This is a rush transcript from "The Five," November 20, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Eric Bolling, along with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Bob Beckel, Dana Perino, and Greg Gutfeld.
It's 5 o'clock in New York City. This is "The Five."
(MUSIC)
BOLLING: ObamaCare rollout day 51 and another day, another passing day. More failures. Today's highlights, IT professionals warned that the Web site is a hacker's dream, your personal info at risk.
In this, at a fund-raiser in Florida last night, Kathleen Sebelius gets nailed as Healthcare.gov crashes just as the secretary smiles for her photo op. The law is falling apart at the seams, folks, and so is the president's approval rating. A new CBS poll says it's at an all-time low, 37 percent.
Maybe dragging you down is Americans' realization that the law is a disaster, 31 percent approval rating on ObamaCare. How many people think the law is working out well? Only 7 percent.
What's the White House make of all of this?
Ed Henry knows.
Ed, any panic there or are they so insulated or arrogant as I put it that they can't even fathom the thought of scratching and starting over?
ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDEN: Well, Eric, I think panic might be a little strong but they're deeply concerned. They're worried. Pick your adjective.
The bottom line is they realize that these poll numbers, the bottom is falling out for the president's approval rating and approval of this law. I mean, if you look at this CBS poll, you already laid out some of the top line numbers. But when you dig a little deeper, the fact that it's something like only 31 percent actually approve of the law. That is a drop of 12 points in one month.
Well, what's happened in the last month? You've had the botched rollout and you had the president's broken promise about, you know, if you like your plan, you'll get to keep it.
So they have been pushing back on all this and they still feel inside the White House, when I talked to top officials, that in the long run this is going to work out. But they know -- they're not fools. They understand they are in a deep hole right now, Eric.
BOLLING: Bobby?
BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Ed, this is Beckel.
HENRY: Yes?
BECKEL: Obama's ratings are extremely low now. I mean, the idea that he can somehow pull this out with his normal charismatic/let me talk my way out of this I think is a little bit difficult. But also, it's fair to say that in the Gallup poll, virtually every president, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton and G.W. Bush, all had ratings lower than Obama does now.
Now, the difference is that this is something that's much bigger than the reasons they had their negatives.
So do they think they're in a political position to actually move things along?
HENRY: Well, they still feel like they're going to get immigration reform down the road, they still think they're going to get the health care fully implemented but there are huge roadblocks now. And now, as you lay that out with the number, I mean, the bottom line is I think they might not say this publicly, but most worrisome for them is when you look at the poll numbers in various national polls about trust in the president as a person and as a president, that's falling as well. And there have been plenty of other crises for this president as there were for Republicans and Democrats as you'd just laid out.
And this president was always going to fall back on, whether it was, you know, the government shutdown, or the debt ceiling crises, we've had a couple of those in the last few years, is one thing he had over the Republicans is that people maybe didn't like his policies, but they still liked him personally. They still trusted him. That's obviously one reason why he won re-election last year.
Now, they're losing trust in him over health care. That is the most dangerous part, I think, for him right now.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Ed, it's Dana.
So you just mentioned that they think they can roll out ObamaCare fully. But given the various definitions, what do they mean by fully? What does that look like?
HENRY: Yes.
PERINO: And when they miss that November 30th deadline, as they have hinted that they will, do you expect some sort of Friday night news, maybe the Friday after Thanksgiving, saying they're pushing this along to the spring?
HENRY: Well, we'll see. I think you're right. There have been plenty of news dumps on Friday nights in this administration and other administrations before. You may have had a couple of those --
PERINO: I had a good one --
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: A news dump?
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: -- on a Friday after Thanksgiving one time. It was a beautiful thing.
(LAUGHTER)
HENRY: Well, look, here's the bottom line. I think, again, I don't want to rely too much on the polls. When you look at the CBS poll that says, what is it, 43 percent say repeal the thing outright, they know that there's not a majority for that right now and that the Republicans are going to keep pushing to defund it, repeal it, et cetera. I think more worrisome is that the CBS poll says 48 percent say change this law.
The president tried to stall last week. He tried to buy more time by doing this executive fix. It's not even clear he really has executive power to delay these cancellation notices by one year. He's got the state insurance commissioners here at the White House at this hour, trying to convince them to go along with this plan. But you know full well, it's not just Republicans any more on the Hill, there are some moderate Democrats as well in the Senate, in the House, demanding changes to this law.
So, to answer your question what's going to happen, I still don't think the law is going to be repealed. So, it's not going to be fully implemented as you asked, but are there going to be real substantive changes to this law? I think that's becoming more and more likely when you have this Democratic pressure on the president.
KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE, CO-HOST: Ed, hi. It's Kimberly. Realistically what do you think they're most afraid of, most fearful? They have had a series of bad news events coming one after the next, but tonight what are they thinking about and tomorrow morning what are they bracing themselves for?
