This is a rush transcript from “The Ingraham Angle,” April 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I’m Laura Ingraham, and this is The Ingraham Angle. We have a very fun show for you this Friday night. Now, the press must have watched a completely different Biden address earlier in the week, you’re going to be shocked by their reactions to it, the most extreme and the most inane, we’re going to bring you the worst in media. Plus, it’s the return of our mystery guest’s series. Here’s your first clue.
Now this particular person just recently received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The big reveal later in the hour, and an update on the White House’s most dangerous resident, Raymond Arroyo has that all in Friday Follies. But first, the go-getters versus the gloom gang. That’s the focus of tonight’s angle.
Over the past 24 hours, we’ve been just overwhelmed by your response to our red state trailblazers townhall in Orlando last night. Now we had five GOP governors who joined us for a wide-ranging conversation about how they’ve grown their economies, how they’ve protected individual freedoms, and how they’ve beaten back the radical Leftist dominating the Democratic Party.
Now, none of them had waited for Washington’s permission to open their businesses or lift their mask mandates or frankly get their students back in the classroom. And none of them are cowed by the woke mob BLM or the gender fluidity crowd. They’re all happy warriors.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREG ABBOTT (R) TEXAS GOVERNOR: One thing all the CEOs told me, they could not operate in California, they came to the state of Texas because they knew it was great for their employees, great for their workers, great for the staff, but great for their vision of what they wanted to achieve as a business.
KIM REYNOLDS (R) IOWA GOVERNOR: We just need to encourage people to step up, do the right thing, and fight back. It’s worth fighting to fight back.
RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA GOVERNOR: But we’re fighting back in Florida. So, I’m going to get bills passed, I’m going to sign a bill that will hold Big Tech accountable, it will allow you to sue Big Tech if they censor you or de-platform you and also provides protections for political candidate’s speech.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now contrast that with the Democrats very dark vision of America.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tonight, I come to talk about crisis, the worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.
Nice cars lined up for miles, waiting for a box of food to be put in their trunk.
More than 400,000 schools and childcare centers have pipes with lead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Wow. So, uplifting. It’s shocking that more people didn’t tune in for such an inspiring message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We have to come together to root out systemic racism in our criminal justice system. We have a real chance to root out systemic racism, plagues American, the American lives in other ways.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Plagues American Life? The governors of Florida and Texas two of our most diverse states beg to differ.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS: That’s a bunch of horse manure. I mean, give me a break. This country has had more opportunity for more people than any country in the history of the world. And it doesn’t matter where you trace your ancestry from.
ABBOTT: Use race to divide and then attack each other and is wrong. Texas is a land of opportunity for absolutely everybody and we want to unite everybody, not divide people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Today’s Democratic Party is so Left, it’s Left America. It tolerates mass illegal immigration, it coddles criminals, looters, rioters, and it seeks to silence any and all opposition from law abiding citizens. Just look at what they did to Senator Tim Scott on Twitter this week. I guess they thought they were being cute with their uncle Tim hashtag. But really what they did is they just revealed once again, how sick, twisted and anti-American they become.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TATE REEVES (R-MS): It seems like the many people in the Democrat party and it’s not just the Far Left, as many people, the Democrat Party are putting down America day in and day out. It’s almost as if they want to act as if there is not this thing called the American dream. And they are absolutely wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: The truth is today’s Democrats despise our political system. They hate the way most Americans live, and they revile our history and our traditions. So, when Biden talks about creating opportunity, he’s just talking about the opportunity for big government to grow bigger by taking more of your money and more of your freedoms. But for the GOP governor’s opportunity means job creation and the private sector one It’s freed from the heavy yoke and high taxes and endless red tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBOTT: Texas ranks number one in the nation for black owned business job creation, for black women owned business job creation, for Hispanic owned business job creation, for Hispanic entrepreneurs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And in order to become job creators and entrepreneurs that Governor Abbott was talking about, well, kids have to be in school, they have to be learning, they have to be playing sports having a normal life. Americans also just need to be together not shut away from one another. At least that’s what the Republicans fought for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. PETE RICKETTS (R-NE): President Biden got on the air and said, we want everybody to be playing sports again. And like we were doing that last summer.
