This is a rush transcript from "The Five," June 3, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello everybody, I'm Dagen McDowell alongwith Jessica Tarlov, Jesse Watters, Shannon Bream and Greg Gutfeld. It's5:00 in New York City and this is "The Five."
Media darling and America's top doctor, Anthony Fauci is playing someserious defense after a trove of e-mails blew a huge hole in his alreadyshrinking credibility. They revealed his relationship with the Wuhan labthat is facing new scrutiny in the global pandemic that has killedmillions. Senator Rand Paul claims Fauci lied to America about that labpotentially doing research that could make viruses more deadly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Dr. Fauci still denies it to this day, but in hisprivate e-mails he puts in the subject line, urgent, we must discuss thisgain of function research. So, he knows its gain of function and he needsto be pinned down in this. I don't think having trust of Chinese scientistwith gain of function research was very wise. In fact, it was so naA_vethat we shouldn't have Dr. Fauci in a position of advising the U.S., theworld or anybody else because he shown such poor decision making.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDOWELL: For some reason, Dr. Fauci refuses to call out China.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUSDISEASES: The idea I think is quite farfetched that the Chinesedeliberately engineered something so that they could kill themselves aswell as other people.
I mean, obviously, you want openness and cooperation. One of the ways youcan get it is don't be accusatory.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDOWELL: And the White House is standing by Fauci despite the e-mailcontroversy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEN PSAKI, WHITE PRESS SECRETARY: We'll let him speak for himself and he'sbeen an undeniable asset in our country's pandemic response, but it'sobviously not that advantageous for me to re-litigate the substance of e-mails from 17 months ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCDOWELL: Jesse, don't be accusatory.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: He should have had a secret server in hisbasement, then he just could have wiped it like crooked. These e-mails arebad. I mean, he is on the record of supporting gain of function. He fundedgain of function in Wuhan. He knew they were doing gain of function inWuhan.
They had scientists e-mailing him. This thing looks engineered and then nowhe is on e-mail scrambling to see if his fingerprints are on gain offunction. That's not my opinion. Those are the facts. And "Vanity Fair"came out with a big expose blowing the lid off the cover-up.
U.S. government telling investigators don't look into this because U.S.money went into this lab, manpower, know how, money. Went into this labthat ended up killing 3.5 million people. This is bigger than 9-11. This isbigger than January 6th. Dare I say, Greg, this might be worse thanWatergate.
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Not Watergate. Not Watergate.
WATTERS: And the media is complicit in the cover-up. They admitted it. Andhere's why. The Democrats needed Fauci so they could brand themselves aspro-science. They needed Fauci to lock everything down so they could loosenthe state election laws and do the mass mail-out of ballots. And they needFauci to point the finger away from China and at Trump so they could dividethe country for the election. You take Fauci out of the picture, it's liketaking a Jenga block out, the whole thing crumbles.
MCDOWELL: Will they get to the bottom of it, though, Biden and co.?Jessica, they've got what they're looking into it.
JESSICA TARLOV, FOX NEWS HOST: I absolutely think that they will. I thinkthe fact that we have moved away from. The WHO already looked into it towe're going to look into ourselves and there is bipartisan support forthat. I see no reason that President Biden would stop that in any way andDr. Fauci is supportive of that as well. To Jesse's point, well first, Ilove that now Hillary isn't even Hillary. She's just crooked. I assumewe've dropped her birth name.
WATTERS: Yes.
TARLOV: Second of all, you said that the whole Jenga tower falls whichincluded the mail-in ballots which I believe means you're alleging that theelection was fraudulent?
WATTERS: No, I'm saying it helped loosen the state election laws becauseeverybody had to stay home during the lockdown. You didn't need to lockeverybody down. You just needed to isolate the elderly. The rest of thecountry could have gone about their business. And Fauci was warned to dothis by scientists. We saw the e-mails and he ignored it.
TARLOV: Well, Dr. Watters has spoken on that.
WATTERS: Yes, he has.
TARLOV: And we'll come back to that. But from looking at the e-mails, Ithink that some of it definitely doesn't look fantastic, but he was on withJohn Berman. We showed a little bit of it, and he talked about that e-mailin February and he clarified that obviously if he had had known what theyhad known in April and May that he would have told Sylvia Matthews Burwellto wear a mask on a flight. And that we were getting new information fromthe scientific community as it went along, but I totally agree --
WATTERS: So science wasn't settled?
TARLOV: No, it wasn't settled.
WATTERS: Oh, so like global warming is not settled?
TARLOV: No, global warming is pretty much settled.
WATTERS: Oh, that settled, but this science isn't settled. I got it.
TARLOV: Stop playing a game with me. But anyway.
MCDOWELL: But Shannon, just on the surface, the most reasonable explanationwas, gee whiz, there is a virology lab right in Wuhan while the horseshoebats lived in caves hundreds of miles away. But instead, the media and TonyFauci bent over backwards to lean on a hypothesis that wasn't as reasonableand logical as, oh, it came out of a lab that had safety problems becauseXi Jin Ping talked about it.
SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Well, that gets back to this "Vanity Fair"article that Jesse was talking about. It makes some explosive allegationsthat people within the State Department were actively telling people shutit down. Don't dig there. Don't go there because you're going to open aPandora's Box.
You heard Dr. Fauci again today saying we have to be careful with Chinabecause we need to be able to cooperate with them. It's been over a year.They haven't exactly been transparent with the WHO or anyone else. I'm --listen, Dagen, I like you grew up in the south and we believe you get moreflies with honey but when the flies are full of committing a human rightsatrocities and not giving you any information, it's time to get rid of thehoney and maybe go with some tabasco or something maybe a little bitstronger.
MCDOWELL: Yes, the communist party, Greg, if they're talking and breathing,they're lying.
GUTFELD: Yes. You know the -- this is the funniest part of the story isthey've mentioned the phrase Pandora's Box. That lab literally is aPandora's Box. They opened it, it got out. So, the idea, like, I alwayswonder how many investigations are stopped when somebody says that's aPandora's Box.
It's like maybe you should open the Pandora's Box and see what's going onin there. Look, we talked about this last week. One of the reasons why theywanted to blame the wet markets it's not just because of the lab, it'sbecause we are involved in the lab. We have money there.
We were thinking, you know, it's the Chinese protecting themselves. No,we're actually trying to protect ourselves because we, if we're -- I mean,these are our experts, these are our scientists. If this was -- consider ifthese were the plot to a movie, right.
Scientists in government engage in highly controversial and risky research.Two, there is an accident. Nobody is saying that this was deliberate.
MCDOWELL: Right.
GUTFELD: Fauci kind of blends that together. So, this research accidentallyhas unleashed into the public a dangerous pathogen, right? The scientistsand the experts and the politicians scramble to protect their vitalresearch and cover-up the plausible cause. If that were -- that's a MichaelCrichton movie, but it's not. It's real. And I think that's why you have tohave an investigation.
Is Fauci the villain in this? I just think he is an overly diplomaticbureaucrat. The real villain to me is the media and the Democrats, A, forpushing impeachment exactly, exactly as the virus was exploding. Countlesslives were lost because they hated Trump.
And number two, labelling anybody a racist who dared to criticize China,that helped -- that steered the debate towards something totally stupidlike a pangolin, which still sounds like a musical instrument I wouldn'twant to play, but it does have scales.
WATTERS: Oh!
GUTFELD: Whoa, brains.
MCDOWELL: I don't -- I would laugh, but I'm in awe of that. But just beforewe go, will Biden -- because it -- to get to the bottom of this, Joe Bidenand company, all the liberals, will have to admit Trump was right.
GUTFELD: Yes, they can't do that. They can't do that. Also, there is a lotof money at stake. If there's going to be lawsuits, you can't sue China ifit's the lab. You got to sue China and the America.
WATTERS: Yes. And the funding started during the Obama-Bidenadministration.
GUTFELD: We need to post-impeach Obama. That is possible, right?
UNKNOWN: Good luck.
GUTFELD: For this.
MCDOWELL: Yes, good luck with that.
GUTFELD: Jessica, we're going to impeach Obama.
TARLOV: Well, we're going to go to break and then we're going to talk aboutthe feasibility of that happening.
MCDOWELL: Before we go to break though, I'm going to add that I think anyMedicare for all, any government-run healthcare is now dead because youlook at Tony Fauci and who would want some, you know, spotlight seeking,power hungry career bureaucrat who's some fame floozy decide who gets tolive and who dies?
TARLOV: People without insurance would still prefer that.
MCDOWELL: No, they wouldn't.
GUTFELD: No, that's the emergency room, Jessica, please.
MCDOWELL: We all have healthcare in this country. Up next, America underattack. Hackers targeting companies and critical infrastructure and expertswarn they are just getting started.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUTFELD: We played that song yesterday. I just want to point that out. I'mpretty sure we did.
WATTERS: Another Beastie Boys song.
GUTFELD: America suffering from major cyberattacks and national securityexperts say hackers are just getting started. A key pipeline and a majormeat supplier were targeted in less than a month. And now a cyber-criminalcould mess with your commute. New York City's transit authority justreported a breach that happened back in April. The White House in some caseseems to be downplaying these cyber threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: I would say these are private sector entities who have aresponsibility to put in place measures to protect their own cybersecurity. As it relates to why criminal actors are taking actions againstprivate sector entities, I don't think I'm the right one to speak to that.
UNKNOWN: So, a total coincidence?
PSAKI: I think you could certainly go track down those cyber criminals inRussia and have a good chat with them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: She is so sarcastic about some very serious issues. That remindsme of you, Jessica. So, I have a theory. The reason why the Bidenadministration is downplaying these assaults is because they are busy up-playing, a word that I just invented right now. You're welcome, America.
They are up-playing other issues. For example, the climate crisis shouldtake up 50 percent of your attention and then the remaining 50 percent goesto evil white armies of Caucasian supremacy. So, you cannot worry aboutthis cyber stuff because your brain is filled with evil white men andwindmills. That's my theory. I'm sickened to is, Jessica. You have 10seconds to respond.
TARLOV: Do you remember on "Red Eye" that game where you could just push abutton and a liberal only got to talk for 7 seconds.
GUTFELD: Yes. I invented that.
(CROSSTALK)
WATTERS: I need that button. Can I borrow that?
TARLOV: No. You can't borrow that. So, I disagree --
GUTFELD: Yes.
TARLOV: -- and I'm sticking to my story. We were actually talking in thegreenroom before this, that Leon Panetta was the Defense Secretary in theObama-Biden administration. He was on with Neil Cavuto in the last hour(inaudible) this because he was screaming this from the proverbialrooftops.
He gave a big speech on the intrepid I believe in 2012 where he talkedabout how warfare is now going to be fought on the cyber front.
GUTFELD: Right.
TARLOV: And I believe it was something that Obama and Biden took seriously.Obviously, our election security is something front and center for all ofus. But I don't think that they are downplaying it. I think that they areworking as hard as they can alongside the Pentagon to make sure that westop having these breaches that are affecting, you know, everybody, fromMain Street up to big corporations to government hacks at this point. Andwe know, China and Russia, if they're going to get us, that's how they'regoing to do it.
GUTFELD: But they, you know, she said it's a private sector issue.Basically, she's saying --
TARLOV: So she just respects the private sector, but that doesn't meanthey're not working together. Remember like with Apple and opening up theSan Bernardino killer's phone. The public face of it was it's a privatesector problem, but they were like, excuse me, open this phone. And then wegot in the phone.
GUTFELD: We don't have phones like that anymore, Jessica.
TARLOV: Liberals do.
GUTFELD: Okay. So, evil Shannon Bream, they're targeting our commute. Imean, that's pretty serious because no one wants to get stuck on a subwaywhen it shuts down. Imagine what that's like. Like imagine if you're stuckin a New York City subway train.
WATTERS: You're dead.
GUTFELD: You're dead. Yes, you're dead.
BREAM: You don't want that during summertime which is the last time I gotstuck in there. It's approximately 4,000 degrees Celsius and it smells likedead rats and body stuff. It's not good. I found down a rabbit hole readingabout this stuff.
I was reading about a guy who was one of a handful of people who is aransom-ware negotiator. And he talked about this is a much bigger problemthan you realize. He says it happens to small and midsized companies allthe time. He's called in to talk with them. And you know, the FBI, thegovernment, tells these private companies you can't negotiate.
GUTFELD: Right.
BREAM: It's only going to encourage the behavior. He's like, what do youtell a hospital or a school, like you can't give chemo treatments todaybecause you can't negotiate with these guys. And he said it's actually beenfranchised.
So they have people that have a script now who are franchised out by thesebig crime syndicates who say this is what you say in the first offer. Thisis how much money I want. This is how -- I mean, it is absolutely insanehow much is happening. We only hear about this stuff like the gas pipelinesand the beef. Don't mess with the chicken because if the Chik-fil-A getsinvolved, then we're going to have a problem.
GUTFELD: Yes. But do you know what you are talking about? The only wayAmericans are going to care about this a lot, Jesse, is if their privateinformation is black mailed. If somebody gets all of your e-mails or all ofthose photos up on the cloud, Jesse, that you thought no one could see.
And imagine if it's on to one and one of these free agents goes to you andsays like, 10 grand or 30 grand or we drop this stuff. That's not just theplausibility. That's going to happen. If this is happening, that's going tohappen, right?
WATTERS: Yes, I mean, Hunter's stuff is already out there, and they saidthat was fake news.
GUTFELD: Yes.
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