HENRY: Well, to be honest, senior officials here in the White House who have heard all of us say before his presidency is done, he's a lame duck. Pick your story, whether it was the NSA, whether it was Benghazi, whether it was Syria, and having to, you know, backpedal and go to congress and it goes down. You know, the vote was looking like it was going down, so then he says, OK, don't vote, let me talk to the American people instead.
They kind of laugh off the idea that his presidency is over because they insist that we've sort of, you know, written the obituary before. The problem is, number one, he's further along in his presidency, about to begin his second year of the second term. So, time is finally running out, number one.
And number two, what I mentioned about people not just being upset about the health care law but finally connecting it to the president and losing some trust in him, that makes it that much harder. What they're really fearful of is not just being unable to fully implement the health care law, but that he's not going to get anything else in his second term - - immigration reform, a grand bargain budget deal. All of that is on the back burner to say the least.
GUTFELD: Hey, Ed. How's it going?
HENRY: Good to see you.
GUTFELD: So Obama's numbers are plunging faster than a plumber on meth. I've heard a rumor --
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: I've heard a rumor that, and I want you to verify this, that they are going to rebrand ObamaCare as an unmitigated disaster. Therefore, it's a huge success.
HENRY: So lower expectations --
GUTFELD: They have lowered expectations to a point that you need a shovel to find them. What I don't understand, to the 7 percent that are saying this law is working well, is this the same people that invented in Elestra (ph)? Where did they find this 7 percent?
HENRY: Look, you know, this is probably not going fully answer your question because I --
GUTFELD: It wasn't really a question, Ed.
HENRY: I don't fully understand your question or statement or whatever it was.
BECKEL: Not many people do, Ed. Sorry.
GUTFELD: I was just spewing nonsense.
HENRY: I'm not sure that many viewers understand it. But, you know, needless to say, I think in all seriousness that the real problem for him is just simply that expectations could not be any lower right now, because you're joking about lowering expectations. He's hit rock bottom on this law and so there's only one way to go, up.
BOLLING: Ed, talk about that news I mentioned in the beginning, that intro in there. The IT professionals saying that the Web site was only 60 percent functional when they decided to flip the switch and go, and the 40 percent that wasn't functional was the pay part. I mean, they've got to be shaking their heads in the briefing room thinking, how do we defend this thing anymore?
And then, Kathleen Sebelius if it wasn't a perfect timing photo-op moment, the thing goes down as she's smiling for the cameras. How do they defend this stuff?
HENRY: Well, I think on the payment plan, you're absolutely right. I think it seems bizarre that they would move forward with everything when 30 percent or 40 percent of it is not fully built right now, it's the payment part. So, Jay Carney was asked yesterday by one of my colleagues. So, what if people want to take advantage of the tax credits and actually enroll by the end of the month and the payment part is not ready? So, do they not enroll or is it not ready for primetime?
In addition to actually just fixing the Web site's glitches and everything, if this payment system is not built in the next few weeks or at least by the end of the year, before January 1st coverage begins, that's another huge problem.
Look, the broader point I do have to make in fairness to the White House, that they still insist that they're going to get past the Web site problems and past what you're raising, as Kathleen Sebelius' photo-ops and the like, and that millions more people are going to be covered with insurance and that a lot of people in this country are going to see their premiums come down. The problems for them right now --
GUTFELD: There are two things wrong, though. Nobody opens --
HENRY: Between now and then, it's a lot to get from here to there.
GUTFELD: Nobody opens a restaurant without first installing a cash register. And this again illustrates why government does not know how the free market works and should stay out of it.
When her Web site broke down, do you know what she said? She said this happens every day. Shouldn't that tell you something, that you're an incompetent boob if every time you try to do, something it breaks down?
BOLLING: Yes. It kind of also tells you that we're the beta testing for a $4 trillion expansion in --
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: Let me ask you a question here. The most serious number in the poll I think is the trust factor for Obama.
Now, there are a lot of Democrats who would like to have a bill to vote on, not just take the executive action but have a bill to vote on to delay this for a year or extend your current policy. The question I've got is don't they worry about putting a bill like that on the floor and opening it up for all kinds of changes?
HENRY: Sure, but I think there are Democrats like Mary Landrieu who has one of the bills you're talking about who's facing a very restless electorate in Louisiana, a state not too kind to this president. And there's Mark Pryor in Arkansas, which he'll have even less votes for this president and they're facing the voters. The president is no longer facing the voters.
So, they're going to want to put something on the Senate floor to deal with this because it seemed to be that there are many Democrats who think that the president's executive fix is not enough and that's why, you're point out -- the president doesn't want that bill on the floor because once they start pulling the strings on this suit, they think it's going to come apart.
BOLLING: A couple of quick ones, Ed. Kimberly, first.
GUILFOYLE: Yes, I want to touch back on this issue because I think it's important about Democrats and whether or not they're going to continue to jump ship. They're taking a lot of collateral damage, direct hits because of their association with the president, because of the failure of this health care law, just as "The Hill" is reporting that some of them are seething with anger, that he's never had a worse relationship with the party.