INGRAHAM: What is he talking–
RICKETTS: We gathered in Fourth of July; we were doing that last summer too. He completely out of touch with what’s going on in our states, he does not know what’s going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: We warned you a year ago that Democrats would seek to use the pandemic, to keep us in a continual crisis mode. Then, of course, that crisis of the pandemic just folds into the next crisis. This systemic racism crisis, the climate crisis. Hawaii just declared a climate emergency, this happened yesterday. So, these perpetually hype crises are then just used to justify the Left’s brazen efforts to take more of our money, and more of our liberty, that’s how the game always goes.
But the only real crisis that America suffers from today are those that are created by them, the Democrats, like the border crisis, or the education crisis, or the crisis of rising crime. So, if Texas and Florida and the other red states had followed New York and California’s lead a year ago, think about it, America’s economy would be in the dumps, just like Europe’s, this is a headline out of Germany today where they’re implementing once again, more pandemic restrictions.
Meanwhile, our first quarter real GDP number that just came out 6.4 percent growth, that is truly astounding. And of course, Biden is trying to claim credit as all his doing, but he deserves exactly zero credit for today’s booming economy. It was all the doing of Donald J. Trump, the red state governors, and the American people who rejected the doomsdayers, and stuck with first principles.
They trusted their own constituents over the so-called experts who just wanted us matched up and afraid for as long as possible. So, if Biden had been president, think about this just a year ago, he had been president, all of America would look like Michigan, failing, miserable and pessimistic. Let’s not forget how they saw this whole thing unfolding about a year ago this time, they were saying that we might not recover from this pandemic economically for decades.
But what the story of the past year really reveals is that Americans can’t be held down or held back by Washington for very long. Yes, the Democrats won the election by selling Biden as a nice kind of moderate Democrat. But now, now the voters are beginning to see what they really got. They got an elderly hostage to the far left. They’ve gone from Obama’s yes, we can to Biden’s Yes, we’re racist. This deeply cynical view means that Democrats can only occupy America. They can’t really govern it . What a depressing world they want to foist on us.
But my friends, optimism beats pessimism any day of the week. And by next year, a lot of those suburban women who voted for Biden, they’re going to think this doom and gloom social distancing act of the Democrats has gotten really old. And they’re going to be looking for a brighter vision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS: I think Greg, and Kim and all these governors are doing it right. And we will have a resurgence of freedom in this country. And 2022, I think is going to be a great year for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Last night, we saw what a pro-American government looks like at the state level. It was all about joy, success, love of country, and freedom. And that’s the angle.
Joining me now is Ben Domenech, co-Founder publisher, the Federalist and Fox News Contributor. Also with me is Matt Walsh, Daily Wire Contributor and host of the Matt Walsh Podcast.
All right, Ben, how much longer can Pelosi hang on to this razor thin House Majority when the red states are obviously leading us to an economic post- pandemic boom, at least in the short-term before Lord knows what happens under Biden.
BEN DOMENECH, THE FEDERALIST CO-FOUNDER: Laura, I have to compliment you for that opening because I just think that was an eloquent monologue that really frames the question very clearly for us all. Look, this is a situation that these octogenarians are white knuckling it to the end they are trying to push through everything they possibly can, while they can, in the face of an impending doom that they anticipate, because we look at this midterm as being the kind of thing that anyone with a political brain can understand is going to lead to a lot of Republican success, a lot of conservative success.
And so, because of that, Pelosi and Schumer and Biden are trying to just jam through as much Leftist policy as they can, in a very short timeframe. And because of that, we’re seeing how crazy it is, how over-the-top is how ridiculous it is, and frankly, how anti American it is.
INGRAHAM: Yes, let’s go to what Biden said today, Matt, about the border. He was on with Craig Melvin. And this I guess; he wants to ride the wave of enthusiasm for his speech to the joint session of 200 people this week. So, he gives a couple of interviews to push his spending plan. And this is what he said about the border. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CRAIG MELVIN, MSNBC HOST: April alone, Mr. President, 170,000 people migrants apprehended at the border. It’s a 20 year record that sounds to most folks like a crisis.
