Was there anything illegal about the Trump Tower meeting?

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Was there anything illegal about the Trump Tower meeting?

Critics attack the president for admitting that the 2016 meeting with Russians was meant to get dirt on Hillary Clinton.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 6, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Good evening from Washington. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is "The Ingraham Angle." Welcome back on a very busy Monday.

An increasingly violent strain of the radical left lashing out over the past few days. We are going to show you some of the shocking videos involving a marine recruiting station and a lot more, plus, an unbelievable story. It's a heartbreaker and infuriating out of New Mexico involving a child abduction ring and radical Muslim extremists. Yes, in the United States of America. Unbelievable. A story you will not want to miss later in this hour, but first, bullets and blame. Another weekend in Chicago. That's the focus of tonight's Angle.

Chicago just recorded its deadliest weekend of the year with 66 shots and 12 killed in just a 63-hour period, including a boy riding his bike and a 14-year-old and two 17-year-old girls just standing on the sidewalk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, D-CHICAGO: We have a heavy heart. Our souls are burdened. What happened this weekend did not happen in every neighborhood in Chicago, but it is unacceptable to happen in any neighborhood of Chicago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well so far this year, 1,785 have been shot in Chicago and 318 killed. And believe it or not, shootings are actually down 30 percent from 2017 and murders are down 25 percent, but still those figures are well above what Chicago experienced earlier in the decade. In 2011 when democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel was elected, there were 436 murders in Chicago. By 2016 that number had ballooned to 771, a 77 percent increase and while 2017 was down from the high watermark, it still saw a devastating 650 slain. As you might imagine there is enormous political pressure now on Rahm Emanuel to offer solutions to this heartbreaking cycle. It's about time. With that election just months away, he responded today sounding more like home sold in an Obama liberal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMANUEL: You can talk about the weather, but weather didn't pull the trigger. And you can talk about jobs, and they count, but in parts of the city where there aren't jobs, people did not pull the trigger. There are too many guns on the street, too many people with criminal records on the street and there is a shortage of values about what is right and what is wrong. What is acceptable, what is condoned and what is condemned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I can't believe I'm saying this, but on that, he's right. Of course policing and economic opportunity matter. They matter quite a bit, but are those the factors that are definitive? Of course not. In 2017, the victims of homicide in Chicago were 76 percent African-American. And a disproportionate number of the assailants arrested were also black, primarily male. So what's the cause?

Well if you ask a leftist or the intellectuals who dominate our universities, they'll blame crime on institutional racism or maybe poverty, but as economist Tom Sowell wrote just a few years ago after the Ferguson riots, you cannot take any people of any color and exempt them from the requirements of civilization without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. Murder rates of among black males were going down, repeat, down during the much lamented 1950s while it went up after the much celebrated 1960s, reaching levels more than double what they had been before.

Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s, but today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families. To put it a little bit more specifically, in 1950, 70 percent of black children lived in single-parent households. At that point, black labor participation rates exceeded that of whites. But today, 70 percent of black children live in one-parent households and that number is pretty much reversed.

Now moms do their best of course and they are heroic, but especially in dangerous areas, boys without fathers or male role models often get hooked in with really bad people. Remember this video from Baltimore, a mother urging her child very aggressively during the Freddie Gray riots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's actually a mother's love. Maybe she used a four-letter word, but she could have saved his life that day. Remember Barack Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative. It was launched in 2014 and it started out as a way to assist at risk boys mostly of color. In the first year he raised 300 million in corporate donations to help get young men jobs through mentoring and other work fairs, work projects. No real measure yet of the program's real impact, but to the extent that it stresses hard work and personal responsibility, I think it's great.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FEBRUARY 2014)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I stopped being nonchalant. I started caring about my grades and the difference between a A and a B. I started demanding more out of myself. I know experience -- excellence is possible and I need to strive for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Too often however the social justice warriors fall into the grievance trap of excusing rather than punishing what ends up being criminal behavior. Now remember the looting and the violence that we saw in Ferguson and Baltimore a few years ago during what were supposed to be protest about the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, well President Obama used a My Brother's Keeper event to provide context, almost to explain away the violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 2015)

THEN-PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Some communities have consistently had the odds stacked against them. That there is a tragic history in this country that has made it tougher for some. That sense of unfairness, powerlessness, that has helped fuel some of the protests we've seen in places like Baltimore and Ferguson and too many places in this country black boys and black men, Latino boys, Latino men experience being treated differently by law enforcement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I'm sure a lot of them do, but at some point, this becomes race baiting and the king of this is Al Sharpton. Remember his contribution to stemming the violence in Chicago? Hs contribution was renting an apartment in the city for some period of time in 2013.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JULY 2013)

REVERAND AL SHARPTON: In September we bought the (inaudible) -- I'm going (ph) to take an apartment on the West Side. And stay amongst the people and walk children to school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I'm pretty sure after he rented the apartment things got worse, but I'm surprised that didn't do the trick, great idea, Al. Look, I don't doubt that young people living in Englewood of the West Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago can feel really hopeless and even distrustful against the police, but the real problem isn't aggressive policing, the real problem are gangs with memberships that have become generational.

