This is a rush transcript from "The Five," August 24, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So this morning I wrote a joke. It goes like this. What do you call someone who voted for Obama in 2008, but won't for him now?
A racist.
Yes, pretty good, huh?
See, when faced with criticism toward the Obama administration, liberals have just one game plan. You're evil.
Take the impeccably-attired Congresswoman Frederica Wilson.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. FREDERICA WILSON, D-FLA.: Let us all remember who the real enemy is, and the real enemy is the Tea Party.
(APPLAUSE)
And the Tea Party folks in Congress, there is no compromising with them. They have one goal in mind and that's to make President Obama a one-term president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Somewhere a rodeo clown misses his hat.
And then there's Maxine Waters telling the Tea Party to go to hell, Democrat Mike Doyle calling them terrorists and so on and so on and so on.
But I got to ask, why? The Tea Party are political newbies. They never really spoke up before. Most of them are like your dad and mom, goofy but adorable, going about their business or probably owning one. And yet, the first time they get involved, which is something always lauded by the left, they are branded terrorists and racists, which must be offensive to real terrorists and racists because they work hard.
Now I get the -- I get the attacks if the Tea Partiers were intimidating people or politicians. That is not a Tea Party, that is a union. So why do Tea Partiers scare established politicians witless? Well, you'd be scared, too, if silly folks in tri-corn hats finally got your number.
So, Bob, why do they get under your skin? You know what I'm thinking? You have more in common with Tea Partiers than anybody in your party. Right? Am I right?
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: You mean, when I dress up in funny outfits and run around and make sounds? Human body sounds? Yes.
Look, I think it's time, and I'm serious here, I have used a lot of these similar descriptions of the Teaers. I am now going to refer to them as the Tea People, that's all. And I think all of us ought to stop calling them names. They are first of all the minority --
ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: All of us? You're the only one who calls us names.
BECKEL: No, I'm talking to my fellow liberals out there. The six of us here who are watching the show tonight.
And I would say this, these are the minority. You talk about a minority, these people are a minority. The reason they are out, there they've got nothing else to do but wait for tea time.
GUTFELD: They have other things to do. They have jobs. They work.
BECKEL: I notice the videotape we did of the Tea Party omitted the ones that said -- called Obama Hitler, a Nazi, a racist. And then the one I love the best a black guy with a bone in his nose.
GUTFELD: I think those were the ones that were at an anti-Bush rally.
BECKEL: No, no, no. You're making these people look all nice and pleasant.
GUTFELD: There is always --
BECKEL: Oh, those poor people.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: That is so unfair.
BECKEL: It's not unfair.
BOLLING: Their whole purpose is to form this grassroots group is for smaller government, fiscal soundness, and spending within our means. Yet, somehow, the left figured that is racist, because anyone who is not for Obama --
BECKEL: Who said it's racist?
GUTFELD: You just did.
BECKEL: I didn't say it was racist.
GUTFELD: You basically said that these people are racist.
BECKEL: I said they are a minority.
GUTFELD: But then you paint them as racist by saying that you seen one crazy sign.
BECKEL: Not one.
GUTFELD: Every -- every group, every faction has a small percentage of wackjobs, including even liberals.
TANTAROS: Well, unless they have tie-dyed T-shirts on, no bras and are carrying a bong, Bob cannot identify with any kind of political activist that doesn't look like this.
BECKEL: You're making me sick.
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: It's working.
TANTAROS: The more that you attack the Tea Party, the stronger that the Tea Party gets. I will say this, though --
BECKEL: They're not getting stronger.
TANTAROS: They were very strong in 2010, you have to give them that.
BECKEL: They were, I give them that.
TANTAROS: And they'll be strong in 2012. And I really think Barack Obama needs an enemy. Bill Clinton, that worked very well for him. He did much better when he had an enemy, because it lets him define himself. I think they need one. They don't have one and the Tea Party seems like an easy target.