BIDEN: Well, look, it’s way down. Now. We’ve now gotten control. They didn’t have beds that were available. They didn’t plan for the overflow. There’s a significant change right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: We didn’t have the beds because we didn’t need the beds. They have 25,000 kids in custody right now. Tonight. It’s a crime what they’re doing right now at the border. That was a disgusting answer. I’m sorry. I’m being injudicious, perhaps in saying that, but that galls me.
MATT WALSH, CONTRIBUTOR, “THE DAILY WIRE”: Not to apologize at all. It is a disgusting answer. And there’s a lot of that that we get from the Biden Administration. I agree with you. Listening to the speech a few nights ago, I have to confess I’m not much of an optimist myself. But even I’m listening to that and thinking like, dude, cheer up a little bit. But my worry is that Biden gets away with this kind of thing. He gets away with lying disgusting, like he just did, because of course, he’s got the media on his side.
But also, that speech was really the probably the most radical speech we’ve heard from a president in that setting, maybe ever, but it’s so – but the way he comes across, it’s so sort of boring, he just puts you to sleep. And I think just viscerally you don’t get the sense if you’re not paying attention, that what he’s doing is radical, you have to really pay attention. It’s hard to pay attention. I guess that’s what my concern would be, is he sort of maybe literally lulls everyone to sleep. And then that’s how they ran through the agenda.
INGRAHAM: But Ben when I was with these governors last night, so you had Kim Reynolds from Iowa, who was one of the first to push schools to open, she took on the teachers’ unions as superintendent in Des Moines. I mean, these are liberal radical educrats. She took them all on, right. They’re all after her now. And then you have Abbott, who’s done a gangbuster in Texas with the open border down there, still doing incredible stuff. And you have DeSantis, you have Tate Reeves in Mississippi, they’ve had a tough go of it, but he’s very positive. And obviously, you had Ricketts in Nebraska.
These are – in Nebraska. These are strong, optimistic, forward-looking leaders. And they just looked at me said Washington does not understand the way the real-world works. And they almost tune out Washington to the extent that they can.
DOMENECH: This is something Laura that you’ve been on for your entire career. And it’s something that is very true about America, we have a situation in America where the people who govern best, govern closest to the people and Washington is at a total distance from the people and not just the elected politicians. But people like Anthony Fauci, people who are just completely unrelated to the reality of what’s going on.
You talked about that, in your open regarding Joe Biden, the idea that people aren’t getting together like their people, I’ve been invited to three different Cinco de Mayo parties, you know, like, they’re not waiting for permission to in order to gather together and celebrate and clack a few beers together. I mean, it’s one of these things where they act as if they’re in control, but the reality just defies them.
And I think that that’s something that’s good in America and that we should encourage, and I think these coming weeks and months, we’re going to see more and more of it, as we see that distance increase between what we hear from our government officials and what people are actually doing in their own lives.
INGRAHAM: Yes, Matt, I’ve got to play, Biden still resisting the actual truth about masks. All right, so he’s on this morning again, after saying masks for 100 days. Remember that, Matt? We’re going to wear masks for 100 days. But this is what he said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: You and I took our mask off, when I came in because look at the distance, we are but if we were in fact sitting there talking to one another, close, I’d have my mask on. And I’m like, you’d have mask even though we’ve both been vaccinated. And so, it’s a small precaution to take that has a profound impact. It’s a patriotic responsibility for God’s sake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Ben, it’s his security blanket. I’m sorry that Matt, a security blanket at this point, right, just holding that mask.
WALSH: It is I mean; I’ve compared it to someone walking outside with a mask is sort of like someone with a pacifier and a teddy bear walking down the street. It’s a security blanket. And they’ll actually tell you that if you ask them, it makes them feel better. But I worry about that, psychologically, that people are depending on mask. outside, especially if they’re vaccinated. They don’t need it all. I worry that people’s brains have been warped by people like Joe Biden, who have scared them half to death.
INGRAHAM: Yes, he just looked–
DOMENECH: And she loves her pacifier. She loves her teddy bear. So, I completely agree with you.
WALSH: That’s OK for kids. For kids like–
INGRAHAM: You guys have beards; can you just say that counts at this point? Just the beards. You don’t have to have no mask, just beards on men. All right, gentlemen. Great to see you tonight. All right. Last night, the red state trailblazers at our town hall told you how they help small businesses thrive during the pandemic. But the blue states, they just made life worse for small business owners.