Young boys without fathers or any male role models, anyone who cares about them, who is a male, are too often sucked into the cults of criminality. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who knows a thing or two about cleaning up the city thinks it's time to show the man they once called Rahmbo the door tweeting "Chicago murders are direct results of one party democratic rule for decades. Policing, genius, -- Jerry -- he meant Gary McCarthy -- can do for Chicago what I did for New York City. He was one of the architects of COMSTAT (ph), it slashed homicide over 70 percent, tens of thousands of lives saved. Well it's true that citizens most affected seem to be growing very weary of the manuals political dance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFED MALE: Rahm Emanuel, first of all, is a con man. His whole job is to keep black folks divided.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No he doesn't care about anybody but the people in his neighborhood and his family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Opposition to Mayor Emanuel, Obama's protege, it's been building for many reasons. Part of it the schools, the crime now and remember how proud he was about this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMANUEL: Chicago was a sanctuary city before anybody knew what sanctuary city meant. This ordinance that we are defending in the federal court is consistent with that value system. And not only does it give honor and import to our past, it actually shines a bright light to the future that we have together as a city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well that's not going over so well on the South Side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He cares more about non-citizens. African-Americans, we're citizens and our ancestors build this country.

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: He's done some good things, but I think he don't step up and come to the people where the crime is. You know what I'm saying? The crime is on the South Side and the West Side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And there is abysmally low percentage of murderers brought to justice under his leadership. In 2017, the police solved only 114 of the 650 murders that occurred in the same year. That's 17.5 percent only. In the early 1990s that figure was 60 percent. No wonder people on the South Side of frustrated. So many have promised to try to help Chicago, but few have delivered solutions. Maybe because truths are uncomfortable and may be because sometimes they are not politically correct. Now I've been saying since the campaign of 2016 that we need to see more bold thinking conservatives in the inner cities of this country. The risk is not in showing up. The risk is in not showing up. Solutions, not politics, are what is needed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE REP. LA SHAWN K. FORD, D- ILL.: Have to make sure that President Trump recognize that not everyone believes that Chicago is a Trump-free zone. If he's serious about helping the people in Chicago, especially on the West Side of Chicago, I accept his help, we can't turn any help away. We have to make sure that people understand that criminals cannot have their way with our streets. If Chicago Police Department and all the other law enforcement's can't do it, we should seek other help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Everyday radicals claim that President Trump is racist. Now as someone who has known him for, I don't know, 15 years or so, I can tell you that is 100 percent false and it's a slanderous and defamatory charge meant to deflect attention from liberals own abject failures in leading urban America. Trump's booming economy is benefiting African-Americans and Latinos and all-Americans who wish to better themselves. The one thing we do know, racial hucksters do not have the answers to prevent another weekend just like we saw in Chicago. And that's THE ANGLE.

Joining us now with reaction, Gianno Caldwell, Fox News political analyst and Chicago native who conducted those illuminating interviews you just saw with the Chicago residents. Illinois State Rep. Lashawn Ford and Peter Koconis, a former Chicago police sergeant. Great to have all of you with us.

Gianno, I just want to say to you first, I think what you did was so important in talking to the people who live in the most dangerous parts of Chicago. You didn't go up to the fancy neighborhoods, you went to where the people are, so congratulations and thank you for doing that report. It was really important. Gianno, give me the sense from what you experience, and you experienced a lot growing up, you are from the area. Are they blaming any one group of people or are they looking for solutions at this point?

GIANNO CALDWELL, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well you know Laura, today I come with a very heavy heart and a special message for every Chicagoan. Rahm Emanuel as we know has been in office since 2011 and since 2011 he has failed. He's failed to keep us safe, he's failed to keep our family safe, our friends and even out-of-town visitors. My family has perfectly been impacted by the violence in Chicago. During Memorial Day last year my little brother was in the car with two of his friends went to a man walked up and shot the car 25 times. My little brother thankfully lived, but his best friend, bloodied in his arms, died.