What do you think?
HENRY: Well, I think that the president may regret that there were a lot of relationships on Capitol Hill that he didn't build in the months and years when he was far more popular that he might have seeded them then and they would be growing into the kind of thing where he has some friends on the Hill who can help bail him out in a time of need like now. Now, they also scoff at that here at the White House because they say that they have had a determined Republican opposition at every turn, no matter what kind of Democratic friends they have up there, the Republicans will try to tear this law apart.
And they still believe when they get past these health care -- the Web site problems, et cetera, that come a year from now, voters might look at this on balance and say that the president was standing up to giving millions more insurance while the Republicans didn't have an alternate plan, and that is a fair question to raise if the Republicans want to tear this down, what are they going to do instead? There is an issue to deal with and they haven't really put together some broad-based alternative.
PERINO: Very quick question, Ed. What are you hearing about your Christmas plans? Are you heading to Hawaii for two weeks with the president?
HENRY: Yes, there are rumors -- there are rumors of a Hawaii trip, but I think I've been there many times and I'm tired of breaking out the Bermuda shorts, but I'd be more than happy to give them to Eric --
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: If you need spray tan, we can help you out.
BOLLING: Yes.
GUTFELD: Hey, Ed -- Ed, when you're there, look for Greg Brady's Tiki doll.
BOLLING: That's right.
GUILFOYLE: Oh, my God. It's been missing.
BOLLING: That's where he lost it, 100 percent right.
HENRY: That could be the missing piece to this whole puzzle.
GUTFELD: So, I've heard.
BOLLING: All right. Ed Henry, thank you for hanging out with us for 12 minutes or so this evening.
HENRY: Good to se you, guys.
BOLLING: All right. Ahead, it's a vicious game and gangs of teens across the country are playing it. It's called knockout and they're hurting innocent, unsuspecting victims. We'll tell you a story you probably won't hear anywhere else but FOX.
And also, it's been almost 50 years since JFK was assassinated. Would he be welcome in today's Democrat Party? Coming up on "The Five".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUILFOYLE: That's a good one, but this is in, because there's a little known provision tucked away in ObamaCare -- aren't they all? -- that would allow insurance companies to receive a government bailout if they experience unexpected charges under the law. Do Americans really want to give another blank check to the administration?
Well, Senator Marco Rubio sure doesn't and he explains why this bailout might be worse than some others.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: This bailout would be every year because these plans don't just need a one year bailout. They're going to need an ongoing bailout. So this is not -- unlike the other bailout --
BILL O'REILLY, FOX NEWS: I thought it was a three-year threshold.
RUBIO: Every year for those three years --
O'REILLY: Yes, it's three years.
RUBIO: -- over a period of time, it's going to be rolling. I mean, this thing is not going to go away. The bailouts happen one time, they weren't good but this one actually is over a period of years. So, again, look, this law cannot be saved. It will be have to be repealed.
And the question is how long will it take for Democrats to realize that and cooperate in that endeavor? So far, I think, at the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, they're still being very stubborn about it but my prediction is check back in eight weeks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUILFOYLE: All right. That's a pretty strong prediction there from Senator Marco Rubio. Eight weeks and we might see a difference in some of the support that the president has been enjoying from some of his staunchest supporters, Eric.
You mentioned in the A-block, how about scrapping it? You can't fix it. Like we talked about earlier in the show when we first talk about ObamaCare that, you know, you can't replace good code on top of bad code and expect a different result, hence the Sebelius crashes, one after the next.
BOLLING: Yes. And not only that, this -- what Marco Rubio was talking about, we kind of highlight over the last few days, it's called risk corridors, we didn't even know it was in the bill, in the law, where the ObamaCare forces insurers to insurer people who are high-risk individuals at the same rate that they would people who are low risk.
For that risk that they incur, they're going to bail them out on the back side, but we don't know how much it's going to be. The CBO has to score it. When they scored ObamaCare at $893 billion, which is now $1.8 trillion, that wasn't included. This could be billions, tens of billions, more, we don't know. But that's a price tag we don't know what's going to end up being. When we find that out, who knows, maybe more Democrats are going to jump ship.
BECKEL: You know what's amazing to me, the people that wrote this bill, Democrats specifically, nobody saw any of this? I mean, you would think that --
PERINO: You had to pass it in order to find out what was in it.
BECKEL: No, no, but seriously, the people who drafted it in the committees, why they didn't stop and say, you know, this is a potentially long-term problem politically and talk to Obama about it, I just -- I mean, wonder how much of this you can blame on them.
GUILFOYLE: They do care?
BOLLING: But I can just -- can I point something out? Have you read this bill?
BECKEL: No.
BOLLING: I probably read 300 or 400 pages of this. It's like 2,700, I believe. It's legalese, every single page of that thing. There is probably 20 more of these risk corridors in there that we don't know about. It's that confusing.