Now in California, things are just dire. My next guest says he can’t even find people who are willing to show up at the restaurant. And it’s not because they’re afraid of COVID.
Joining me now is Chef Andrew Gruel, who is the owner of the restaurant Slapfish. Andrew, now, I’ve heard this from other restaurateurs and it’s really bad. Here in Minneapolis, where we are tonight. They’ve been decimated. I mean, they can’t get people to show up. It’s really hard to run these restaurants, that ones that are in business. What are you going to do? What’s happening?
CHEF ANDREW GRUEL, SLAPFISH RESTAURANT OWNER: And it is everywhere, not just in Southern California, or California, for that matter. The entire labor market is dry across the board. In some states is doing a lot better, of course, because they’ve kind of stimulated that environment earlier on. But really what I’ve figured from talking with applicants and previous employees and contemporaries, there’s three reasons behind this right?
First and foremost, people are making a significant amount of money on unemployment. So, they’re saying, let me just kind of wait this out. And I understand that to some degree, because a lot of people don’t know if the restaurants going to get shut down again, Oregon, Washington starting to shut down again. So, think about it. If I keep going back and forth, what that does to me emotion–
INGRAHAM: But how do we fix it? Chef, how do we fix it?
GRUEL: We’ve just got to open. And it’s that simple, right? And then we have to decrease the amount of unemployment benefits that we’re giving because there isn’t a requirement that you look for work. I’ve got some employees that I know who are even double dipping because they’re not checking. And here in California, they misappropriated so much money that the system is broken anyway. So now they’re just doling it out as they get it in. So, the whole system right now is a little bit broken, especially in places like California.
INGRAHAM: Well, a little bit broken at what we have now is Joe Biden wants to expand unemployment benefits. So, it’s not it’s not getting back to basics. OK, open up the economy. People want to go out, they’re going to go to restaurants, going to your restaurant, they want to have fun, be with each other. A lot of them feel safer now and they are safer. It’s about pulling back government overreach, we don’t do that then people are going to double dip, triple dip. I know people who are friends of friends are like, no, we’ve got unemployment. I said, aren’t you working? Oh, yes, I’m working. But you know, it’s just a temporary thing. Like, are you kidding me?
GRUEL: Of course. And I made the fatal flaw of actually looking at my Twitter comments and realizing, OK, this is now suddenly become a class warfare. Everybody is pointing at me and saying, oh, well, you’re exploiting your workers. You’re not paying them enough. We’re offering $20 to $25 an hour for dishwashers and cooks right now. And I can’t get any applicants in now. We’ve increased that month-on-month, week-on-week because we’ve gone up – the demand has gone up, right.
And, I’m the bad guy that’s 50 percent to 75 percent above the minimum wage, where do we stop?
INGRAHAM: Where’s your business at today compared to pre-pandemic? What percentage your business?
GRUEL: Well, it’s all over the place. Some of our restaurants we can only open five days a week because we don’t have enough employees, some of our other businesses because we’ve gotten the support for speaking out, sales are up, but we still don’t have the employees. We’re paying a ton of overtime.
INGRAHAM: Yes, well, Andrew, thanks for sounding the alarm on this. This just cannot continue. It is an impossible business climate long-term for this country. Thank you so much. And we’re closer to revealing tonight’s mystery guests. Now, can you guess who it is? Here’s another clue. Wine, as in Cabernet, not whine as in complain. Plus, the worst media offenders of the week, oh, you know, it’s your favorites. Well, maybe your second favorite segment. The tape you don’t want to miss, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It’s easy to become numb to media bias these days. So, The Ingraham Angle, we’re keeping track of the worst offenders of the week. We’re busy. So, joining me now Lisa Boothe, Fox News Contributor, Chris Bedford, Senior Editor at the Federalist panel. All right, great to see you both. Let’s begin now. with how the media are spinning Biden’s rather bizarre habit of whispering very softly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC ANCHOR: His use of voice modulation was rather extraordinary given the television era.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: His voice, that kind of grandfatherly whispery voice, and the fact that it actually wasn’t a big raucous crowd, let that intimacy really land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That intimacy, Chris, I’m sure you felt that personally. Did that land the speech for you?