Now considering Rahm Emanuel has been mayor since 2011 and murders have gone up, what we've seen is a mass genocide in the streets of Chicago. The only silver lining I see to a solution in terms of ridding this outside of President Trump coming in is the fact that we've got an election coming up in the city of Chicago and several short months and with that being the case, every Chicagoan needs to get out and vote and vote Rahm Emanuel out of office. It certainly true he didn't pull the trigger. I get there, but his policies -- and his inaction rather has enabled those that pulled the trigger. You know that because the murders have gone up since he's been there.

INGRAHAM: I want to go to Representative Ford at this point and read for you something that was written a few years ago. This is a piece that was just written today, excuse me, in "The American Thinker. The title of it is "It's Time to Hold Democrats Responsible for Chicago's Violence." The city's famed violence is all the result of gangs and democrats being in bed with each other.

One hand washing the other. Democratic politicians sidle up to gang leaders for votes and use their thugs as substitutes for their political organizations. They muscle voters to the polls for the democrats and anyone who rebels gets a beating. The left benefits so it gives the gangs what they want. That's Monica Showalter quoting Glenn Reynolds' piece from 2012. Your thoughts on that given the bloodshed that we have seen, Representative Ford, over the last several years, even with a modest decline in the last year or so?

FORD: Well I have to say that Chicago is worse than the days of Al Capone. It's the bloodiest city in America and I have to say that democrats have to step up. I'm a democrat and I'm saying that democrats must step up. All of the democrats, all of my colleagues must step up and put politics aside. We must work with President Trump and we must demand that we get help in the city of Chicago on the West Side of Chicago, and in our South Side community so that we can bring safety to all communities in the city. There are 77 communities in the Chicago community and every community is feeling the trauma from the violence and destruction that's happening in the bloodiest city of Chicago.

INGRAHAM: Representative Ford, I remember during the campaign that candidate Trump in March of 2016 had a speech scheduled in Chicago and they had to cancel it because of threats of protest, violence, people say we don't want you here. I thought that was such a shame because I actually think the more ideas -- obviously the ideas that have been employed have failed. Now he's done pretty well with the economy, maybe he can bring some new thinking and some fresh ideas to this current situation. I think it's beyond tragic. I think you are brave as a democrat for speaking out and at least being open.

CALDWELL: Absolutely. That's courageous.

INGRAHAM: I mean you are going to get -- and I know you've already gotten blowback and I want to hear from a former police officer in Chicago who tell us the way things are on the streets for the police, who have been oftentimes demonized. But he was not allowed to come to Chicago, an American city. That was outrageous. That told me a lot about Chicago back in March of 2016.

FORD: You know, less than a year -- less than a year ago I lost my cousin on the West Side of Chicago with his girlfriend in the car. I never told Gianno that and I haven't told anyone publicly, but they lost their lives in a car with some type of drive-by on the West Side of Chicago to leave to kids without parents.

INGRAHAM: Sergeant Koconis -- unfortunately, it's a horrific story after horrific story after heartbreak after parent losing a child. Peter. Give us your insight please.

PETER KOCONIS, FORMER CHICAGO POLICE SERGEANT: Well Mr. Ford saying the democrats should step up. They should step out. The problem is we have a democrat sheriff, we have a democrat state's attorney, Kim Fox. We have a Cook County president that is a democrat. And what they're doing is reducing bonds, people getting out that commit crimes with guns and they are given no bond - an I bond. They're left to walk out. A man walks out after doing an armed carjacking. Two days later he does a carjacking again. Now they want to put him on a monitor. You can't do this. I mean the policeman, they get in a car, they work for eight and a half, nine hours. They get no breaks, they get nothing. You have marchers, you have Al Sharpton. He rented an apartment, he never was here. You have Rahm Emanuel.

He promised he is going to hire 1,000 policemen at seven years later he hasn't hired the policeman. You have marchers that march down Lake Shore Drive. If you have marchers that march down the Dan Ryan -- they didn't close expressways in Ferguson. The ministers and the false prophets and everything that we have in this city, unfortunately it comes down to one thing -- it's black young man killing black young men.

And these two gentlemen talking about -- my father was murdered by a gang banger in 1969. A 15-year-old kid went into a store and shot him, so he could pay for the gun that he used to kill him. So I'm on both sides of the fence. I've been a victim of it and now -- I fought against it. You are -- you hit it with your opening monologue, just perfect. The democrats are doing nothing; and I don't care -- a nonpartisan person running for mayor, you get somebody like Lightfoot or somebody like that that actually knows how the system works.