GUILFOYLE: Well, that was in our script, because we're on top of it, Greg.
GUTFELD: You know what it is? It's like an acid trip.
GUILFOYLE: OK.
GUTFELD: You know people used to take acid, they never knew how it was going to turn out? That's exactly what this was and this is a really, really bad trip.
GUILFOYLE: The costly one, too.
GUTFELD: Yes. But Rubio is right, you can't un-collapse a souffle. It's done, you've got to throw the whole thing out. You've got to start over.
There's a very simple tip. Hire people that actually know the industry. Don't hire a community organizer to do a president's job. Likewise, don't use people who don't practice on patients, who sit in the office and push paper. They don't know anything about this.
You need people that deal with real patients that know what's going on in the medical world to make these decisions. That's the problem.
The other issue is, I mean, what's forgotten here is the economy. It's still there and it's still bad.
President Obama promised us a robust economy and he forgot the "ro" part.
GUILFOYLE: And the bust.
BECKEL: I think the chance of changing this bill substantially or scraping it are virtually nonexistent. The question is, is there enough you could put into it to make it palatable for the elections?
GUILFOYLE: Well, and is there enough in it that's so damaging that we can survive through another administration to fix this?
BECKEL: The damaging thing -- we'll find out. If you're right about this, then I think it does -- it's going to be terribly costly for the Democrats. If you're wrong, then it won't be.
PERINO: I have a question. Where's Occupy Wall Street? This is a corporate bailout. Corporate bailout of big insurance companies that apparently the Democrats hate, so where's the protest?
BECKEL: Greg and Eric drove them away.
GUILFOYLE: Well, we know they're not showering, that's for sure. But one man who does and knows a lot about this is Bill O'Reilly. So we're talking about a weakened president. Touched a little on what Greg was just saying and references the economy.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: When a president shows weakness, his administration comes under siege. All kinds of things emerge. There's more chaos and the horizon and every American will feel it.
We are a country that depends on a robust economy. We don't have one.
President Obama vowed to make national health insurance mandates work. So far, the new law is a disaster.
Again, when a president becomes weakened, people take advantage, both within the country and abroad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLLING: I can't believe you're stealing O'Reilly material.
GUILFOYLE: O'Reilly reading your mind, is that what you're saying?
GUTFELD: We have this special mind meld.
But you know what? I don't think President Obama minds that he's perceived as weak over this, because he was always about shrinking the American ideal into some kind of European state, but he's bored with this. Remember, the presidency was in a sense given to him, he didn't earn it.
GUILFOYLE: You're right.
GUTFELD: It's like he's tired of this sports car and he's already stripped its gears and he wants to move on to something else, maybe a BMW.
GUILFOYLE: Well, lucky for us, the lease will be up soon and we can get something that might work -- Bob.
BECKEL: Dana, did you want to say something?
PERINO: Well, I was going to say, if you were looking practically, how could -- when Senator Rubio says check back in eight weeks, well, what happens in about eight weeks is the budget negotiations, the government has to be funded again. Remember, we go through this in September with the shutdown and all that.
They kicked it to January 15th. I would imagine that there's going to be some significant changes to ObamaCare and it will be in that bill because it will be the only one that Senator Harry Reid will have to move.
BOLLING: Can we just point out the --
PERINO: Irony?
BOLLING: The irony of that, that Ted Cruz tried to do that how many weeks ago.
BECKEL: It's actually four weeks for the budget issue. January is the debt ceiling, I think. But in any event, you're right. It may be the only vehicle to do it on. But the one thing I will say, as I read to you. A lot of presidents have had lower ratings than Obama. The difference is, they had one single or two single things going like the Iraq war which a lot of people didn't much care about, I mean, unless you had somebody over there.
So, it wasn't something that affect -- the one thing about health care is, it universally affects people and that's really the problem here.
GUILFOYLE: Well, I think the problem is, there's been a number of missteps and failures in his administration which put him in a weakened position that allowed this slide to happen very easily.
PERINO: And just wait until January when people find out that the doctors that they have liked, that they have come to know, that they've gone to for years aren't included in the plans that they selected because that doesn't happen until January. So, you're not going to be able to keep your doctor.
GUILFOYLE: Those doctors you worked a special relationship with, where you have their personal cell phone numbers, you can text them at all hours of the day and night?
BOLLING: I don't have that.
BECKEL: Well, there's policies out there that cover 90 --
PERINO: Only Bob has that.
BECKEL: -- 80 percent or 90 percent of the doctors that are practicing.
GUILFOYLE: We'll see, Bob.
Directly ahead, there's a deadly new pass time for some African- American teens nationwide and you're probably not going to hear about it from the mainstream media. It's called the "Knockout Game". But it's not a game, it's a crime. Details next on "The Five".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: So there's a disturbing trend where young thugs sneak up on pedestrians and hit them as hard as they can. It's like a lottery, except the winner gets a coma. Although not organized, it's likely a gang initiation thing, which may be why it's unreported. It makes the mainstream media uncomfortable, unlike the Zimmerman case where the victim and the villain fit the media's assumptions.
