking for a proven leader. Somebody with an exceptional record, but also someone with a vision for the future. And I think Joe Biden will be able to compete in this crowded field. For obvious reasons, he's a known commodity. But more importantly, he is someone that people in a Democratic Party -- and I also think, Independents and some Republicans know that you can work with Joe Biden. Because this is a politician, as well as a leader that's not afraid to reach across the aisle.
MACCALLUM: But you know, he's not the kind of candidate that has been successful for Democrats in recent elections. You know, you look at President Obama, then-Senator Obama who just lit everybody on fire and got so much attention for his energy and his youth, and all of that.
You look at Bill Clinton, very similar in a lot of ways in terms of his ability to energize the party. Is Joe Biden more along the lines of a John Kerry sort of a tried and true, has paid his dues? Someone who has a tremendous amount of experience. And is that the way that Democrats want to go?
BRAZILE: Well, this is why we have a primary, and why so many candidates are running. Because this is a new day. And while Joe Biden has been around for a long time. The thing about Joe Biden that I think many people respect is that he knows how to fight, he knows how to lead, but he also knows how to compromise.
Perhaps, that's too old-school for this new generation of Democrats that want something -- you know, tougher and perhaps they want someone who is more in agreement with their positions and their values.
But I do think that Joe Biden has an opportunity to reach out to those thousands of Americans who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but for whatever reason decided not to vote in 2016 or vote for Donald Trump.
MACCALLUM: Yes, and those people are in the pockets that we talked about in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, and Wisconsin. And Biden feels that he can resonate with them.
But I want to talk a little bit about some of the things that are going to be baggage for him in this current environment, and you're already seeing some Democrats on social media including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez kind of pushing back at some of the things that Biden has said and done.
He has -- his folks have said that he spoke with Anita Hill, that they had a good conversation, and just to remind those at home, I mean, he was the head of the Judiciary Committee when she spoke out against Clarence Thomas's nomination for the Supreme Court.
BRAZILE: That's right.
MACCALLUM: But here is what The New York Times is reporting, Anita Hill said about that conversation. She said, "I cannot be satisfied by simply saying I'm sorry for what happened to you. I will be satisfied when I know there's real change and real accountability, and real purpose."
It doesn't look like that particular element of this story that has a lot of layers is going away anytime soon for Joe Biden, Donna.
BRAZILE: Well, there are many issues that the vice president will have to confront. That's one of them, of course, and there is the crime bill that he was a major champion of and Bill Bennett, I think laid out some of the other positions that the vice president will have to clarify.
Now, that he's a candidate for president of United States, and he's not the vice president running with Barack Obama. He's running to be at the top of the ticket, and he's going to have to respond to not just the Anita Hills of the world, but many Democratic voters as well as others that want to have a real answer to some of those questions.
Again, this campaign is not just about his past. I know in 2016, Hillary Clinton had to talk about the crime bill. Hillary Clinton had to address some of the problems in the 1990s. This is about the future and perhaps, there's a generation of voters who were in grade school, elementary school, you know, Martha, I was in class a couple of weeks ago, and some of my students said, they watch me on television when they were in elementary school. And I might -- wow, that's shade.
But, you know what, Joe Biden when he was in the United States Senate, as well as vice president, many of these young Democrats and young Americans, millennials, they don't know Joe Biden. They don't know anything about this.
And so, they're going to look at Joe Biden, and say, "Why is he running? I thought his days are over. But I do believe --
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: Yes. Yes, they probably will, and when they've got people who they admire like Alexandria Ocacio-Cortez going after him already on his votes on Iraq, on his vote on crime bill as you just pointed out. That's - - that they're going to be pointing young voters far away from Joe Biden and toward some of these other people.
BRAZILE: But you know, that -- and Martha, as you well know, Bernie Sanders who is the so-called Democratic socialists and progressive. He also embraced the crime bill. I think it's important to put that era -- that era in context.