INGRAHAM: Yeah, we gotta get --

KOCONIS: You can't let people walk.

INGRAHAM: -- politics have to get out of it. Real common sense solutions. We have to do an hour on this topic because there's so many elements of it. Fantastic panel, I wish we had more time. Coming up, ANTIFA out of control. We will tell you the story others aren't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: ANTIFA striking out at new conservative targets. This morning in Philly, a mob from the radical left group one after commentators Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens at a cafe. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROTESTERS: (SCREAMING AND CHANTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now to be clear, this is what looks to be a group of mostly ANTIFA for protesters chanting, "F white supremacy" at a black conservative, they're really bright too.'

Joining us now with reaction, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino along with radio host, former Chuck Schumer aide Chris Hahn. Okay guys, we're to hit this and this other ANTIFA issue at the marine recruiting station in just a moment. But, I almost think these are paid to performers working for the RNC because it's so damaging to the democrats. They are always targeting conservatives and for what? Because they are organizing a bunch of young conservative people across the country? What's their beef with Candace Owens? What their beef with her?

DAN BONGINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: If there's a bigger issue than just their beef with Candace Owens. It's not just about Candace Owens. It's about the radical left. Now, I want to be clear. I'm not talking about all democrats. There are a lot of democrats that are fed up with this too and are trying to move away from this because they realize, like you said, that they should be an RNC ad all the time. No one wants to be associated with this kind of insanity but the radical left, this is who they are.

This is who they've always been. Understand there is no emergency brake on their behavior. They are Godless people who believe in the brutal force of the state and when they lose state power, which they have, their only outlet is violence. This does not apply to conservatives who have that emergency brake. They believe in bigger (ph) rights granted by God, including rights granted to their liberal ideological opponents. That's why conservatives don't do this. If they have the emergency brake, radical liberals don't.

INGRAHAM: Chris, if this type of behavior were being conducted against a minority liberal by a group of people chanting the same type of thing, I think the left would rightly be quite upset and probably would hold all sorts of vigils and demand community meetings and prayer groups and so forth, but the democrats, the kind of act like they just want this to go away, whereas I think we need more of a broad-based condemnation of this group.

CHRIS HAHN, RADIO HOST: I don't support this kind of protesting. I want to be very clear. I think protesting is important and I think it should happen, I think there's a time and place for it. Going work people are eating breakfast I don't think that's the time or the place. That said, I was very dubious on this protest. I don't know how these people found Charlie Kirk and Mrs. Owens, Candace Owens in Philadelphia. I'm suspicious of this -- whether or not this is real or not.

I'm not saying I know for sure, I don't. But it's kind of weird to me, they're not exactly -- look, Laura, you are a much bigger star and you can go out to breakfast and nobody is protesting you. So I'm a little dubious on this whole thing; but this kind of protest shouldn't happen. We also shouldn't have a president was out there calling the media the enemy of the people. That is a real problem in America and I think that everything has got to calm down and with got to debate like we are doing right here right now. Dan and I disagree about just about anything, but I love Dan and I enjoy debating Dan about issues that affect America. And that's the kind of discourse we need right now. Not yelling and screaming.

INGRAHAM: I think what Dan is getting at is important. I think with this ANTIFA group is trying to do is intimidate people from actually being in public. I don't know how they knew these guys were having breakfast, I have no idea. But it's an attempt to keep people like shuttered in their homes. I thought everybody was supposed to come out of the closet, now you're supposed to stay in your home, not be able to leave and not be able to go in public or they will literally scream the most horrible words in front of your children, it doesn't matter what you are doing, because you are part of the dash how is this fascist to be speaking around the country. I don't understand how that makes me fascist. They don't know their history. Dan, they're doing it now to the marine recruiting station, which again does not surprise me one bit. You saw that in Berkeley over the weekend. Berkeley -- you can always count of them to for pro-freedom, pro- liberty stuff.

BONGINO: Yeah. So we thought. Well a couple things here. Listen, on the enemy of the people line first from Chris. See Chris is right -- I don't make it personal, Chris -- never have; but, on the issues the enemy of the people, that's not what Trump was saying. What he was talking about with the fake news people. And I want to be clear on this. If the fake news people want to stop being insulted and they want to stop the CNN sucks (inaudible), then just stop sucking.

It's very simple -- this isn't difficult. But secondly, he mentioned that -- Chris mentioned -- you having a profile and you being able to eat lunch -- my profiling I assure you is far smaller than yours Laura and I've been confronted -- I'm not a victim, let me be clear.