For the rest of us, though, the "Knockout Game" reflects the careless brutality of modern crime. Even as America becomes safer, the remaining criminals are colder in their carnage. The delight and decay is mirrored in pop culture. The essence of cool, after all, is detachment -- the ability to exact horror without feeling a thing. That makes you a man, or at least the star in a Harvey Weinstein film.
Worse, you're entitled to feel resentment which drives victim status as you victimize others.
So, while I wouldn't say the "Knockout Game" is spreading like a violent take on the Macarena, it's a by-product of modern ideological warfare that stokes the flames of resentment. Violence now becomes another entitlement.
But why shouldn't our moral decline have consequences? We mock proven values and laugh at traditions as we denigrate people with dull jobs. We abandon commitment in favor of desertion and turn cities in amoral vacuums. Children return to empty homes where from a glowing screen, Kim Kardashian shows them what they don't have.
It's hell in a hand basket with a high-speed connection.
GUILFOYLE: Oh, my gosh, you seem so innocent and vulnerable when you're sick.
GUTFELD: I know, I was having a hard time. Whew. What are we talking about?
GUILFOYLE: "Knockout Game".
GUTFELD: Knockout.
Hey, bob. What do you think of this? Do you believe it's a trend?
BECKEL: I think it's a trend. I think it's outrageous. I think these kids ought to be prosecuted to the extent of the law.
And here's the thing -- I don't believe it's ideological at all. I know you want to get that in there.
But here's the thing that drives me crazy. If there was ever an opportunity for Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and others to speak out, it's on this.
I mean, come on! This is the worst, most cowardly, disgraceful, disgusting form of barbarism I've ever seen. Lock them up and make no exceptions. Lock them up!
BOLLING: Yes. Can I throw something out here too? It really -- I'm not going the ideological route. I'm not sure we know exactly who's doing it. It could be whites, it could be blacks. We're not really sure. It could be gangs. I don't know.
GUTFELD: It's gangs.
BOLLING: I will tell you, though -- OK. But there is one little tweak to what's going on now.
What they're doing now is they're targeting. They're targeting Jews now. They knock out Jew -- knock a Jew out game. Knock a woman out game.
This -- they should be prosecuted with hate crime status.
GUILFOYLE: Exactly.
BECKEL: Absolutely.
GUILFOYLE: But where's the courage? Where's the courage of the mainstream media to cover this, to call it what it is, to tell it like it is, to be responsible because there's innocent victims being targeted. Prosecutors should be doing press conferences on this, so should the police department, heightening awareness, and they're not doing it. It is sad and it is unforgivable.
BECKEL: What about prosecutors. I mean, it seems to me they're on the stick there. Why don't they go out and prosecute --
GUILFOYLE: They can't go out on the street to arrest them, but there should be an investigation. There's so much on social media that is a rich resource for cops and D.A.s to find out and use the public to identify these public. Call on people to have courage and punish these people that are in your community hurting people, preying on innocents. This is terrible.
I speak for the stop (ph), too. One big case with a tremendous amount of penalty and punishment, jail time and they'll stop this.
GUTFELD: Dana, you tried to instigate a knockout punch --
PERINO: At the playground.
GUTFELD: Yes, but you kept hitting people in the hip.
GUILFOYLE: If the races were reversed, would this be a bigger story?
PERINO: If the races were reverse, do you think that the BBC reporter would have asked Oprah about it?
GUTFELD: Yes. Yes.
PERINO: To defend the media or just ask a question, raise a question here. So, we talk -- in mass murders that we've seen in the mass shootings at the schools, one of the things we've talked about is should the media even give them any attention because that's what they crave.
Is the media right maybe to not blow this out of proportion because it would give it more attention and then you'd see more of this type of crime? I actually am for the media covering that, but just throwing that out there.
GUTFELD: Yes, it's a good point.
BOLLING: I think the more you see it, what you're creating is awareness.
PERINO: I can't even watch this, it's so upsetting.
BOLLING: It's concerning, but I have a hunch that a lot of people may be seeing this for the very first time, what actually goes on. They're coming up behind people.
PERINO: To be aware of this.
GUILFOYLE: We want to be aware. Yes.
BOLLING: No, no, they can be aware --
GUILFOYLE: I agree. That's my point. I agree with you --
BOLLING: But also be aware if you see it or know someone who's done it, report them.
BECKEL: Your point about hate crimes. Don't hate crimes carry much heavier penalties than --
GUILFOYLE: They do, Bob.
PERINO: Crime is crime.
BECKEL: No, I just want something that gets them the longest sentence possible. That's my point.
GUTFELD: All right. We've got to go.
Coming up, George W. Bush resurfaces on "The Tonight Show", and apparently he doesn't mind retirement at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY LENO, THE TONIGHT SHOW: President Obama is kind of getting all the late-night jokes now.