I was a congressional staffer, so, I know how to put it in context. But it doesn't matter, you know when individual Democratic members of Congress stand. This is about reaching out to people, to encourage them to support you, to get you on the ballot in all 50 states, and to run as you're a delegates.
MACCALLUM: Yes.
BRAZILE: And that's where Joe Biden is also going to have an advantage because people know him, and they've run with him before. Now, as you know, and you pointed out, he's run before, he stumble a few times, but you know what, we'll see if this is his season or if it -- or if he can even get through the what I call, the fast land, to the HOV to the Democratic nomination.
Right now, he's in -- he's in the moderate to centrist lane. He can still become a progressive. But the point is, Joe Biden has to run as a candidate for the future, not just the candidate of the past.
BRAZILE: Yes. And he's going to have to be believable when he speaks about those things. And I think that's going to be one of the biggest tests for him and whether or not he will pass muster with some of these more progressive elements in your party now. Donna, thank you very much. Great to talk to you tonight. Thanks for being here.
BRAZILE: Look forward to seeing you again, thank you.
MACCALLUM: You bet. Thank, Donna. Wow, take a look at this. A massive fire on the west side of the Denver metro area. That is Interstate 70, where traffic shut down now in both directions. There are a number of vehicles that are involved in this. Buried under what is believed to be piles of burning lumber. More on that as we get it.
And with a field of Democrats now up to 20 people, largest ever in terms of those that are in this race. Will the DNC's decision to bar Fox News from debates hinder their chances of winning in 2020? Sean Spicer says that what the RNC did worked, and that the DNC should look at their playbook. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: So you've got 20 Democrats who are now running for president. Not only did they break the Republicans record from 2016 with 17 candidates and we all remember how crowded that debate stage was, they've done it sooner as you can see from this chart with 100 weeks to go.
Back then, the party took some heat for splitting up its first seven debates into two separate events right. We have the evening and then we have the undercard. This time the Democrats say that they're going to do things differently. But my next guest, the former Communications Director for the RNC doesn't think that, and the other changes will work.
Sean Spicer, former White House Press Secretary writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, candidate proliferation, and a Fox News ban will mean the party will fail where the GOP succeeded in 2016. Joining me now is Sean Spicer, current Senior Adviser and Spokesman for America First -- excuse me -- America First Action. Sean, good to see you tonight.
SEAN SPICER, SENIOR ADVISER AND SPOKESMAN FOR AMERICA FIRST ACTION: Good to see you. Thank you for having me.
MACCALLUM: So Jane Mayer at The New Yorker who doesn't write very kind of things about us generally. She said that she's very upset that Democrats have been doing town halls on Fox News and she says that they ought to their fire at Fox News for making co-operation with it more indefensible by the day. What do you say, Sean?
SPICER: Well, look, I think Democrats who choose not to go on Fox News or cutting the nose off to spite them themselves. You've seen the ratings that you and Bret have gotten on your town hall, 2.65 million people. That dwarfs the other outlets combined in many cases throughout their day. And much of the Fox audience is receptive to the Democratic Party so they're left-leaning, their independents. I think these are the folks the Democrats go.
And you look at the top folks, understand that Bernie Sanders is leading the pack went on Fox had a very successful outing with you and Bret, I think exposed himself to an audience that he's not getting through the other outlets. And by them banning Fox, at some point -- and I don't want to speak for your -- for our management but at some point, either Fox or another outlet is going to say screw it, we're going put -- we're going to host a debate.
And the problem is that when we did this, we had everybody buying in and it was held together at times by some pretty thin duct tape, but it worked and it was successful. The Democrats, by banning people and allowing everybody to get a participation trophy and find different ways to make it on the debate stage, has created a system that isn't going to hold true, because candidates are always going to look for an outlet to reach new voters and Fox and other outlets are going to jump in and fill the void.