I'm not a snowflake, I am not in any way whining about it. Everybody, horse blinders on you. I'm just saying I've been confronted in public many times, one time in an airport where the TSA had to ask a dude to leave the line because he recognized me from Fox News and absolutely lost his marbles.

INGRAHAM: What?

BONGINO: Laura, at no point -- I'm not kidding. At no point in my life have I ever --

INGRAHAM: Oh, my God.

BONGINO: He did. The TSA said, sir, you're going to have to get out of the line if you don't calm down. And in JFK in New York, people started clapping because he was given the boot.

Now, I'm just saying, I have never in my life as a conservative, and I mean this sincerely, ever thought about approaching somebody I ideologically disagreed with and aggressively confronting them in a public space, ever. That is morally and ethically verboten. You just don't do it. And why the liberals think this is OK I don't get it.

INGRAHAM: Also, Dan, the left melting down after President Trump admitted that 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the Russians was meant to get dirt on Hillary, but is that actually illegal? And what would that legal standard mean for Hillary Clinton and that dirty dossier? We're going to debate that coming up next.

And we have a lot more to get to, including that crazy story of the radical Muslims in New Mexico holding children against their will, starving them, depriving them of water. What is going on with the story, and why is it being under covered? We'll get to all of that and debate the Clinton and the dirty dossier issue coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: You can argue all you want about whether the June, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between senior campaign officials and Russian nationals offering dirt on Hillary was appropriate, but was it illegal? Trump critics are losing it after the president acknowledged the true intentions of the meeting on Twitter yesterday. And MSNBC's Joe Scarborough thinks he knows exactly what this means.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: It's illegal to get information, to get anything of worth from a foreign national. Mika, it doesn't have to be cash, it doesn't have to be an exchange of cash for something of value. Anything of value -- that's called and in kind contribution, and the law has always looked at that just as seriously as they have looked at -- as they've looked at money exchanging hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, Joe. Joining me now to discuss this, former deputy Trump campaign manager Dave Bossie, opinion contributor for "The Hill" John Solomon, and attorney Leo Terrell. All right, Bossi, take it away. Joe was definitively putting his legal skills to work, definitively declaring it is illegal to meet with a foreign national who promises oppo research. Wouldn't that call Hillary's behavior in question?

DAVID BOSSIE, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS UNITED: That's what I was just about to say. That's what the Clinton campaign did. If there's any collusion, it's their campaign with the Steele fake Russian dossier and paying Steele through the State Department, through other places, through the FBI. Look, they are the only ones, the Clinton campaign are the only ones that colluded during this campaign. Don Jr. did nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong here.

INGRAHAM: Why did they get the story a little mixed up there in the early days? It wasn't about -- he didn't help with the statement. As a lawyer who did criminal defense work, this is what I tell my clients -- do not talk about your case. Do not talk. Talk about economy, talk about other things. Leave the legal stuff to me. You cannot litigate this in the press because the press hates you. And you've got 17 lawyers on the other side who don't care about what you tweet.

So again, the president is going to do what he's going to do and he's really smart, but in the legal realm it's a different ballgame, it's a different ballgame. And I think he has caused himself a world of pain and -- not heartache, but a headache because of talking to the press. John.

JOHN SOLOMON, THE HILL: I don't want to ever discourage anyone every talking to the press. You should always talk to the press.

INGRAHAM: I mean about a case.

SOLOMON: But listen, where was my profession on this very law when the whole Hillary dossier was coming out? You didn't see any stories of reporters looking at that law saying it must apply here. Suddenly someone says it applies to Donald Trump and everybody goes with the pack over here. No one really goes and talk to lawyers. I've talked to lawyers, prosecutors. There's a great column by Jonathan Turley on "The Hill" site tonight. There's no chance that that meeting violates the law.

INGRAHAM: He says that. He said "If the Russians had evidence of criminal conduct by Hillary Clinton, her campaign or family foundation, the Trump campaign had every reason to want to know about it. That's precisely what Clinton's campaign spent millions to do talking to Russians and other foreigners investigating Trump. Indeed, under this interpretation of federal election laws, Clinton and her surrogates would be equally guilty in using a former foreign spy to gather info on Trump from foreign sources, including the Russians," period. Leo Terrell, your reaction to that?

LEO TERRELL, CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: I'm glad you are a lawyer, and you know as well, Donald Trump Jr. better lawyer up, because he, along with Jared sat in that meeting. And I've got news for you, that is conspiracy. That is conspiracy to defraud -- listen --

INGRAHAM: Conspiracy to do what? What's the crime?

TERRELL: Conspiracy to defraud the election. Their involvement --

INGRAHAM: What's the statute, Leo? Give me the code. What's the statute?

TERRELL: I'm going to tell you right now, write your colleague Judge Napolitano and Leo Terrell agree. Donald Trump Jr. is in trouble. Mark my words on this. And the idea of using the Clinton dossier, Clinton never met with any foreign nationals like Donald Trump Jr. and Jared. What a false distinction. That is a false distinction.

INGRAHAM: Leo, number one, you can't cite a statute, I will give you that. I will let you off the hook for that. Number two, you are saying if you use intermediaries to gather information from foreign sources, then you obviate from having any responsibility in any conspiracy, really? Because I think that would just make Fusion GPS, Hillary, and anyone else in the Justice Department who knew about this who facilitated the production of the dossier.

TERRELL: Let me respond to my favorite talk show host. I'm saying to have a conspiracy, you have a meeting of the minds. Jared, Donald Trump Jr., conspiracy, Laura. Remember today's date. There is no meeting of the minds with Hillary Clinton. That's a false distinction.

INGRAHAM: What's the underlying law? You and I are the only lawyers on this panel, unfortunately.

BOSSIE: No, fortunately. I'm recovering, Leo. I'm recovering. But again, we have a situation where I agree on this point, don't litigate this stuff in the press, because politically people say a lot of things politically and they come close to the truth. None of that matters as a legal matter. It might be unwise as a legal P.R. strategy, but it doesn't mean a crime was committed. That is wholly different.

BOSSIE: They also uncovered -- they also uncovered the text messages from Jared Kushner to his assistant saying get me out of this meeting after five minutes. So that's called exculpatory evidence. I would hope that you would say there's no conspiracy when people are trying to not be in a meeting.

INGRAHAM: I think it's funny, and John, maybe you'll respond to this. This was on CNN. I think I was on like the treadmill this morning watching this. I was almost did the Fred Flintstone thing and fell off the treadmill because I'm listening to this, going wait a second, which one of these is a lawyer coming to this conclusion? Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: To me, there are two big important things here. First of all, the law, which says --

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That's a big one.

BERMAN: -- it's illegal to take anything of value from someone foreign.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I feel that's an open and shut case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Open and shut case. It's so completely over. John?

SOLOMON: I've said this many times on this show, on Hannity' show. I don't recognize the profession I practice in today. There are so many reporters that just say things in the moment without a basis of fact. You have to violate a law to create a conspiracy. There is no law that prohibits people from taking information.

If you extended this out, one of the lawyers I talked to today said, then it would have been against the law for Barack Obama to have arranged all of those foreign trips in 2008 to make himself look good on the world stage before he got elected president. It wasn't designed to prohibit those sorts of things. It was designed to prohibit the sort of things that the Clintons were doing in the 90s when they were taking money.

TERRELL: Donald Trump Jr. knew he was talking to agents of the Russian government. Remember that text? I love it! I love it! Remember that text, Laura?

INGRAHAM: Leo, so are you making the Joe Scarborough, Edward Bennett Williams argument that this is an in-kind contribution, because if you make that argument, then as Jonathan Turley said, it's the same liability, criminal liability on Hillary Clinton for an in-kind contribution that she received from a foreign source. She paid for it, but it doesn't matter. It's a conspiracy to get the information, whether you pay for it or not.

SOLOMON: I'm saying to you, attorney Ingraham, that the meeting of the mines, the conspiracy between -- of having that meeting -- you don't need - - they met to get dirt from a government agent, and that's what I'm talking about, conspiracy.

INGRAHAM: Don Jr. was on my radio show today in the morning, and I asked him about -- I asked him about this meeting. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: It's the cycles of the media narrative, right. The other stuff isn't sticking so they're back now. Tomorrow they will be back on the 25th Amendment. Literally nothing has changed. They don't talk about the genesis of that meeting and that these people were dealing with Fusion GPS before and after the meeting, et cetera, et cetera. Like I said, it was a 20-minute meeting. It ended up being about essentially nothing that was relevant to any of these things. And that's all it is, and that's all they've got. That is I guess the ultimate distraction from what's really going on in this country, which as you have a Republican president, a very conservative president, who's getting stuff done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SOLOMON: Can I just make one last comment, then I'll keep my mouth shut? One last comment. One last comment. Donald Trump Jr. Said that meeting was about Russian adoption. His dad threw him under the bus today by saying that's not true and Donald Trump Jr. has a problem with the Senate Intelligence Committee. He didn't tell the full disclosure.

INGRAHAM: Leo, Leo, this stuff is being repeated on TV all day long and it's wrong. Here's what happened. This woman pledged to give dirt on Hillary. She did it, as the president said. However, she was trying to push for a removal or rescind the Magnitsky Act. Putin, when the Magnitsky Act was passed, which put all the sanctions on the billionaires, he said, oh, really, we are going to stop all adoptions of Russians into the United States. I have two Russian sons. I follow this very closely. That's why she brought it up. She said we'll you adoption if you get rid of the Magnitsky Act. So he's right, of course she talked about the adoptions. That was true. They all documented that.

BOSSIE: She also met with Fusion GPS I believe the day before the meeting and the day after the meeting. So this is part of a conspiracy of what Hillary Clinton's campaign is doing.

INGRAHAM: It's ridiculous. By the way, John Solomon, I want to find out, maybe you can do the reporting on this, why hasn't Mueller interviewed Veselnitskaya? Why haven't the brought Veselnitskaya in, why?

SOLOMON: We don't know that he hasn't. That's one of things.

INGRAHAM: No, I think she offered to testify. I don't believe she's been brought in unless something new has happened last week.

SOLOMON: I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of information flowing to her.

BOSSIE: This investigation has been going on for two years and cost over $25 million of taxpayer money, and this is where we are today, talking about old news.

TERRELL: Let me just say this, Donald Trump Jr. needs to lawyer up immediately.

INGRAHAM: Leo, I'm not trying to cut you off, but we are going to go black and I'm going to get in trouble. Thank you for the great panel.

The year of the woman, we're shortchanging the women. Trumpeted by the left is rapidly morphing into the year of the radical. We'll explain next.

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INGRAHAM: Remember back in 1992, they call that the year of the woman, the Democrats did in the election? And then it was 2016 with Hillary was the year of the woman. And now here we are again, 2018, let's try a third time around it's being called the year of the woman by some in the media and of course on the left. But if you listen to high-profile female Democrats, including 2020 presidential candidates, you know this next person is running, you would be forgiven for thinking it's the year of the radical. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA NIXON, AMERICAN ACTIVIST: I am a democratic socialist. Republicans are going to call us socialists no matter what we do.

(APPLAUSE)

NIXON: So we might as well give them the real thing!

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF.: I have a problem, guys, with that phrase, identity politics. When people say that, it's a pejorative. That phrase is used to divide and it is used to distract. Its purpose is to minimize and marginalize issues that impact all of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Are we back? Joining me now for reaction is Cathy Areu, publisher of Catalina magazine, along with Kristin Tate, columnist for The Hill newspaper.

Let's start with you, Cathy. The socialist thing, Cynthia Nixon, OK, Cynthia Nixon, Cynthia Nixon, I get that. But when you look at the actual polling on this, it doesn't work. It doesn't work for women voters. It doesn't work for most American voters. Most people believe in the capitalist system, they don't think everything's fair, but nothing is fair in life, not everything is fair. So what's going on here with the socialist label and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and all that?

CATHY AREU, CATALINA MAGAZINE: Exactly. I think the Cortez win has drawn everybody to be so extreme, and this is not the party. This is not our party.

INGRAHAM: It is your party. What are you talking about? Wait a second, that's Kamala Harris pretty much hugging up to the socialist thing. All of her policies are socialist, Medicare for all, that's universal health care. Everyone gets free education, what you call that other than socialism?

AREU: But this is very extreme. This is not the heart of the party, not at all. I wouldn't say that. Many, many Democrats, many leaders right now are just cringing when they hear this "S" word. The Democrats, my sources, do not want to be associated with the "S" word at all. They're hoping that this little fringe movement kind of goes away because it's dividing the party. It's very extreme, just like Donald Trump made people so nervous and he was so extreme with the GOP. The same thing. Both parties have their extremists.

INGRAHAM: Donald Trump represented the heartland view of what conservatism should have been all along.

AREU: He has pushed the birther movement for so long. That was so extreme.

INGRAHAM: His policies, I'm sorry, but the policies are not extreme. They are standing up to China, tax reforms, conservative judges -- this is not extreme. That's the liberal dream of trying to do it.

Here is Senator Elizabeth Warren, Kristin. This is what she said on Friday. She said "Let's just start with a hard truth about the criminal justice system. It's a racist. It is. And when I say our system I mean all the way. I mean, front to back. This is just not sentencing reform we are talking but here. We are talking about the front end on what you declare to be illegal and how you enforce it and who gets arrested." So she is now Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, Kristin. Is this going to work? Is this what women want today?

KRISTIN TATE, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: No. The far left has totally hijacked the Democratic Party. The socialist message will resonate with some naive far left voters, many of whom are economically ignorant. A big part of this issue, Laura, is that colleges today are more interested in teaching kids how to become professional protesters than they are in teaching them anything about economics or finance.

And the Democrats in power, they want to keep it that way. They've learned that messages of free stuff and rich people are greedy are easy, brainless messages to send to the undereducated. It's shameless. But I've got to tell you, the vast majority of Americans are terrified of socialism. They see what's going on in Venezuela and in parts of Europe. Socialism does not work. It's clear.

INGRAHAM: Cathy, go ahead.

AREU: But that's the whole point. The vast majority of Americans, many being Democrats, many being part of the Democratic Party do not want socialism. So the majority does not agree with this small group. This is a small group. This is a fringe movement. This is far, far left.

TATE: Cathy, that's not true. The far left wingers have hijacked your party.

AREU: No they haven't. No they haven't.

TATE: They stand for socialism, open borders, and resisting Donald Trump. That is not a message that is going to resonate with hardworking, taxpaying Americans. They have lost the former blue dog Democrats and don't want to vote for you anymore.

INGRAHAM: Those point are well taken. I do think Democrats have a lot of female candidates who are appealing across the board to a lot of people. Conservatives, Republicans, better run smart campaigns and better be really sharp on the campaign trail because they have an uphill battle in some of these races. Great panel, really appreciate it.

Up next to a horrific out of New Mexico, Muslim extremists and child abduction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: A group of heavily armed Muslim extremists are now in custody in New Mexico. Officials saying there are five adults, including the two men that you see on your screen, and are facing child abuse charges after authorities discovered they were hiding 11 children, children between the ages of one and 15 in a remote compound. A local sheriff describes it as the saddest living conditions and poverty he's ever seen come up with the kids only having dirty rags for a closing amid other horrifying details including. They were starving.

Joining us now with more is Monique Jacobson, cabinet secretary for New Mexico's Children, Youth, and Families Department. Monique, I read this this morning. It took my breath away. Tell us what you know.

MONIQUE JACOBSON, NEW MEXICO CYFD: It certainly heartbreaking. The children are in our custody now, and our focus has been and will continue to be really the safety and well-being of these children.

INGRAHAM: What did they look like?

JACOBSON: We can't ever really talk specifically about the actual children that we are working with in this case.

INGRAHAM: Generally they're condition. Their condition, it was written about that they were starved, they were deprived of water, basic sanitation, no education. You can't confirm or deny any of these details? I think the American people want to know about this, it's that horrific.

JACOBSON: Certainly. So I can tell you that what we do in a situation like this, the very first thing that we do is really make sure that we can get those most basic needs met, so ensuring that we are getting the children food, water, that we get them cleaned up and in comfortable clothing. And then of course we have a lot of other assessments that need to occur, medical assessments, and making sure that we are doing forensic interviews so we can understand exactly what they know and what has gone on in their living conditions. So we have been working around the clock to get all of this done and really focusing on what we can do to decrease the trauma that these children may have experienced.

INGRAHAM: I can't even. Some of these, we understand, they are related to them, parents, but it's not clear who they all were. Some of them are mothers that allowed them to live in this condition. And the child that they were looking for has been abducted by one of the parents, correct?

JACOBSON: That's my understanding, yes, that that's how they ended up coming to that site.

INGRAHAM: But it hasn't been found yet, correct?

JACOBSON: That's correct. That's not one of the children that we have in our custody.

INGRAHAM: Right. Are any of the children saying anything about why this happened to them? Especially the older children, did they give you any insights yet?

JACOBSON: Again, in a situation like this, really we work with trained forensic interviewers who are trained in how to talk to children and really get them to open up. But we do know oftentimes it will take a good deal of time before children are comfortable enough that they will talk to us about what all they have experienced in their life up until now.

INGRAHAM: And do you have any idea how long they've been held in this condition?

JACOBSON: These are all the kinds of questions we are working together information on as we speak.

INGRAHAM: We've got to get more information on this because my viewers want to know and I know people all across the country are trying to figure out how this happened, who these abductors were, and what, if any, sicko motivation, including religious motivation, there could have been. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Get this, the West Hollywood City Council is going to consider a vote on whether to remove Trump's star from the Walk of Fame. That's really tolerant, that's really respectful. Unbelievable.

Until then we love hearing what you have to say about the show. Be sure to tweet me @IngrahamAngle. Listen to radio tomorrow morning. Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" are up next with another fantastic show. Shannon?

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