GUTFELD: But it's hard to demonize this group of people. You can demonize politician, because that's what you do to politicians. But if it's a group of people who have never actually done anything in politics before, demonizing them, it's not a good strategy.
MONICA CROWLEY, CO-HOST: No, and it doesn't work, especially when you're talking about mainstream America like Tea Party. The Tea Party is not a political party. The Tea Party is a set of ideas. As you just pointed out, Eric, it's about constitutionally-limited government and fiscal responsibility and free markets and a sound dollar. Not exactly radical.
But these folks, take a look like Congresswoman -- what's her name, Wilson and Maxine Waters, they are having a meltdown now because they know their ideology is really under the gun. It's failing and they know that the Tea Party represents an existential threat to their very existence.
BECKEL: They have a -- first of all, this political virgin thing is going a little bit too far.
BOLLING: It's true!
BECKEL: I met the Tea Party people and a lot of them have been in politics a long time.
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: You have to understand something here, so you are clear on this. I may not agree with this. We don't agree with them. They are taking the things we believe in and they're ripping it apart. And so, we're going to take them on.
BOLLING: That is fine. But the vicious attacks. I mean, Shelia Jackson --
BECKEL: What vicious attacks?
BOLLING: Congresswoman Jackson Lee called the Tea Party the Ku Klux Klan without the hoods. There's absolutely no reason. Let's start with that vitriol.
TANTAROS: A lot of liberals actually agree with the Tea Party on some things. For example, war. A lot of members of the Tea Party are not happy about nation building, they're not happy about spending a lot of money over overseas.
Balanced budgets. Barack Obama ran on that. Yes, he didn't do it, but liberals love to talk about fiscal responsibility. Same thing with the Tea Party.
BECKEL: I don't like to talk about it.
(LAUGHTER)
TANTAROS: You like to paint them as socially radical, they're not about that.
BECKEL: I have nothing against these people personally. They're probably very -- the ones that I have met have been very nice. And I know that they care, I know that (INAUDIBLE) but you have to understand, the way they want to go about the budget and other things, I know you want a balanced budget, it goes against the grain of the things that we believe in, and therefore we're going to have a battle. We will have an election, we'll see what happens.
GUTFELD: Bob, you are a fighter. And so, if you go up to a fighter and ask him about the other fighter, you are going to say you're going to want to kill him. That is in your DNA.
BECKEL: Yes, but I don't want to -- I think we need to lower the rhetoric against the Tea Party. I think everybody has to --
GUTFELD: You are apoplectic.
BECKEL: I am. And I want to go beat the hell out of them where we should be doing it, in the electorate.
CROWLEY: So you would want to -- you would want to beat the hell out of the Founding Fathers who designed America to be exactly this.
BECKEL: Oh, please. Please. Those people should have thrown --
CROWLEY: You would want to beat up Thomas Jefferson, Beckel.
BECKEL: Now you're equating the Tea Party -- what they should have done is hung on to the tea boxes when they threw them over.
GUTFELD: I'm going to get you a tri-corn hat, Bob.
BECKEL: You go ahead and try to get me one.
GUTFELD: I am. I'm going to wait till you're asleep, I'm going to fasten it to your head.
BECKEL: I have nothing against these people personally. I just think they do everything that is wrong against everything I believe in.
BOLLING: That's fine, but these are the personal attacks coming from the Democrats.
BECKEL: Yes, but (INAUDIBLE) personal attacks with Barack Obama. You started the show.
GUTFELD: I love it, you have nothing personal against them, but you hate their guts.
BECKEL: I didn't say that!
(CROSSTALK)
GUTFELD: I know, I'm kidding, Bob. I'm kidding.
But I have to go on, I have to move on. And you need to take a breather.
BECKEL: What I need to do is get some cough medicine.
But I'm telling you, he did it. He was a terrorist when he opened the show.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLLING: I attacked Obama's own words.
GUTFELD: Got to roll.
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