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT: Better him than me.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Pretty funny.
Dana has the rest of the highlights, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PERINO: The only thing that has woken Greg up today is the country music.
GUTFELD: Why do I have to sing like this?
PERINO: Because it's popular.
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: All right. Since President Bush 43 left office, he's chosen not to talk policy or politics, but Jay Leno tried his best last night to get him to bite when he brought up the president's recent health scare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LENO: When the president had that heart scare, how scary was that?
LAURA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY: It was scary. It was very scary. But --
G.W. BUSH: I wasn't that scared.
(LAUGHTER)
LENO: Was it -- you had Obama care?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: So he didn't talk about ObamaCare but he talked about how he dealt with some of the pressures of the office and how much he thinks about his legacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
G.W. BUSH: First and foremost, I relied upon my faith. My family helped a lot and had a good team around me. And did the best I could do.
I'm also very comfortable with the fact that it's going to take a while for history to judge whether the decisions I made are consequential or not.
LENO: Right.
G.W. BUSH: And therefore, I'm not too worried about it. As I read some biographies of Washington, my attitude is, if they're still writing biographies of the first guy, the 43rd guy doesn't need to worry about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: All right. Kimberly, genuine, sincere and even when he could have taken some shots at the sitting president he chose not to. What do you think of that?
GUILFOYLE: Class act. I think he's number one -- maybe tied with his father for just really setting the tone and the standard of what a former president should do and how to behave and always being gracious. I think his behavior, you know, since he was president has been exemplary. He's been really kind, I think, to the president.
PERINO: Democrats actually -- they do talk about this as the one thing they can say, at least they can all agree that President Bush has been a gracious ex-president.
BECKEL: One of the things about presidents is it always seems ex- presidents do much better in many ways than they do when they're in office when they're freed up from the pressures like that. I know a lot of you don't like Jimmy Carter, but Jimmy Carter as an ex-president did a lot of good things with homeless, with diseases eradication.
George Bush has been magnificent. He's kept up his work on AIDS in Africa.
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
And I think his tenor and demeanor was excellent. And frankly, he did avoid taking a shot at Obama. If there was ever a time he could get away with it, now is that.
PERINO: And he didn't take it.
You love dogs, Eric Bolling, President Bush loves dogs and President Putin doesn't love dogs. Listen to this story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LENO: Favorite Barney story?
G.W. BUSH: Well, there's a lot.
I introduced Barney to Putin.
LENO: OK.
G.W. BUSH: And he kind of dissed him.
LENO: Really?
G.W. BUSH: Yes, it was like you call that a dog? A year later --
LENO: You call that a dog?
G.W. BUSH: Well, he didn't say it -- his body language was he's not really a dog. And, of course, that's a dog, you know? And I love the guy.
And so, a year later, Putin introduces me to his dog, and a huge hound, pounding across the lawn. And he says, "Bigger, stronger and faster than Barney."
LENO: Wow. You should have nuked him. That's what I would have done.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANTAROS: How important is it, Greg, for conservatives to start thinking about going on some of these shows where they can show their personality? How much do you think that helps in the future?
GUTFELD: I guess it does. Let's face it, it's been six years so there's been a lot of space for people to miss the president.
I will say this, the best thing that Jimmy Carter did after being president was not be president. That's why he was such a great ex- president.
But I want to make a point, my mom always said don't be first or last on anything. And that's why he's right about like don't worry, he was not the first president and he's not the last president and he didn't take a sixth of the economy and destroy it.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLLING: Yes.
PERINO: Yes, go ahead.
BOLLING: Can I throw something in real quick? I'm listening to this interview this morning on fox various TV networks and thinking what's President Obama going to do after he's president? I don't want to make this about Obama.
PERINO: He'll be very young.
BOLLING: He'll be young. Will he run for office? Will he be governor somewhere?
GUTFELD: President of the world.
PERINO: U.N. president?
BOLLING: It strikes me as he's the kind of guy who loves being leader of something.
BECKEL: Secretary general of the U.N., you watch.
PERINO: Maybe President Clinton -- perhaps President Clinton has provided a model where you do a little bit of business and a lot of good around the world or something.
GUTFELD: King of Epcot Center.
BECKEL: Can I just make one thing in defense of my old president is that Jimmy Carter did help build a lot of homes for a lot of people and eradicated two diseases in Africa that saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: Built a lot of homes, but a lot of people needed homes because of the economy he destroyed during his presidency.
PERINO: Let's end this -- we're going to end this on a positive note, OK. So, President Bush decided to take up painting after he left. Last night, he gave Jay Leno this painting. A portrait of Jay Leno. It's interesting. Jay Leno was wearing the same outfit.
GUILFOYLE: He's really good.
PERINO: Incredible. I don't know if President Bush did that in the green room or what.
GUTFELD: It's like a photograph.
GUILFOYLE: He's a really good parent. Remember he painted Jasper?