CHRIS BEDFORD, THE FEDERALIST SENIOR EDITOR: I couldn’t believe at first when he opened up how much energy he seemed to have, because it wasn’t like him to usually have that. And then whatever burst of energy he had wore off, and suddenly I felt like I was being lulled to sleep. It wasn’t. It wasn’t the energy I expected at all in a state of the union. And suddenly, I was supposed to be here unifying the nation.
A friend of mine who’s got a young kid said it was exactly the kind of tone of voice he uses, when he’s reading them to bed at night. He realizes that they’ve fallen asleep. And then he’s slowly sneaking out the door, hoping he hasn’t disturbed them. And if you looked out in the balcony, you saw Ted Cruz, he kind of looked like that kid who was pretending to be asleep just so the parents would leave. It was not exactly an uplifting speech.
INGRAHAM: Lisa, Lisa, I’m watching this, and I was thinking, I can’t believe a million people watch this, let alone what was it? 11 million. 11 million people will never get that hour and 20 minutes back or whatever the heck it was.
LISA BOOTHE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it’s all been stolen from us that hour of our life was stolen from us. And we were all Senator Ted Cruz there, basically falling asleep. But look, I’m not going to lie. I will take the creepy whispering over the creepy hair sniffing and inappropriate touching that we all saw throughout the Obama Administration during the swearing in ceremonies. Sorry. I mean, we all saw what happened.
INGRAHAM: Well, next, here’s one MSNBC guest tried to pre-spin Biden’s ratings fiasco.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELAINA PLOTT, NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER: Do you find it’s really, it’s in some ways is that it’s kind of boring. And it’s not going to excite a great many people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: That’s it now – that’s now a benefit to be boring. But kids, that’s not all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Every single sentence had a very clear point to it. And every line of it had that Biden humility.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was really beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sweeping, it was optimistic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He’s really trying to bring the country together. It was a make America Feel Good Night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Lisa. I’ve seen a lot of media fawning, that state run media, that state run media.
BOOTHE: Well, I mean, Laura, we’re basically China or North Korea here. We don’t have a media. I mean, did it really matter what Joe Biden said, or even the delivery. I mean, we already knew what they were going to say. We already knew how they were going to spin this. The fact checkers had been on vacation over the past 100 days. I mean, think about all the lies he told on Wednesday night, including saying that January 6th was a worst attack on our democracy, since the civil war.
Maybe Pearl Harbor, maybe 9/11. But it doesn’t matter because this guy gets away with everything because they’re all on Team Biden. They’re all just a bunch of propagandists.
INGRAHAM: They don’t fact check their dear leader, Lisa, please. Now–
BOOTHE: Exactly.
INGRAHAM: OK, the media’s response to Senator Tim Scott’s, his rejection of systemic racism. This was particularly disgusting. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY BEHAR, ABC CO-HOST: We live in a country with systemic racism. In fact, that Tim Scott cannot acknowledge this is appalling.
JONES: I thought he did himself a disservice.
JASON JOHNSON, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: When Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg can say we literally have racism baked into our highway system. I really don’t think Tim Scott is much of a position to criticize him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Chris, wait a second. Pete Buttigieg from South Bend, Indiana thinks we have racism in the interstate highway system. So, he’s the authority on racism. Not that black senator from South Carolina. OK.
BEDFORD: How dare anyone criticize him? Forget about the Senator Tim Scott, who’s got a very thick skin, he’s very courageous for having going out there, gone out there and given that speech. So, usually this is a response speech, it doesn’t play that well. It can be a political curse sometimes. People are mocked and attacked for it for years to come. He did not do that he gave an uplifting message that was really well received. But even worse than that the Left couldn’t, couldn’t keep themselves behaved during that time. They let out what was in their heart of hearts, which is that he’s not allowed to be black because he didn’t vote for Joe Biden.
They attacked him with racist attacks like uncle Tim, words that are banned basically from children’s libraries because the liberals have censored Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and then you say Twitter trying to actually promote this. That’s a really wild reaction and I think it showed exactly who they were.
INGRAHAM: Lisa, the worst thing for the media is to have a minority citizen in America. Black, you know of color. Gay as a conservative. Heaven forbid they ever voted for Trump; they just have to be crucified.
BOOTHE: Well, and I guess Joy Behar thanks because she has dressed in blackface before that somehow, she can be a leader on this issue. But Senator Tim Scott made this deeply personal point in the fact that he has faced racism from the left. He said that he’s been called an Uncle Tom, derogatory terms, been called the n-word by people on the left. And then what does the left do? They say hold my beer, let’s go prove this man right by getting it Uncle Tim trending on social media.
But you’re absolutely right, Laura. The left say that they purport to say there about women, they purport to say that they’re about the LGBTQ community, they purport to say they’re about minorities, until you don’t subscribe to their liberal dogma, and then they attack you and they try to beat you into submission. so they’re not about any of these things.
INGRAHAM: He was incredibly courageous, and it was a terrific response. And great to see you both. Have a wonderful weekend.
BOOTHE: Thanks, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Lisa and Chris.
The most dangerous Biden is back in the White House, and he’s getting a sister? Plus, why is Joe so afraid all of the time? Raymond Arroyo unpacks it all. Friday Follies next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHLEY STROHMIER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to FOX News live. I’m Ashley Strohmier.
The U.S. will restrict travel from India starting on Tuesday. The White House citing India’s huge jump in COVID-19 cases and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants. The White House press secretary says the decision was made based on guidance from the CDC. And the U.S. will extend mask requirements on all public transportation passed May 11th. The mask mandate will now last until at least September 13th.
And three Colorado officers involved in the arrest of a woman with dementia have resigned. Bodycam video showed officers pushing the 73-ear-old to the ground. The woman has filed a lawsuit which claims she dislocated her shoulder during the arrest, and she did not receive medical care for about six hours after being taken to the county jail.
I’m Ashley Strohmier. Now back to THE INGRAHAM ANGLE. For all of your headlines log in to FOXNews.com. You’re watching the most powerful name in news, FOX News Channel.
INGRAHAM: It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for Friday Follies. And, for that we turn to FOX News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, last night Orlando, tonight Minneapolis, but you’re in New Orleans. How does it all work?
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I am back home.
INGRAHAM: Amazing. All right, there were some odd displays from the White House crew that caught your attention.
ARROYO: That’s right. Look, it seems as if spring has unleashed the romantic in everyone, Laura. May all of us living long enough to get the reaction that Kamala Harris got from her husband Doug Emhoff when she appeared before Biden’s joint address to Congress. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Now, either he is the most slaphappy, lovesick romantic ever, Laura, or the most insecure spouse in D.C. Whatever the case, she can see you, pal. You don’t need to do a whole mime act of devotion and love and all of that.
INGRAHAM: It was cute.
ARROYO: I also feel, when you have to work that hard after many years of marriage, Laura, something is wrong, OK. We need to call Dr. Phil. Can you invite Dr. Phil in to come help explain this to me?
INGRAHAM: Yes.
ARROYO: I don’t mind the affection, but the gratuitous stuff, we just don’t care, and we don’t need to see it.
INGRAHAM: Get a room, as I would say.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: A big empty one, apparently, he had.
INGRAHAM: It was a very romantic setting with the 200 people nodding off in the room. What else? We got cupid also struck Joe Biden this week on his way out to, what, was it Marine One?
ARROYO: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: It was a sweet gesture, Laura. Even if it was a weed, maybe the poor man didn’t know. At least he didn’t try to pick a lemon off of Jill’s dress, so this is a good thing.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: It actually reminded me of that touching movie moment when Frankenstein shares daisies with that little girl by the lake. Do you remember that? He was a bit confused too, and so apparently was the media this week. ABC, “The Hill,” and Mediaite all fawned over this moment. Reuters put it this way, “Ever the romantic, President Biden picked a dandelion from the grass and presented it to first lady Jill Biden.”
Look, Laura, I’m glad they’re in love, I hope they’re in love. My problem is the media attention to this, because what this really is, is heartwarming filler so they don’t have to cover $6 trillion of proposed spending, $480 billion to the abortion industry in America.
INGRAHAM: That’s a travesty.
ARROYO: That’s hardly romantic. And we haven’t even touched on the $80 billion to the IRS to try to get more taxes from people. This is not a good day. Look, there are —
INGRAHAM: Raymond, remember —
ARROYO: Go ahead.
INGRAHAM: There was a related issue. Remember, during Obama we called it razzle-dazzle when they would do date night, or they would have their romantic moment in the driveway. That was all covered. But Trump and Melania could be making out in the Rose Garden and they’d be like, oh, that’s nothing. You know what I mean?
ARROYO: They’re covering the full moon that night. But look, this will set off bells for you, Laura, because this story that we saw today, again, it’s about distracting people. And you had the worst in media earlier. This may have been the best this week. NBC is keeping those important narratives in the forefront of people’s minds when it comes to Biden. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There’s a question that millions of Americans have been wondering for a number of weeks now — Major, the first dog.
(LAUGHTER)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We were going to bring him in to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he back in the White House?
JILL BIDEN, U.S. FIRST LADY: He is back, yes. He is such a sweet, lovable dog.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first family was considering adopting a cat.
JILL BIDEN: He is waiting in the wings. She is waiting in the wings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Major Biden, who has clearly had some trouble adjusting to life at the White House. Now he’s going to be forced to contend with a cat as well.
JILL BIDEN: That was part of his training.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Part of his training, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Part of his training, what?
ARROYO: Remember, we had Socks the cat, then we had Bo the dog with the Obamas. Now we have Major and Champ with the Bidens. These are shiny objects to distract you from what’s really going on. But look, Laura, the dog may not be the only member of the Biden household who has been trained. Listen to these two admissions from the president this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I’m looking for my mask. I’m in trouble.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: India, they’re suffering.
BIDEN: I’m sorry, this is the last question I’ll take. I’m really going to be in trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, he is the president of the United States. Why is he in trouble for talking to reporters and losing a mask? This lends credibility to the suspicion the staff is programming this presidency and maybe even bullying the president himself. This is not only wrong, it’s cruel.
INGRAHAM: Raymond, did he ever find the mask?
ARROYO: Yes, he did. He found it at list. It was hidden in his binder, so for that he didn’t get in trouble. He probably got an extra dandelion or two from the White House.
INGRAHAM: It seems like Major was limping in one of those videos. I saw a decided limp on one side of major. I think that should be examined. If the press is really going to go on this story, go all in, OK. I want a real lowdown on the training and what he’s learned and the bite marks. All right, Raymond.
ARROYO: I agree.
INGRAHAM: Thanks, and great to see you in Orlando, as well.
The moment of truth is almost here, the identity of tonight’s mystery guest. Here’s your final clue. The person is related to “The Jungle Book” author Rudyard Kipling. Do you have any ideas? The big reveal is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: We have been giving you hints throughout the show, and it’s finally time to find out who our mystery guest is.
First, let’s review the clues. Number, one just received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Number two, wine, as in cabernet, not whine as in complain. And finally number three, related to “Jungle Book” author Robert Kipling. Who the heck could it be? Mystery guest, reveal yourself. It’s Kathie Lee Gifford.
Kathie Lee, it’s so great to see you. I do not think I’ve seen you since I was on “The Today Show” when we were in makeup. I don’t even know how long ago that was, I don’t know, 10 years ago? You look the same.
KATHIE LEE GIFFORD, EMMY AWARD-WINNING TV HOST: I was in diapers then, Laura. And guess what, I’m in diapers again. It’s just been too long.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Oh, my goodness. Well, it’s a great to see you. And I want to get to one of the funniest things I learned about you, that you were a singer on “Name that Tune,” the old game show, which I loved. So how many songs did you have to learn for that?
GIFFORD: Two-hundred songs in five days. But when you’re young and hungry, you can do anything straight. Yes, 200 songs in five days, and I did the entire season in just a couple of weeks, never made one mistake. I could never do that again. It was —
INGRAHAM: So you could name that tune in four notes, three notes, seven notes?
GIFFORD: I was a Lala lady, and so I was the one that would get the clue. So I would say, OK, here’s the song. And they would give me a time meter and two bars of something. And I’d go to the orchestra, and I’d go la-la, but only worth living, but out of worth living, if no la-la. People would go, “Born Free.”
INGRAHAM: “Born Free,” that movie. Your longtime friend passed away last July, Regis Philbin, of course, co-host of yours for 15 years, said that those years he spent with you were the best years in television. Tell us about the first time you met him.
GIFFORD: We did not have an auspicious first meeting. It was at the westside of New York, and there was nobody around. I don’t know why. I was walking uptown, he was walking downtown. And we weren’t even thinking about it, so we both got sort of close to each other. At the same time we went, oh, hi, and then we just kept walking.
But I was always a huge fan of Regis because every time I’d watch him, he was doing something stupid, but it was hysterical, or he was doing something great which nobody had ever done before, but he always seemed fearless to me. And he always seemed to really love his audience. Nothing was ever done in a way to be offensive. Interestingly enough, because Don Rickles was one of his closest friends, and Don Rickles is the exact opposite, ripping everyone to pieces, but one of the sweetest guys in the world in real life.
Regis was everyman, he just was, and he had the greatest attitude of gratitude. He just couldn’t believe that out of all the people on this planet, he got to be Regis. And in a way, before he died, Laura, and it broke my heart because I hadn’t seen him. He and Joy had moved to California, for the most part, and of course there was COVID at that time, and I hadn’t seen him in months because I was in L.A. And I saw him get out of the car and walked towards my house. And I went oh, Lord, this is going to be the last time I’m going to see my friend, I just knew it.
But we picked up right where we did before, and we laughed. And the nice thing about it and the great thing about it that I will always cherish is that Regis and I became great friends when we work together for 15 years, but after I left the show, for the next 20 years, we became even much deeper friends.
INGRAHAM: Kathie Lee, It’s time for a little thing we do, it’s called “This or That?” It’s right up your alley. It’s pretty simple. I’m going to just name two things, and you have to just pick whichever you like better. We’re going to 30 second up on the clock and try to get through as many of these as we can. We start now. Cabernet or chardonnay?
GIFFORD: Chardonnay.
INGRAHAM: Rose all day or rose no way?
GIFFORD: Rose half the day.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Filming TV or filming movies?
GIFFORD: Filming movies.
INGRAHAM: Writing books or songs?
GIFFORD: Songs.
INGRAHAM: You’ve already given this up. Connecticut or Tennessee?
GIFFORD: I still love both, thank God.
INGRAHAM: Better costar, “Sharknado 3” or Hoda?
GIFFORD: Hoda. But she also did “Sharknado 3” with me.
INGRAHAM: And finally, Emmy award or star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? Emmy or Hollywood Walk of Fame? That’s easy, I think.
GIFFORD: Four Emmys, thank you, Lord, and Frank, when he found out I was being nominated for that, he said aren’t you on that already?
(LAUGHTER)
GIFFORD: I don’t know what I’m on anymore.
INGRAHAM: What happened to that delay? How long ago was that? You should have been on that 10 or 15 years ago.
GIFFORD: Not that I deserve it, but that’s the world I live in. If you’ve been around, you’ve survived the critics, and you haven’t been scandalized so badly that people, they cancel you, I’m still here and they don’t know what to do with me anymore.
INGRAHAM: Kathie Lee, I’m coming to Nashville and I’m hanging out with you, and we’re definitely having wine, definitely.
GIFFORD: The whole is moving here. You’ll love the taxes.
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Kathie Lee, great to see you, thank you so much.
GIFFORD: God bless, thanks for having me.
INGRAHAM: There’s a lot more of my conversation with Kathie Lee. Go to FOXNation.com right now after the show and watch the full interview.
When we come back, an exclusive interview I will tell you about for Monday that is going to reveal terrifying government overreach. I’ll tell you about it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: Paul and Marilyn Hueper were among the many thousands of Trump supporters who peacefully rallied in D.C. on January 6th. They say they never took part in any rioting or even entered the Capital building. So you can imagine their surprise when just days ago they were awakened by FBI agents breaking down their front door, guns drawn. What was their alleged crime, stealing Nancy Pelosi’s laptop during the Capitol riot? I kid you not. Both Paul and Marilyn will be here exclusively on Monday to tell us more about this nightmarish experience.
That’s all the time we have tonight. We had a great week, and kudos again to the five governors who showed up for our town hall last night. They showed the country that possible positive, optimistic vision for the future is what Republicans are looking for.
And Greg Gutfeld takes it all from here.
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