MACCALLUM: Definitely. I mean, we have you know, 30 percent of our viewers consider themselves to be Independent voters. And we all know that there are voters who crossed over from being -- in 206 counties across the country who voted for President Obama that voted for President Trump. I think people are very -- a lot more -- you know, we talk about the divisiveness in the country quite a bit, but I also think that a lot of people feel they are not really affiliated with either party, and that they look at the candidates and they try to decide you know, who they think is going to do the best job.
In terms of the way that constructing the debates, what the Democrats have said they are going to do right now is do it randomly, Sean. And I know that you wrote about this. You decided you know, if you made a certain cut off, you could be on at night, and if you didn't, you were on the next one down.
And if you moved up and you got a great percentage, then you moved up into that you know, prime time tear.
SPICER: That's right. And the way that Democrats are doing it, they are putting some folks who aren't even pulling at one percent, that they've gotten 65,000 donations of minimum of $1. And I right in the op-ed, this is on my Web site seanspicer.com for those who want to see it, that one candidate, Congressman Delaney is literally offering people $2 to the charity of their choice if they will contribute $1 to his campaign.
Now, that is an ingenious way of getting him on the debate stage, but at that point, he still isn't pulling at a minimum of one percent. So he's going to be taking pot shots at the folks at the top, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete and others to find his viral breakout moment.
And there's only so long that those folks at the top are going to withstand and say this is ridiculous. Folks who aren't even pulling at one percent are spending all of their time on stage taking pot shots at those of us who are actually garnering significant amounts of supporters within the Democratic Party.
I don't think that that's going to be another you know, touchstone of how this system is probably going to fail when they -- when they realize this randomized system might sound good, that everybody gets a participation trophy and gets to show up in one or two nights. But it's not going to hold true for a while when people at the top don't like getting hit by people at the bottom.
MACCALLUM: Yes, fascinating. And you know, as we always say, we really hope that they will reconsider and we hope that the town halls that we've done show that we are fair. We ask you know, challenging questions but that it is not -- our interest is to make sure that voters across the country are exposed to all of the candidates and that's the goal and that's what we want to do.
SPICER: And I think -- and I think the success that you had in terms of the ratings and the number of people and then the coverage afterwards, people have both commented on the what job that you and Bret did, but then the number of people that tuned in. And I think that every other Democrat is it from what I read in the paper is now trying to figure out how they can get their own.
It's only a matter of time when they realize and why don't we do a debate and --
MACCALLUM: Yes, we hope they will. I'm open to that idea. Pete Buttigieg is going to go on with Chris Wallace. A quick question for you about Alabama politics because there's a story today and it's football night with the NFL draft but this is college football story that Tommy Tuberville the Auburn coach is considering or is going to run for the Senate seat in Alabama which is now held by Doug Jones and that you are working with him. Is that true?
SPICER: Absolutely.
MACCALLUM: And what's role? What's your role?
SPICER: Right now I'm advising him. We're doing some work for him on the mail and digital front. But he's a great candidate, he's been the only candidate on the Republican side so far that was been with President Trump since day one. He's got a winning strategy to put this seat back in the Republican column and he's got huge support in Alabama.
MACCALLUM: Is President Trump going to support him in that race?
SPICER: I don't want to ever -- I've learned my lesson about trying to speak for President Trump. But I will tell you, he's Trump's kind of candidate and he would do a great job up here and give President Trump another vote.
MACCALLUM: Is Matt Gaetz going to run for that -- because we asked him, you know. That was considered too I think.
SPICER: Matt Gaetz represents a district in Florida. I think Alabama has somebody like Tommy Tuberville right now that's running and we -- I think Alabama will be well served by people like Tommy.
MACCALLUM: Interesting. Sean, thank you very much.
SPICER: You bet.
MACCALLUM: Good to see you tonight. You bet.
SPICER: Good to see you.
MACCALLUM: All right, Senator Mike Lee on a new line of attack against President Trump coming up next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BETO O'ROURKE, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We can also simultaneously describe what this president is doing and the threat that he poses to our democracy and to our fellow Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: The Democrats adopting some dire messaging in the wake of Robert Mueller's report, which did not go their way, insisting still that the president poses a threat to American values anyway. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FMR. GOV. BILL WELD, R-MASS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I fear that Mr. Trump does have designs on becoming what the founders and the writers of the Constitution most feared, and that's a tyrant in our country.
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: This is about what is going on today, and the threats to our next election to our defense as a nation.
BIDEN: We give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: Well, that first person was William weld, not a Democrat who is running against the president, in fact on the Republican side.
But here now is Utah Senator Mike Lee, author of the brand-new book, "Our Lost Declaration: America's Fight Against Tyranny from King George to the Deep State." Senator, good to have you with us this evening.
SEN. MIKE LEE, R-UT: Thank you.
MACCALLUM: You know, you hear this sort of, grand, dire proclamations about the fact that the president is undermining American values, and literally the country itself is in deep danger if he continues to be president. What do you make of that and what do you think it is, you know, what's the underlying evidence that you see playing out in the country of that?
LEE: I think they are engaging in paranoid fantasy. Look, there isn't a single shred of truth to what they are saying. The real threat to liberty in this country relates to the power that's been excessively delegated by the people's elected lawmakers in Congress over the executive branch.
Yes, there's too much power in the executive branch. That is not Trump's fault. This was true decades before Donald Trump ever came down on that escalator. This is not his problem. It's Congress' problem. It's one of the reasons I wrote this book, "Our Lost Declaration" is to remind the American people that we fought a revolution in order to disaggregate power. In order to put it back in the hands of the people.
But this is not a threat to liberty by Donald Trump, it's a threat created by Congress.
MACCALLUM: Well, give me some examples of where you think the executive branch has too much power and you find that to be dangerous.
LEE: Over the course of many decades, about the last 80 years, we've seen a gradual shift of power from lawmaking power and the issuance of federal regulations costing the economy $2 million a year to war making power, emergency power, all of these things have been delegated away by Congress, sometimes by an express act of Congress.
In other cases, by in action by Congress in response to executive action. But in every circumstance, this is a result of Congress' failure, not Donald Trump's. These people are wrong to say that Donald Trump is a threat to liberty. Congress is the problem.
MACCALLUM: Well, you know, when you look at liberty, you look at the justice system, you look at opportunity in America, basic freedoms in America, have any of those things been undercut? Either by the president -- I mean, is anybody less free or more constricted in their lives and their abilities in the American way now than when they were when the president was elected? And if so, are any of these things due to the executive power that you see that has been, you know, collected unjustly?
LEE: No, I don't believe so. If anything, I believe the American people have more freedom today than they did the day before President Trump was sworn into office.
One of the reasons for that, we look at the fact that this is an administration that in every instance has taken out at least two regulations for every new regulation it's issued. This president has done more to restore liberty than any president in recent history. We should be grateful for that we should, again, point the finger back at Congress for the fact that Congress has relinquished power.
MACCALLUM: So, one of the things people point to is that what they call the admiration, the apparent admiration that the president has for leaders like Putin and Kim Jong-un, we just saw the two of them meet today in a historic meeting actually, Russia, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia.
Do you think that that is true, as, and if it is true, do you think that that undercuts American values? What he has said about those leaders?
LEE: I don't think that a president being willing to engage in an open dialogue with foreign leaders represents a threat to our liberty. Quite the contrary, I think needs to be praised when a president wants to reach out and wants to make sure that he doesn't want to insult foreign leaders. We shouldn't be denigrating him for trying to do that, for trying to make our foreign relations better.
MACCALLUM: Here is a piece from -- sound from Bernie Sanders talking about that because we're going to hear a lot about this in the upcoming campaign. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The very concept of democracy is under attack by a president who seems intent on emulating the authoritarian leaders in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and elsewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACCALLUM: When you look at some of those examples that he gives, and we all know that there have been moments when the president has been more complementary than we've heard in the past of some of the leaders of these countries.
And you know, it appears most of the reason for that is kind of opening the door to have some discussions some negotiations, and we've seen that kind of -- those kinds of comments on presidents in the past when they wanted to do similar things. Whether it be with Iran, or other countries. But have we seen the president try to emulate the kinds of power that those leaders have in those countries?
LEE: Not at all. I can't think of a single example of where he has done that. Now when he mentions Saudi Arabia, perhaps Senator Sanders is referring to the fact that we are fighting a war as co-belligerence in support of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Yemen. It's a war that hasn't been declared.
That was, I would remind Senator Sanders, was started by President Obama. He got us into this. President Trump hasn't gotten us out of that. But there again is an example of Congress relinquishing its power. It's supposed to be Congress that declares war. And it's a shame that Congress doesn't exercise its power anymore.
MACCALLUM: Interesting.
LEE: One of the reasons I wrote "Our Lost Declaration," I want to reconnect the American people with this basic notion of civics. With the notion that part of the reason why we had a revolution in the first place was to put power back in the hands of the people because it had been abused in the hands of King George III and his predecessors.
MACCALLUM: Senator, thank you very much. "Our Lost Declaration: America's Fight Against Tyranny From King George to the Deep State." Good to talk to you tonight, sir. Thank you.
LEE: Thank you.
MACCALLUM: Coming up next, what Elizabeth Warren's free college plan misses about America and how it works.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: Wake Forest University taking a controversial approach to address recent racial tensions on campus. College Fix reports the university is hosting segregated listening sessions on inclusion for faculty and staff of color.
In a statement to Fox News the university explained in part, quote, "In light of recent requests made by students, college faculty and staff of color were invited to share their experiences, concerns and recommendations. While this story singles out Wake Forest, many universities and colleges are holding similar forums and they have said that they would allow people who are not of color to come if they wanted to."
Here now, Dr. Betsy McCaughey, New York post columnist, Juan Williams, Fox News political analyst and cohost of The Five. Great to have both of you with us. And Betsy, you wrote that there are lots of other examples of officially segregated events that are in growing increasingly on college campuses.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK POST: This is a long-term and very pernicious trend. I used to teach at Vassar in Columbia and I saw it up close, segregated housing, black only dorms, black only dining facilities, black only lounges.
MACCALLUM: All optional.
MCCAUGHEY: Optional. But it sends a pernicious message that is the opposite of inclusion. It says this color of your skin is more important than what's in your heart or what's in your brain. And parents should also be outraged because they are expecting their children to come out of college and prepared to succeed.
For example, in the workplace, where you can't say I only want to work with black people or I only want to work with white people. We all have to get along and do the jobs together.
MACCALLUM: I mean, it seems like the whole goal was to have this not happen, Juan. That everybody is the same and everyone is treated equally and lives together and works together.
JUAN WILLIAMS, CO-HOST & POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, but I think you can take away perspective on this and say listen, the whites are the majority and we expect that the minorities would come in and function well. But guess what is often times, the minorities don't feel welcome in some of those majority settings. And they have higher dropout rates, higher failure rates, all the rest. And so, I don't see this --
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: What does it make that better by pulling them aside --
(CROSSTALK)
WILLIAMS: Well, hang on, I'll finish. I think that it's important to understand that I am opposed to segregation of any kind, but you could see this technique and I think it's why it's being replicated at several schools that it's an effort at racial healing.
It's an effort to get those students to be comfortable to speak out about their experiences with like-minded students, and say, OK, here is what we can do, and now offer speak to other students, speak to the faculty, and to the administration about steps we'd like to have taken in order to have us to be more successful on this campus.
MACCALLUM: All right. I mean, I think it's a troubling trend, but I also want to get your thoughts on Elizabeth Warren, who is talking about rolling back student debt for 95 percent of students out there, which raises the question of, you know, why should everyone else in America have to pay back this student debt that is unpaid? Juan, let me start with you on this one.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that student debt right now is crippling for so many young people, Martha. It really is limiting their ability to move up that ladder of upward mobility to get start and to move out of mom's basement. And so, we have to deal with tis in some way because we want people to go to school. We don't want the cost of education to be so punishing that young people opt out.
MACCALLUM: No. Well, college has just gone through the roof.
WILLIAMS: Ok, there you go.
MACCALLUM: I mean, that's the problem.
WILLIAMS: I agree.
MACCALLUM: And I wonder, Betsy, you've been so much about health care. If we take on the debt of college students, aren't we also creating a situation like we have with health care where it's like it can just keep going up and up and up because the government and the entity are paying for it together?
MCCAUGHEY; Well, that's right, the Federal Reserve has shown that for every dollar loaned to students and their parents for college, it pushes up the tuition another $0.60.
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: Yes, I agree.
MCCAUGHEY: Colleges just keep raising it and raising it.
MACCALLUM: Good check, right?
MCCAUGHEY: But I agree with you, Martha, that this is a real poke in the eye for waitresses, truck drivers, assembly line workers who gave up going to college so that they would not have the debt, and now they are being told --
(CROSSTALK)
MACCALLUM: It's been --
MCCAUGHEY: -- that they have to pay for somebody else's debt?
MACCALLUM: Thank you, guys. Great to see you. Sorry, so quick.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome.
MACCALLUM: Coming up, an untold story of Victor Davis Hanson's fascinating back story on this man who has made the case for Trump in his book and he thinks the president can win again in 2020. He'll be right after this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, AUTHOR, THE CASE FOR TRUMP: I'm the only thing between you and socialism, whether you like me or not, if you're an independent, you have me or these people, and these are not Hillary Clinton. They are much worse. That's just going to be the argument, I imagine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: Victor Davis Hanson is a prolific historian, scholar, author of the book "The Case for Trump." Tonight, he shares his predictions for the 2020 election and how his family, like many families in America, is politically divided. This is the untold story of Victor Davis Hanson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MACCALLUM: You have a twin brother.
HANSON: Yes, I do.
MACCALLUM: And you have very different feelings about the way that you look at politics and perhaps the world. How did that come about? I think a lot of families are like that.
HANSON: Yes.
MACCALLUM: But as a twin --
HANSON: Yes.
MACCALLUM: -- what's the effect of that?
HANSON: Well, we live across the street, and so we are respectful and we try not to talk about it but I have an older brother, so they are both Bernie Sanders supporters, and I think we have to first cousins that kind of grew up with us and I'm the only one that went bad, so to speak and conservative.
But I had -- my parents were Democrats, but they were a Harry Truman Democrats. They were different than today's Democrats.
MACCALLUM: Explain that and what you think that says about the Democrat Party.
HANSON: Well, I think there are in a revolutionary cycle. We saw it during the French Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, any left-wing revolution goes to the logical trajectories of where you can end up. There is no theoretical restriction on equality. You can equality of voting, then equality of housing, equality of food.
And to get beyond voting and political freedom, you need a level of government that's all inclusive, that forces people to be equal when buying. You and I are not equal, we all have different respective strengths, but that's the point.
It takes a level of coercion. And so, we're getting to the limits of where the left can go. You reached the point, the Jussie Smollett case, tragic as it was, was sort of the limit. You can't go any further.
Jussie said I'm black, I'm gay, I'm a victim. Where do you beyond that. Well, they had MAGA hats, where do you go beyond that. Well, they were white. Where do you go beyond that? They had bleach. Where do you go beyond that? They had lynch rope.
It was two in the morning. And it was so illogical, that the odds of that happening were infinitesimal, but yet people wanted to believe that you show -- you can see where that left-wing evolution is going, it's going to reach a nihilistic point.
So, all these issues, Martha, basically infanticide, reparations, Medicare for all, cancellation of debts, 70 to 90 percent income tax rate. Can't go any higher than that. They don't poll very well. And yet, if the Democrats embrace that, it is going to be a political suicide.
MACCALLUM: But the argument is that those people are not electable. You have someone who is stepping into the middle, perhaps. Howard Schultz, who says if this is the way the party is going --
HANSON: Yes.
MACCALLUM: -- then I'm not going to run as part of the Democratic Party. I'm going to run on my own. Is there room for him?
HANSON: No, because, first of all, we've never had a third-party candidate. The most successful was Ross Perot, 19 percent of the vote and he cost George H.W. Bush the election. You can stop somebody from being elected but you can't win yourself.
And so, he doesn't have a constituency. Because the Democrats, whether they like it or not, they are headed in this pipe of trajectory or the cliff and they can't stop it. They know they should stop it but they can't. He doesn't have a constituency because if you don't like that, you're going to vote for Trump.
And Trump's message is pretty sophisticated. You can already see it's forming. That's not -- in 2016, it was I'm not Hillary Clinton. Whenever I am, I'm not Hillary Clinton. Now it's going to be, Hillary Clinton was not that bad compared to what's here. I'm the only thing between you and socialism. Whether you like me or not, if you're independent, you have me or you have these people. And these are not Hillary Clinton. They're much worse. That's going to be his argument, I would imagine.
MACCALLUM: Personally, what is it like for you to be a supporter of someone's presidency who is under so much fire, not only from Democrats from also from a lot of Republicans --
HANSON: Yes.
MACCALLUM: -- who probably think that you're nuts to say --
HANSON: They do.
MACCALLUM: -- to make the case for Trump.
HANSON: I've never met him, I don't want to meet him, I haven't gone to the Trump White House. I've never asked for a job. I just want to be analytical. What did he say, what did he do, what is his record, and how does he rate, historically, with other presidents and other situations?
And so, I try to be an analytical. I did not want to be he is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And I can't stand him. And yet, I thought if he were empirical it's pretty obvious that he had a brilliant geographical electoral agenda to get elected. But 16 very gifted Republican nominees didn't (Inaudible) him.
He beat a very good candidate who had a lot of -- I'll spin him three to one, and contrary to expectations, he has governed pretty effectively. So then why do people hate him? And that's the second half of the book.
MACCALLUM: Victor Davis Hanson, thank you very much. The book is "The Case for Trump." Great to have you with us.
HANSON: Thank you.
MACCALLUM: On the Untold Story.
HANSON: Thank you.
MACCALLUM: Thank you, Victor.
HANSON: Thank you very much, Martha.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MACCALLUM: Before it was history, this was “The Story” on April 25th, 1944. It came by a Transatlantic cable from London and landed on the front page of the New York Times, word that allied armies were secretly planning a colossal show of force, a surprise strike on the Germans, more massive in scale than anything ever attempted by an army. Tens of thousands of men arriving by sea and by air, armed to the teeth with guns and grenades, on a mission to secure the front and liberate Nazi-occupied France.
With news of the strike now public and operational security at stake, Britain's government announced immediate suspension of all overseas travel. The papers explaining it as, quote, "a new regulation, probably aimed just as much as ending careless talk by travelers as deterring enemy espionage."
Both governments suspected the Germans might be onto them, admitting, quote, "a strategic surprise," that is the fact that allies claimed to invade Western Europe is no longer possible, but a tactical surprise may be if security is maintained.
Forty-two days later, President Roosevelt offered this prayer to our nation and our men. It is the quote of the night.
(BEGIN VOICE CLIP)
"God, give us faith. Faith in our sons, help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country. A peace invulnerable to the scheming's of unworthy men. And the peace that will let all men live in freedom."
(END VOICE CLIP)
MACCALLUM: We will be in Normandy to mark the momentous 75th anniversary of D-Day. And we will be here tomorrow night at 7:00. That's “The Story” on this Thursday, April 25th. Tucker Carlson is up next.
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