PERINO: Yes.
BECKEL: Do you have to say that?
PERINO: Yes, Jasper, Jasper, Jasper, just for you, Bob.
All right. I love --
GUTFELD: You say that three times, Satan appears.
PERINO: I could watch that interview every day.
All right. Ahead on "The Five": Today, President Obama and members of the Kennedy family visited the gravesite of JFK nearly 50 years after his assassination. We're going to show you that and discuss it as well.
We're also going to talk about whether JFK would feel at home in today's Democratic Party. That's when "The Five" returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), FORMER SENATOR OF MASSACHUSETTS: There was another time when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier. My friends, I ask you to join in this historic journey to have the courage to choose change. It's time again for a new generation of leadership. It is time now for Barack Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECKEL: That was the late and great Teddy Kennedy recalling the promises of his brother's leadership and bestowing the same trust in then- junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
Earlier that former senator-turned-president visited the gravesite of JFK. He laid a wreath at Arlington in memory of JFK two days before the 50th anniversary of his assassination.
Some people have asked whether Ronald Reagan would fit in today's Republican Party, and the same question can be asked about President Kennedy. Would he fit in today's Democratic Party.
Dana, one of the reasons that's been raised is because Kennedy cut taxes from 90 percent down to 65 percent and marginal tax rates were brought down, which is something the Democrats are not -- well, not necessarily known for doing today. But it was a different time; it was a different economy; it was a different, very optimistic country.
PERINO: Right. So facts and circumstances basically determine a lot of this.
Yesterday we asked the question about in the Gettysburg Address when it comes to Abraham Lincoln, they asked a bunch of kids did they know whether he was Republican or Democrat. They didn't have any idea.
I don't think anybody has any misunderstanding that JFK was a Democrat because the Democrats have basically put him up as their martyr and their hero for many years. He was only president for 1,000 days. Not a lot of time to make a big impact.
As President Bush just said, if you're the 43rd president or if you're the 38th president, you don't know what your legacy is going to be like. Obviously, we're spending a lot of time talking about it this week because it's the 50th anniversary. But in 50 years from now, I don't know what -- I don't know what people will say about the legacy.
BECKEL: You know, Kimberly, JFK was not known as aggressive on civil rights. In fact he was very careful about it, because he was trying to get votes in the south for re-election, had he lived that long. Lyndon Johnson was the one that actually put through the major civil rights legislation.
Do you think part of that is the reason that some people question whether Kennedy would be acceptable in today's Democratic Party?
GUILFOYLE: One of the reasons why I think he perhaps wouldn't be acceptable in today's Democratic Party is because he transcended politics. I mean he was, yes, a consummate politician, but he was a man of class, and a man of character. I think he's one of the greatest presidents that we ever had. And I think the current -- both parties, in some respects, could learn a lot from how he conducted and handled himself. And I feel the same way about Reagan, but Reagan was one of the greatest presidents for those same reasons.
BECKEL: Greg, the mainstream media that you keep saying gives Obama breaks certainly gave Kennedy a break in a lot of personal things that he probably today would not get away with. Do you think that he could have survived real scrutiny?
GUTFELD: Well, Clinton did, obviously. And the other thing that would make a problem for Kennedy: he was pro-life. And that's almost unheard of on the left side.
But this is a first, I think, for a TV show to actually make this question -- to serve this question up. Because the media never questions the leftward tilt of a Democratic candidate, because you can never be too liberal. The New York Times editorial board or if it's Salon or it's at Slate, MSNBC. To them, Obama's failure is that he wasn't liberal enough, or else, Obama care would have worked. He just didn't go far enough.
If Bill Ayers ran for president, 75 percent of the media would vote for him.
BECKEL: I left Eric last for this reason. Kennedy was in the middle of -- Kennedy was in the middle of the Cold War, came off the fiasco with the Bay of Pigs. And there was a lot of things about his foreign policy that people questioned, whether he had the leadership to do it. What do you think?
BOLLING: I think that you left out one of the most important reasons why he probably wouldn't be as welcome in the Democrat Party. It's because he was for lower taxes. That's...
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
BECKEL: That's what I said (ph). I said that.
BOLLING: I didn't hear that part, because I was probably not paying attention. Listening to that bloviating guy who, you know, has long since passed, however -- I couldn't stand him either, Kennedy's brother.
So the point is, lower taxes. I didn't know he was pro-life.
GUILFOYLE: Catholic. Catholic.
BOLLING: All Catholics aren't pro-life. Doesn't mean -- but anyway, long story short...
GUILFOYLE: But he was a devoted Catholic.
BOLLING: ... I would say he would probably not be welcomed with open arms by the Bill Mahers and the Michael Moores and the rest of the left- wing.
GUILFOYLE: He wouldn't be liberal enough.
BOLLING: Wouldn't be liberal enough.
Can I just point something out? Yesterday, we touched -- you touched on it. Gettysburg, yesterday, 150th anniversary of it. President Obama doesn't go -- doesn't go to the anniversary of that and says he blames the Web site thing. He had a lot of Web site stuff going on back. I mean, come on.
BECKEL: I think that was a real mistake. That was an opportunity lost.
PERINO: Going -- I'm going to ask you...
BECKEL: You're going to ask me a question?
PERINO: I'm going to ask you if JFK would have been president if it hadn't been for television?
BECKEL: No, he would not have, I think.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLLING: All right, time for "One More Thing." Robert G. Beckel kicking us off.
BECKEL: Republican freshman Congressman Trey Radel from Florida was arrested for cocaine charges and is now undergoing treatment in outpatient treatment and will go to the in-patient treatment. He is, as I said, a freshman, but the Florida Democratic Party decided to call him -- they called him an embarrassment to Florida and that he should resign.
Let me say just something to all of you Democrats who want to make -- take advantage of this: This guy has a disease. It's a serious disease. Give him a break. He said he hit bottom. He recognized the problem. He's now going to try to get himself well. What he doesn't need is a bunch of people from the outside who know nothing about this disease making politics out of this. I'm always a partisan. You know that. But in this case, this guy deserves a break.
PERINO: It's like a real-life "House of Cards." That story line with the Congressman...
GUILFOYLE: Well stated, Bob. As always.
BOLLING: You're up, K.G.
GUILFOYLE: All right. So have a nice thing here from Esquire magazine. My ex-husband, Eric Villency. This is Ronan's dad. You've heard me talk a lot about him. All right, Bob. My second husband, two out of two. OK.
BECKEL: Two out of five.
GUILFOYLE: That's Eric Villency. You can check his designs out on Villency.com. He's in this month's Esquire. And it's called "The New Rules of Winter Style." So it might be really nice for you to put that on.
BOLLING: That's what you're going to get (ph)?
GUILFOYLE: Yes.
BECKEL: Where did the other three go to?
BOLLING: That's cold.
GUTFELD: So Esquire is still being published? That's great.
BOLLING: I'm just ripping on you.
PERINO: All right. One of our favorite Web sites, Real Clear Politics, they have a new feature called "Morning Commute," where they pick somebody randomly, usually someone from politics, and they drive them around and they just talk with them during a commute. I had a chance to tell them one of my secrets from the White House. And here's a clip from it. You can check it at Real Clear Politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: What I loved about President Bush was his management ability to understand his people, and to utilize his people and make sure that they were at their best. He understood me better than I knew myself at the time. Because as I'm walking out, he says, "Hey, by the way, I don't think you'd ever do this to me." I went -- and he nailed it. Because that's what I was worried about, was my relationship with him being affected by a book that was written by an insider.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Could you imagine driving and having somebody talk like that while you're driving, just like that, giving you a story?
BOLLING: Jasper is, like, falling asleep.
PERINO: And they're going to have more clips, and there's a hilarious one that involves Jasper.
BOLLING: Looking out the back?
PERINO: NO. There's more. There's more to come from Real Clear Politics "Morning Commute."
GUILFOYLE: Taco Thursday. Taco Thursday.
PERINO: Yes. Taco Thursday is another secret.
BOLLING: Taco Thursday. You're up.
GUTFELD: All right, it's day two. Of the preorder of "Not Cool." You know what bothers me? I went to Amazon and I saw that Kilmeade, O'Reilly, Krauthammer, they're all in the top ten, and their books are out. My book isn't out, but let's -- let's get in there without even having a book out there. Preorder it now. Amazon.
BECKEL: Get out there and do. If you don't do it, we're going to kill you, because we're going to advertise this every day for the next four months.
BOLLING: You know what? We should until he's No. 1 and O'Reilly is No. 2.
GUTFELD: Yes. Yes. Yes.
BOLLING: I'm all for that. I'm for that, too.
GUILFOYLE: This show is vicious.
BOLLING: Very quickly, a couple of charts I want -- we made. Tommy, Nina and myself went through graphics today and put these together. Pull up the first chart. This is how many people have enrolled in Obama care.
BECKEL: Oh, God.
BOLLING: Those two -- those two in the middle represent 108,000 people who have enrolled. Now let's show how many people who have been thrown off their health insurance. This is to scale, folks. That's how many people have been thrown off. Can you toggle back to the other one very quickly?
BECKEL: I hope you're one of them.
BOLLING: Toggle back. There's the enrollment. Toggle to the front one again. Go back to the front one.
BECKEL: There it is.
GUTFELD: All white people.
BECKEL: Are you that one up there?
GUILFOYLE: Oh, my God. Bolling, what have you done? Terrible.
BOLLING: All right.
GUTFELD: It's racist.
BOLLING: Do me a favor, folks. Before we go, go to your DVR, put "The Five" in. Type it in there. Don't ever miss an episode of "The Five."
GUILFOYLE: You see why?
BOLLING: We're with you every single night here.
Content and Programming Copyright 2013 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2013 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox