This is a rush transcript of ‘Fox News Sunday’ on August 25, 2024. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I’m Shannon Bream.
Israel launches what it calls a preemptive strike on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, sparking fears of an all-out regional war in the Middle East.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BREAM (voice-over): Israel says it eliminated thousands of rockets, but Hezbollah counters it still managed to launch hundreds of warheads and drones to avenge the killing of one of its top commanders last month. We’ll take you live to Israel.
Then, shake up in the final weeks of the race as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspends his long shot campaign and throws his support behind former President Donald Trump after a long conversation with him.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), SUSPENDED 2024 PRESIDENTIAL RUN: We talked about — not about the things that separate us because we don’t agree on everything, but on the values and the issues that bind us together.
BREAM: Could RFK Jr.’s supporters make the key difference for Trump in battleground states where the race is neck and neck against Vice President Kamala Harris? We’ll talk exclusively with Kennedy in his first interview since his big announcements.
Plus, Trump and Harris battle over two of the biggest issues for voters.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every day brings another story about innocent Americans being tortured, raped, murdered and massacred by illegal aliens that Kamala Harris has set free in our country.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends.
BREAM: And we learned this week that the U.S. economy added nearly a million fewer jobs than previously reported. We’ll get reaction from Democratic Governor Jared Polis of Colorado.
And our Sunday panel is here to give us their take on the next phase in the race for the White House.
All this week on “FOX News Sunday”.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BREAM (on camera): Hello from FOX News in Washington.
We begin in the Middle East where the Israeli Defense Force says 100 of its fighter jets hit more than 40 Hezbollah launch areas in a pre-dawn strike today, ahead of what it called an extensive attack planned by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Let’s get right to FOX News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst in Tel Aviv.
Hello, Trey.
TREY YINGST, FOX NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Shannon, good morning.
Overnight, Israel launched preemptive strikes against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The Israeli military says Hezbollah was prepared to launch hundreds of rockets and missiles toward central and northern Israel when the decision was made to strike first. A senior Israeli defense official described the strikes as precise and meant to remove imminent threats as large explosions rock southern Lebanon, the Iran back group began attacking northern Israel. Sirens sounded in communities as deep as 20 miles from the border as Israel’s missile defense system worked to intercept the incoming fire.
We are learning more this morning about the preemptive Israeli strikes. The Israel Defense Forces say more than 100 fighter jets took part in the air strikes and eliminated thousands of targets.
Initially, Israel’s international airport was closed but has since reopened. Israel has now entered a special security situation for the next 48 hours. Now, despite the heightened tension along the northern border, today, ceasefire talks are set to resume in Cairo, Egypt. Both parties looking to work out the details of a possible agreement to end the war in Gaza.
Just last hour, a senior Israeli defense official telling FOX News they are hopeful still about the possibility of a deal — Shannon.
BREAM: All right. Trey Yingst, we are going to check in with you later on in the hour. Thank you very much
Joining me now, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.
General, welcome back. Good to see you.
What do you make of what we’ve seen over the last 24 hours? There’s some say it’s provocative. Others say it’s a real push back to shut down what could have happened.
LT. GEN. KEITH KELLOGG (RET), FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO TRUMP, PENCE: Yeah, Shannon. Thanks for having me.
I thought it was a great move. Look, the preemptive strike was very, very important because if they had launched the strike — they the Hezbollah — into — in Israel with thousands of missiles and they were talking thousands, what would have happened with the loss of lives of Israelis and also the facilities?
It would have pushed the Israelis into a doctrine they call Dahiya, and what Dahiya is called disproportionate response.
And you — I think what they did, they prevented and the next or the third Israeli-Lebanese war, and that is smart. And because of that, I think it’s kind of reset the battlefield there.
And it’s — it’s important they did it. I think they did it quite well. The attacks will continue. They’re just diminishing the ability of Hezbollah to attack.
You know I have to go back when you think about what what’s happened there is really the United States hasn’t played a major role there in kind of de- escalating the situation because President Biden hasn’t done a lot in talking to Netanyahu. Vice President Harris hasn’t done very much. I mean she actually stiffed Netanyahu when he came here into the joint session of Congress when he spoke. And you’ve got Blinken going over there on his ninth trip no ceasefire. And you got the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan headed to China instead of going to the Middle East.
Now, I know CQ Brown’s going to be there, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but you kind of got to focus in on what’s going to happen there and prevent something happening in into the future. And they haven’t done it.
But the Israelis have done it. So the Israelis have done actually is reset deterrence in the region and I think it’s smart. And I think it’s put Hezbollah on their — on their back foot, and it’s clearly put the Iranians on the back foot, that they haven’t done anything at all.
BREAM: Well — so we do have assets in the region. We beefed up our presence.
This administration keeps publicly saying Israel has every right to defend itself and we will back them in that, but where do we go from here? Because as you mentioned, we’ve still got the threat out there looming from Iran saying we’re going to take action when we decide. You’ve got Hezbollah.
And never mind what’s going on in Gaza — I mean, Israel is stretched in a lot of different positions.
KELLOGG: Yeah, the problem you get is if something like this extends which it’s done, it makes it harder to put back in the box to make it go — put it in into a situation which is sustainable and peace in the region. And that is because technically (ph) we kind of backed away and we said, well, there’s pox on both sides of the house.
Wrong. The way you handle that is you tell the entire region, you tell the world, we are behind the Israelis, full stop. There’s a good side and a bad side and we need to do it.
Because we haven’t done it, we’ve created a seam, a gap, and adversaries look for seams and gaps and they’ve basically done that.
And so, they say, okay, we can attack because the United States is not going to come back hard. And I think how you have to reset the fight, you have to tell everybody in the region who we’re for and who we’re not for and we really haven’t done that.
So it’s going to take a bit to put it back in the box because Hezbollah is going to keep attacking, Iran’s going to keep supporting the attackers in Hezbollah.
I think the Hamas fight is virtually over. I think Israelis has kind of solved that problem. Look, when the leader of Hamas has said, I want — if we have peace discussions and we have a ceasefire, I want to make sure that I’m not a target — Sinwar.
Nope, you started that fight. You’re — you know, you’re at the risk — at risk right now, but I think that fight is virtually over now. They — Israelis can pivot to Hezbollah.
BREAM: Well, and we know those ceasefire negotiations will continue in the coming days in Egypt, primarily.
General, thank you. Always great to see you.
KELLOGG: Thanks, Shannon.
BREAM: All right. Let’s get reaction to all of this from the White House where we find FOX News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson.
Hello, Lucas.
LUCAS TOMLINSON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Shannon.
Officials say national security adviser Jake Sullivan kept President Biden updated throughout the night during the attack and Lloyd Austin, President Biden’s defense secretary, spoke to his Israeli counterpart, offering continued support of those two aircraft carrier strike groups now on station in the region.
Here at home, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says this is not the Democratic Party of his uncle and father.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KENNEDY: It have become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag and big money.
TOMLINSON (voice-over): After endorsing Donald Trump for president, the DNC responded: Like RFK Jr. Donald Trump is at a low point and acting out of desperation, embracing RFK Jr. now when he has nothing to offer but months of disqualifying revelations is not a decision a campaign makes when they’re acting from a position of strength.
President Biden says the economy is strong.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Record 16 million new jobs.
TOMLINSON: Turns out that’s about 1 million jobs too many, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a revised report that says there were $818,000 fewer jobs than previously estimated.
One number not in dispute, grocery prices up 20 percent since Biden and Harris came into office.
NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS HOST: Should she accept any blame for that?
GENE SPERLING, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: I — no — I think overwhelmingly what people are seeing is that the United States got through the recovery with greater jobs, greater growth.
TOMLINSON: With the Democrats gathered in Chicago, former President Donald Trump made another visit to the border, in the swing state of Arizona, flanked by members of the border patrol and families who have lost loved ones to illegal aliens, including the mother of a -year-old girl strangled to death in Houston.
TRUMP: We had a border czar who was — the border czar, she loved the title but she didn’t want to do the work.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TOMLINSON: RFK Jr. also said if the system was honest, he would have won this election — Shannon.
BREAM: All right. Lucas Tomlinson reporting from the White House — Lucas, thank you.
And joining us now is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Welcome to “FOX News Sunday”.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), SUSPENDED 2024 PRESIDENTIAL RUN: Shannon, thanks for having me.
BREAM: Okay. So let’s get this out of the way up front. You and President Trump not always fans of each other. He posted on social media earlier this year: He’s one of the most liberal lunatics ever to run for office. A phony radical left fool whose poll numbers are terrible and getting worse.
“The New Yorker” said just a couple of weeks ago this: In a recent text exchange, Kennedy told one person that Trump was a terrible human being, the worst president ever and barely human. He is probably a sociopath.
And I haven’t read your text so you can speak to that
But how did you get from that position to Friday night?
KENNEDY: Well, you know, I — it became clear to me that I did not have a path to victory. Sixteen months of censorship, of not being able to get on any network really except for FOX, and I had — in fact, when — when Ross Perot ran in the 10 months that he ran, he had 34 appearances on the networks. I had two appearances in months.
I was blocked out the networks. I was blocked out from the debate. I had no path to victory.
President Trump had been reaching out to me and I talked to him a few hours after the assassination attempt and we had a long conversation by phone. I then had two extensive meetings and there were issues — the broad issues that were most important to me the ones that brought me into the campaign which was ending the Ukraine war, ending the censorship and protecting children’s health. We’re all into reforming our food supply, all the things that we need to do to make our children healthy again.
Those are all things that President Trump also wanted to work on, and he invited me to form a unity government. We agreed that we’d be able to continue to criticize each other on issues on which we don’t agree. But these issues are so important and their way of unifying our country.
We need in this country to reach a point where we love our children more than we hate each other.
BREAM: It’s a good, unifying theme that I think a lot of people could get around. It’s how we get there that’s always the devil is in the details.
Have you all negotiated over or talked about a cabinet position, another position within a Trump government in exchange for your endorsement?
KENNEDY: No, there was — there’s no commitments but I — you know, I met with President Trump, with his family, with his closest advisors and we just made a general commitment that we were going to work together.
BREAM: What about the states where you’re trying to get off of a number of swing state ballots to say, I’m going to stay on a number of state ballots but in these swing states, I’m going to try to withdraw myself and ask my supporters — or at least you’re telling them think about supporting President Trump.
Did you negotiate over which states you would try to withdraw from?
KENNEDY: Yeah, I mean, we all knew which states they were. There basically is 10 swing states where my presence in the race would have helped Vice President Harris and would have harmed President Trump.
So I’m going to get off the ballot in those states and then we’re going to stay on the ballot in 30 states and, you know, I’m encouraging people to vote for me in those states. Those are states with the votes — they’re either all red or all blue states where their votes are not going to change the outcome of the race.
And — but in the — in the red — in the states where I would have been spoiler, I’m going to get out. It’s about 10 states.
BREAM: Okay. So there were reports a couple weeks ago citing an official from your camp and also a Democratic official saying that there had been outreach to the Harris camp as well to possibly discuss you working within the Harris administration in exchange for an endorsement of her.
Is that true? And what happened with that?
KENNEDY: It — you know, I reached out to them on the same basis that I reached out to President Trump and I — we actually talked to other presidential candidates, including Chase Oliver in the Libertarian Party about figuring out ways that we could end the polarization and the hatred and the vitriol, start talking about issues.
And you know, I — and I would have — I was welcome to listen to anything from the Democrats that they were going to do something about the war — about the Ukraine war, about the censorship, about the child health crisis, this epidemic of chronic disease that is now disabled about 60 percent of our kids.
And you know, when my uncle is President Shannon, only 6 percent of Americans had chronic disease. Today, over 60 percent.
And, you know, it’s hard to find a kid today that’s not been damaged by it, and it’s coming from our food supply, from contain — from pollution in our environment, from toxics in our environment, and mainly from corruption in our government that allows that to happen.
BREAM: You’ve talked about or there’s been discussion that if you were to join the Trump administration in some health related position, that you have real interest in dismantling things like the FDA, the CDC, NIH. You would like to see focus away from infectious diseases to what you’re talking about more chronic diseases.
Is it fair to say that you would try to dismantle some of those organizations?
KENNEDY: No, I wouldn’t dismantle them. I would change the focus and I would end the corruption. I would — right now, 75 percent of FDA’s budget is coming from pharmaceutical companies. That is a perverse incentive.
In NIH, the — if you — scientists and officials in NIH who work on drug development, who incubate drugs for the pharmaceutical company, get to collect lifetime royalties from those products. These are regulators. They’re supposed to be looking for problems in those products. We have these agencies that have become sock puppets for the industries they’re supposed to regulate. They’re not really interested in public health.
Everybody, the most profitable thing today in America is a sick child. Everybody is making money. The hospitals are making money. The pharmaceutical companies are making money. Even the insurance companies make money.
And we need to end those perverse incentives. We need to get the corruption out of FDA, out of NIH, out of the CDC and make them function as they’re supposed to function, which is to protect public health and particularly children’s health.
BREAM: Let me go back to your decision from Friday. Both you and Nicole Shanahan, your running mate, have talked about how you feel like the Democrats completely mistreated you, excluded you from the process. How much of your decision Friday is about revenge or motivated by punishing Democrats in some way?
KENNEDY: Zero. I really — I don’t act in anything in my life. I don’t act out of anger or revenge or resentment. It’s a — it’s a bad motivation. It’s like swallowing poison and hoping someone else will die. And so I don’t do it.
I’m — you know, I am very pragmatic and practical and I am focused on one thing, which is how do we restore health for our children? And that touches many, many other issues. How do we regenerate our soils in this country? How do we protect small family farmers? The incentives are all going to commodity agriculture and that’s what is feeding this chronic disease epidemic. The processed foods that are created by commodity agriculture.
So we need to do all of these things at once. Protect small farmers, restore our soils, regenerative agriculture and to get the corruption out of the federal government and — and make these agencies do what they were created to do, which is to protect our health and not serve the mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical companies in the processed food industry.
BREAM: This decision is not without personal cost for you. Your own family went to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day, took a huge picture with President Biden, made clear who they were supporting. Friday night, your siblings issued this statement.
“We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear.”
You posted on “X” Friday night saying, you’re grateful to your amazing wife because the decision that you’ve made is one that she’s uncomfortable with. So talk to us about the personal backlash you have to deal with.
KENNEDY: Yeah, I mean, you know, my family is at the center of the Democratic Party. I have five members of my family that are working for the Biden administration. President Biden has a — a — a bust of my father behind him at the Oval Office. He’s been a family friend for many, many years.
And my family is — I understand that they’re troubled by my decisions, but you know, I love my family. I feel like we were raised in a milieu where we were encouraged to debate each other and debate ferociously and passionately about things, but just still love each other.
So, you know, they can — they’re free to take their positions on these issues. There are many, many members of my family who are working in my campaign, who are supporting me. I have a very big family. There’s a few of them that are troubled, but you know, I think we all need to be able to disagree with each other and still love each other.
BREAM: “Wall Street Journal” has this. They say it’s a two — a double- edged sword, essentially, that it may help President Trump to pick up some of your followers if they’re willing to go over there, but they warn about what you would do in his administration. They say this, “RFK Jr., if he’s anywhere near the health care or environmental agencies in a Trump administration, look out. Mr. Trump’s best response is to thank RFK Jr. for his support, make no promises about the future, and by all means avoid joint campaign appearances.”
You’ve already had one. Will you have others? Will you campaign for President Trump?
KENNEDY: Yeah, I’m going to be campaigning actively. I think President Trump is going to make a series of announcements about other Democrats who are joining his campaign, and you know, I want to make America healthy again, and so does President Trump. So those are objectives.
My — “The Wall Street Journal” may be worried about shareholder value for pharmaceutical companies, and I think, you know, I talked specifically to President Trump about that issue, and he said that he wanted to leave, as his legacy, healthy children, and that, you know, that he was unconcerned about the other implications.
BREAM: All right, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thank you for your time today. We’ll see you on the campaign trail then.
KENNEDY: Shannon, thanks so much for having me.
BREAM: Up next, the economy takes center stage in the race for the White House, as we learn the U.S. created nearly a million fewer jobs than previously reported.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the Harris-Walz campaign surrogate, joins us to talk about that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BREAM: Fresh off the convention, we are still awaiting more details on Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ plans to turn around the economy. If elected, though, one of the things she says is Harris is proposing to give $25,000 to some first-time homebuyers. Not yet clear exactly how that would work and some experts actually feel it could inflate the market for homes.
Joining me now, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, also a surrogate for the Harris-Walz campaign and somebody who has great concerns about the housing market.
Governor, good to have you back.
GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO), HARRIS-WALZ SURROGATE: Good to be back.
BREAM: OK, so let’s start with that proposal. There was some skepticism across the board about how it would work and get paid for. Here’s Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank fame, business investor. Here’s his take.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN O’LEARY, “SHARK TANK” INVESTOR: There are bad ideas, bad, bad ideas, and really bad ideas and that falls into this category. When you give $25,000 to anybody in a constrained market, you cause inflation. So if there’s three houses for sale on the street and everybody bidding on it gets another $25,000, all of that attributes to the seller and you cause the price of the house to go up because there’s no supply.
BREAM: OK, knowing that this is an issue you’ve worked desperately on to try to get these things under control, what do you make of the criticism of this plan?
POLIS: Well, look, if that was her entire housing plan, then some of that would be valid. That’s a small piece of it that some of the opponents have glommed on to. The key piece of Kamala Harris’s housing plan is removing barriers and red tape and regulations that prevent housing from being built, effectively streamlining the process of building homes, allowing the quantity of homes to increase, especially the kinds of starter homes that people can afford, $200,000, $300,000. That’s the bulk of her plan. That $25,000, if it’s a way to move renters into owners, that’s a good thing.
We live in an ownership society. That’s how people build wealth. If people, instead of having their monthly check go every month to rent, if they can have a good mortgage and build equity, that’s good. But of course, not alone. It needs to be coupled with, and it is under Kamala Harris’ detailed housing plan, increasing the quantity of housing.
BREAM: OK, so she does want to get to, I think the goal is 300 — excuse me, 3 million new homes in four years, but you talk about the barriers that exist to getting those homes built.
“The Washington Post” says this, she’s going to have to deal with regulations. The only real way to get there is via the one promise Harris will find hardest to keep, that is to make it much easier for builders to build. They go on to say actually getting local governments to expedite reviews is as much a management problem as a legal one, and her administration cannot micromanage every county seat and town hall. You alluded to that problem.
POLIS: Yeah, and we have similar issues in Colorado getting rid of, you know, local red tape to get things built. We welcome the help of the federal government. Most Americans looking for housing affordability, they don’t care if it’s their mayor, their governor, or their president that does it, they just want it done, and President Kamala Harris is really speaking to that.
So I think you can look forward to how we can effectively tie in a wide variety of federal incentives to these kinds of land-use zoning reforms that effectively reduce red tape, reduce the size of local government, and make it easier to build homes. That’s what’s going to lead to the millions of new homes and more affordability for the American people.
BREAM: Well, and I know that Colorado, we’ve talked with the Denver mayor and with others there, that — that part of the issue with housing is this influx of a lot of new people showing up.
“The Daily Caller” says this, “The U.S. currently has an estimated shortage of 4 million to 7 million housing units. The recent influx of illegal immigrants is putting even more stress on the system by aggravating the current shortage of supply in the market at a rate that developers can’t keep up with.”
Under this administration, we have had millions of new people come to this country, and in a way that it is unregulated, it doesn’t follow our laws, and it is impacting housing markets. Is that part of the problem in Colorado and beyond?
POLIS: Look, there’s no doubt we’d be in a better place today if former President Trump hadn’t torpedoed the bipartisan border security plan that would have finally locked down the border to provide real security —
BREAM: OK, but that comes three and a half years into this administration. You’re repealing executive orders and doing all kinds of things that led us to these historically high numbers.
POLIS: Well, look, I mean, Democrats have supported border security for decades. I supported it in Congress, sponsored bills to do it, you know, and again, we can’t let politics stand in the way of solving this, and so while, again, there might be blame on both sides, the most recent attempt to fix it was clearly torpedoed by former President Trump, and that’s why we have a chaotic border today. Very clear, that’s the matter.
Of course, look —
BREAM: OK, well you know that there are a number of senators we’ve had on this show and beyond who will say that they weren’t going to vote for that bill regardless of whether President Trump liked it or not. They had real concerns with it in the House and the Senate.
POLIS: Well, the key question to ask them then is what amendments would you like to make to improve it? I mean, any idea that improves border security —
BREAM: Well, they’ll say they were allowed to make amendments.
POLIS: — I’m sure Democrats are for. Well, then that’s their problem, but look, that’s what they’re there for. We want ideas from the left and the right, but again, the key thing is the border would be locked down today if not for President Trump thwarting that effort, preventing that effort to provide border security.
BREAM: Wait, wait, wait. OK, but you —
POLIS: But again, there’s plenty of blame on both sides for over a decade on this.
BREAM: Is it fair to say that the bill was not going to lock down the whole border? I mean, in all honesty, I mean, that bipartisan plan was not going to completely stem the tide of what’s happening at the border.
POLIS: It would have cut it by at least two-thirds, and look, if there’s a way to do it a hundred percent, I’m sure that President Harris can deliver on that once she has the opportunity to serve. This is somebody who fought crime, she’s a prosecutor, she’s put criminals behind bars, she knows how to keep people safe, and that’s exactly what we need here.
You mentioned the dimension connecting it to the housing. Of course, that’s a small part of it. I mean, housing costs have gone up in Colorado long before the recent influx here. The average home price in the Denver metro area, $600,000. Why? Because it’s a great place to live. Why does it cost that much? Because we’ve artificially constrained the ability to build housing because of government interference. We need to remove that government interference, allow the housing to be built, and that’s what Vice President Harris’ plan is all about.
BREAM: OK, so let’s talk about that because we would like to see more from her. We’re all waiting for a sit-down interview, a press conference. We look forward to the debate on September 10th. We’d love to host additional ones. But in the meantime, we’re sort of left to guess where she is on a number of things, where it appears she’s changed positions on fracking and the Green New Deal, gun buybacks, mandatory gun buybacks, all kinds of things that we get a trickle from people within her campaign who, you know, off the record are giving us guidance about where she is now. Is it time for her to sit down, give us more information, put a policy primer on her website?
POLIS: Well, I’m sure that she’ll be doing a lot more interviews in the future. Of course, the debate is going to be very exciting. She’s already taking questions at a number of different venues as she’s moving in and out, but of course, the truth of the matter is, yes, she’s come to the middle. She’s pragmatic. She’s a tough leader. She’s the leader we need for the future.
So again, while she may have in the past ran on things just as President Trump ran on single-payer, supported single-payer health care years ago and has moved away from that, Kamala Harris did support things that she’s now moderated. She’s going to be a president for all the American people.
Look, whether you’re conservative, whether you’re moderate, whether you’re liberal, I think you’re going to see a lot of your priorities reflected in President Harris, who’s really just out for the people, as she said, fighting to make housing more affordable, improve our schools, make education more affordable and strengthen the jobs market.
BREAM: Well, speaking of the jobs market, we talked about we got this downgrade in the year ending March 2024, 818,000 jobs that didn’t actually happen.
There’s been a revision there, Alfred Ortiz, the CEO of Job Creators Network says this, the labor market is far weaker than top-line numbers suggest and has been dominated by government and quasi government jobs. This fuller view of the jobs market nullifies a year’s worth of exaggerated headlines that have helped the Biden-Harris administration present a false picture of economic strength.
It may be why in the polling, while the administration will say things are getting better, they are moving in the right direction, people say it’s not their reality. I mean, they’re paying 20 to 30 percent more for household items over January 2021.
Does president — Vice President Harris plan to break with the Biden administration policies?
POLIS: Well, right now, nationally, we have about 1.2 unemployed people for — I’m sorry, 1.2 job openings for every unemployed person.
So there are more job openings than unemployed people. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a skills gap, meaning some of the unemployed people while there are jobs might need additional training. Three weeks, six weeks, whatever it is.
I know that President — Vice President Harris has been a big fan of making sure the people have access to the training that they need to get the good jobs that are out there today.
I’m also excited, of course, by Kamala Harris’ middle class tax cut, putting more money back in the hands of middle class families, increasing their buying power. Very strong contrast to former President Trump’s tariff tax plan that would increase the cost of household items by 10 to 20 percent.
BREAM: Well, we’ll wait to hear from both of them because we need details on both those things. These claims about the tariff situation and also the economic plans of Vice President. We look forward to more details and we appreciate you.
In the meantime, Governor Polis being with us.
POLIS: Thank you. Take care.
BREAM: Thank you.
OK. The 2024 showdown, Harris and Trump, both back on the campaign trail this week, making stops in crucial battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the entire election.
Our panel is here to break it down as the campaigns gear up for that first Trump-Harris debate showdown, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations and always fights for the American people.
DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When we win this November, we will end the Kamala Harris border nightmare, once and for all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: That was Vice President Kamala Harris accepting the democratic presidential nomination this week, as former President Donald Trump took his campaign to the border.
It’s time now for our Sunday group. Francesca Chambers, “USA Today” White House correspondent. “The Federalist” editor-in-chief and Fox News contributor, Mollie Hemingway. Richard Fowler, Fox News contributor and Forbes contributing writer. And former George W. Bush National Security official, Michael Allen.
All right. Welcome, everybody. Everybody who made it back from the DNC. We all still need naps.
But let’s talk about what happened there. There was a lot of messaging. It was interesting because it very much was the vice president is the challenger and Donald Trump is the incumbent. It was kind of one of the vibes we got.
We also have this. From “The Hill.” Democrats try to take patriotism back from the GOP. It says USA chants, camo and American flag hats filled the convention in Chicago.
And when Vice President Harris wrapped up her speech, a balloon drop of red, white, and blue was met with dozens of giant American flags.
Francesca, was there — in the United Center and they had this very organized group that would take out the signs and the flags, whatever they were going to be, for that particular night. And they had, I would say, thousands of flags in there.
Was this a purposeful shift in some way? Because at some points we’ve been told that the American flag was a symbol of not so positive things.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, USA TODAY: Well, I do think they focused on the theme of patriotism to your point. And, of course, people have commented on like the Tim Walz, Kamala Harris camo hats as well.
With regards to her speech itself though, I think there were three main goals for the vice president that night, party, unity, reintroduce herself to voters and do no harm.
I say do no harm because if you pay attention to what she actually said in her speech, not a lot in there. That independence, the swing voters could be upset about.
When you look at the other things that she was saying in this speech in terms of the progressive policies, most of that was being done by those people who were speaking before her. They focused a lot that night on those anti-Trump Republicans as well.
So was her speech profound in some ways? I didn’t hear that from Democrats. I’ll let Richard speak to that, but she certainly met the bar that they were trying to set that evening.
BREAM: But, Richard, not a lot of substance. A lot of substance, we don’t get that in convention speeches. We get broad themes. We get things that are hopeful and make people feel good. It’s the minutiae that people really need to know about before they vote.
RICHARD FOWLER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think a couple of things. I think — I think Francesca is right when it comes to three principles that the Harris campaign wanted to get across.
And I think also to this happens in a moment where if this convention were happening in June or July, you probably wouldn’t have seen party unity. You probably would have seen more, you know, ceasefire protests.
I mean, we were talking about that a couple of weeks ago on this show that you’re going to see chaos in Chicago and that chaos did not result in any real form or fashion. I think that has lots to do with the work.
BREAM: Well, there were dozens of — over at south side.
FOWLER: No. There were dozens but there were —
BREAM: But there was no —
FOWLER: Thousands.
BREAM: — organized, you know, inside.
FOWLER: Of course.
BREAM: I heard some shouts of free Palestine in that case.
FOWLER: Sure.
BREAM: But nothing organized.
FOWLER: And I think it has a lot to do with the work of the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson.
But beyond that, I think that all sorts to do with Vice President Kamala Harris, three weeks ago, really uniting this party in a new and invigorative way.
And I think her fundraising numbers today, over half a billion dollars raised, 200,000 volunteer shifts, people are signing up for today speaks to the fact that she has organized the party and united the party.
With 77 days to go in this election, you have a united Democratic Party. You pretty much have a united Republican Party.
And the question now becomes, for both of them, is who can turn out their base and who can talk to independent voters and voters who are likely not to vote in this election in a new way to get them out to vote, with ballots going out in a couple of weeks in some states.
BREAM: I mean, it is soon.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: There are a couple reasons why Democrats are really trying to push this message of unity. The first one is pretty obvious. They just ousted the President of the United States from the ticket and replaced him with someone who hadn’t won a single electoral vote from any Democrat.
So it’s really important to sort of pretend that that didn’t take place, to pretend that there’s unity. The first guest on your program today, RFK Jr., lifelong Democrat from a really important Democrat family shows that that unity is quite overblown.
But the bigger problem for Kamala Harris is that she’s the incumbent vice president in a failed presidential administration.
And so that was the big takeaway I took from this convention, was how much they were trying to make this a referendum on Donald Trump.
There are two problems with that. Again, one, she’s the incumbent of what’s going on right now. If she has these ideas that she claims she has, she’s had three and a half years to implement them.
But the other problem is that the Trump presidency was very successful. And a lot of Americans view it far more favorably now than they did even when they were — when they were finishing it and gave Biden a chance.
FOWLER: But the net favorability of Trump himself are actually very negative. And I think that’s why you see Kamala Harris having the bump in the polls that she currently has.
BREAM: Well, the policies though, when you ask people about how you were doing financially, did the Trump. We have recent polling on this too, where the Trump era policies better for you and your family?
It was like two to one over what they felt like. Many of them said was actually negative for them, that the Biden-Harris administration policies that actually hurt their families.
So do people, is it really still just about the economy stupid?
MICHAEL ALLEN, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: It’s not just about the economy. I think it’s about all the issues that we know that President Trump has an advantage on.
But I think all of you were correct and that this was the second switch. The first switch was, let’s put in Kamala Harris for Joe Biden. And now let’s switch out who the incumbent is.
And so I think that President Trump needs to be able to put her on the defensive and very, very soon.
The good news is, is that I think she hasn’t done anything amazing yet. Bear with me for a second. She’s riding a wave of relief that it’s not Joe Biden that’s at the top of the ticket. I think she brought home soft Democrats. I think she performed with a teleprompter. She did fine. She didn’t make any mistakes.
But the hard part starts now. She’s got to be able to demonstrate that she has political dexterity and agility and a give-and-take campaign environment. And I don’t think she’s done that yet. And that’s what we need to look forward to starting this week.
BREAM: Yes. So the debate prep is underway. We know that the Trump team is using Tulsi Gabbard, former congresswoman who really sparred with then Senator Harris when they were on the debate stage together. We’ll see how that works.
But I want to bring this up too this note that the more that President Trump has tried to say, listen, no federal ban on abortion. Also this week talking about the Comstock Act that he will not use any federal action to block abortion polls going through the mail. There are many within the pro- life community who are starting to get a little frustrated with him.
“POLITICO” quotes, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council saying this. It’s not a pro-life position. It’s not an acceptable position and it does not provide the contrast on this issue to the degree that we had in the past between him and Kamala Harris, what President Trump is doing is suppressing his own support.
Mollie, it’s not necessarily the pro-lifers are going to go vote for President Biden, but — or excuse, Vice President Harris, but do they stay home?
HEMINGWAY: Right. Pro-lifers are very pleased with President Trump for how he ran his first administration. And they are very grateful for what he did with judges and other issues. And there’s no question that Kamala Harris, who just, I mean, pretty much the only policy that was talked about on stage at the Democratic Convention, was abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, up until the moment of birth, not a single protection for any child, no matter the circumstances. That is a strong contrast.
But President Trump should understand that his base of support includes these people who care about violence in the womb and they want to protect children and their mothers. And he should be mindful of how much — how much help he gets from those people and not discourage them.
BREAM: All right. Richard, I see you shaking your head. We’re almost out of time.
But I didn’t hear Democrats articulate anything short of what Mollie said.
FOWLER: Well, a couple of points here. I rarely agree with Mr. Perkins, but I do agree with him here.
I do think in Trump’s pivot to try to get independence, he’s losing right- leaning voters. I think beyond that, I think Republicans continue to make these arguments that Democrats believe in this abortion after birth, which is not a rule.
BREAM: No, no. You didn’t — you said up to.
FOWLER: Up to birth.
BREAM: Just to be clear, because, listen, we just had Jared Polis on — Governor Polis —
FOWLER: Sure.
BREAM: — out of Colorado. He signed a measure, as Tim Walz did in Minnesota that allows for abortion at any time during pregnancy.
FOWLER: Sure. And I think those are very, very, very, very rare cases. In the case where a mother gets in a car accident, it’s a life of the mother – – the life of the baby.
And I think doctors make them in very rare cases. I think the idea of these are happening every single day in hospitals across America is a total misnomer.
BREAM: Well, there are — but no, I will say this. The American Institute, which is not a conservative group, says there are thousands of these every year.
FOWLER: Thousands in a country that has 300 million Americans is a very, very small number.
HEMINGWAY: But Americans would love some protection of children.
FOWLER: But I think what you see in poll — in poll after poll after poll and ballot issue after ballot issue after ballot issue is the American people stand on the side of a woman and her doctor making the best decision for them over the government making that decision.
BREAM: And there are a number of those on key critical states.
We’ll see how that plays out because they’re on a lot of ballot initiatives in the fall.
OK. Do not go anywhere.
We’ve got this. Multiple Secret Service agents are now on leave following the assassination attempt on former President Trump last month. Our panel discusses new revelations as we preview two events on Monday that are aimed at getting more information about exactly how this happened, next.
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MICHAEL WALTZ (R-FL): The FBI and the Secret Service are moving at a snail’s pace. They’re acting like this is a one-time incident, that we can take our time to really unpack. No, these plots are happening right now as we speak. We have a foreign enemy trying to kill our former president. We need to be releasing information as we get it, and they need to move a lot faster in my view.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: Congressman Michael Waltz on “FOX AND FRIENDS” yesterday, pushing for a swifter, more transparent probe into the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Now, five Secret Service members have been put on leave following the incident that left Trump wounded, Corey Comperatore dead and two others seriously injured.
We are back now with our panel.
Molly, you were pretty fired up about this during the commercial break.
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, EDITOR IN CHIEF, “THE FEDERALIST” AND FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, what happened with President Trump nearly being assassinated was traumatic, not just for him and his family, but the entire country. We came within centimeters of a horrific situation. You had, again, RFK Jr. on at the top of the hour. We all saw what happened with his father and uncle. And seeing that on live television is traumatic for people.
Washington, D.C., the permanent D.C. apparatus is not that interested in what happened, even as normal Americans are horrified by it.
And, obviously, the FBI and Secret Service can’t investigate themselves on their own failings in this matter, but Congress also need – you know, Congress needs to do more. The media need to do far more and be far more interested in this situation and the political climate that leads to these types of situations.
BREAM: All right, a couple of things that have surfaced. Senator Hawley has yet another whistleblower he says that’s come forward. He sent a letter to the acting director of the Secret Service saying this, “a whistleblower with knowledge of the planning of the whole thing alleges that officials at Secret Service headquarters encouraged agents in charge of the trip not to request any additional security assets in its formal manpower request, effectively denying these assets through informal means.” Hawley goes on to write that Roe (ph) had told him that no security assets had been denied. So, he says there – he needs an explanation. Somethings is in conflict.
RICHARD FOWLER, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, “FORBES” AND FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Listen, I think the American people deserve an explanation for this. If you look at what happened to former President Trump, and I think it’s – it’s heartbreaking, versus what happened to the last time we seen an attempted presidential assassination attempt which was in the `80s against Ronald Reagan, they’re completely – the stark – the contrast can’t be starker, right? And I say that in a world in which the heroic picture that many have celebrated is a picture that did not happen during the Reagan assassination because the Secret Service moved so swiftly to get Ronald Reagan out of it that there wasn’t time for a photo.
In this scene, what we saw three weeks ago, there were three or four, maybe five or six different photos that were taken that shouldn’t have been allowed in a world when you’re trying to get a protectee to a safe zone when there’s an active shooter.
And so I think there’s a lot of question that should be asked. I agree with Mollie, this is very disgusting. And I think Congress should move a lot faster and the Secret Service should move a lot faster to get the American people the answers they deserve because this was an utter failure.
BREAM: Well, and Congressman Clay Higgins has already released a little bit of what he found in this. He said, “the Secret Service did not retrieve radios that had been set aside for them by Butler County’s tactical command, even though they had been reminded to do so by Butler County tactical command the day before and the morning of the shooting.” That’s according to Higgins.
We’re going to have the bipartisan group from the House visit Butler tomorrow, but there’s also this other forum that’s happening with a couple of other members of Congress who are holding – you can’t call it a hearing but something else. They say they’re running in parallel. But hard to get anything done here in Washington.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, “USA TODAY”: Well, right. It is an election year and right now Congress is out. They’ve been out for several weeks now. They’ll be back in September. But there’s also an appropriations process. And that is just, to your point, like, what is happening in this town heading into a November election.
The president of the United States has said he wants to see a thorough and transparent investigation because, to Richard’s point, he believes that the American people need to know what happened here. So, certainly we’ll – all of our eyes will be on this heading – heading into November as well.
BREAM: Yes. And this morning we all woke up to – if you weren’t up late last night, to this news on the international stage, Michael, that Hezbollah and Israel have been trading fire. Israel had a commanding 100 of their jets apparently flew over Hezbollah, they said targeted at what they had been told was a preparation for some 6,000 potential missiles coming their way.
MICHAEL ALLEN, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL: That’s right. So, Israel, of course, making a preemptive strike in part to take out all of this Hezbollah capability. Imagine here in the United States if 10 percent of our territory were inaccessible because one of our neighbors was able to arrange it with rockets or missiles. Israel cannot live forever. They honestly can’t live another year with Hezbollah able to attack their territory. This is why Netanyahu says what happened last night is just the beginning, not the end. Expect a regional situation to possibly escalates as Israel feels like they need to go more into Lebanon, to push Hezbollah back.
By the way, this is the right way to do it. The way we put al Qaeda back on their heels was to keep a boot on their throat. And I think Israel knows that’s the best solution for them moving forward.
BREAM: How worried are you about that escalation you talk about, with the fact that Iran is still warning, oh, yes, we’re still going to, you know, unleash our retribution on – or on Israel for the Hamas leader who was taken out. I mean there’s a lot of threat flying back and forth here.
ALLEN: I’m still concerned that Iran will try to do something beyond what they already do every day, which is act through their proxies. I believe that they feel like they look weak because Israel was able to target one other their top terrorist proxies, in their guest house, at their administration. So, I feel like they need to do that to show their toughness. They want to restore deterrence also. So, I think Iran’s just trying to figure out a couple different things.
How do we get through and not embarrass ourselves with missiles and drones, but not get through in such a way that Israel wants to come back and attack us.
BREAM: Right.
ALLEN: They don’t want a total war because they would lose. And so they have to walk this line and it’s very tight.
BREAM: It feels like what they did in – in April I think it was when they did a lot of incoming Iran into Israel. Israel was able to block most of that. But Iran was able to say, we did unleash on them. And there’s this weird choreography that seems that happen with these sometimes.
ALLEN: That’s right.
BREAM: In the meantime, I want to put up a look at some assets we have in the region. And, Francesca, this is clearly something that the White House has got to deal with. I mean, what do you make of the criticism – we had General Kelly at the beginning of the show saying essentially that this administration has not handled this well.
CHAMBERS: Well, the president continues to get updates on this. He sent CQ Brown to the region. And if we could, just for a second, talk about the ceasefire and hostage negotiation as well that are taking place in the region right now, you had the president, who called Bibi Netanyahu on Wednesday to try and press him on some of the finer points.
We have not seen inside those negotiations. So, when they keep saying that they’re getting closer, we – we don’t know that. We haven’t seen it. But that is what the White House says. But they have to keep going back and forth between – between Hamas. And that can sometimes take days.
BREAM: Yes. And having these peace talks in the middle of a new incursion involving Hezbollah and Iran’s threats still there certainly complicates things.
All right, panel, thank you very much. We’ll see you next Sunday.
We’re going to take you back to Israel up next, an update on those major Israeli strikes against Hezbollah, the return. All of that with Trey Yingst, next.
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BREAM: I want to take you back to Israel. Our top story, the IDF’s preemptive attack on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Their return fire as well.
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst joins us again.
Hey, Trey.
TREY YINGST, FOX NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hey, Shannon, good morning.
We continue to gather the latest information from the ground. I’ve talked with members of the Israeli military and top defense officials here in Tel Aviv. They say right now it is the status quo unfolding. Israeli officials do not believe there will be a large attack from Hezbollah following the preemptive strikes that took place overnight, but they do remain on high alert across this country.
And it also comes as we continue to look back at this war that’s unfolded for the past 326 days. And we have some new reporting for you from my upcoming book “Black Saturday” that is out on October 1st.
We learned as part of our reporting for the book that the Israelis actually planned a preemptive strike against Hezbollah just four days after the October 7th massacre. Jets were in the sky. And just an hour before that strike was set to take place it was called off following a conversation with President Biden. We’ll certainly have more information about that in the book coming out October 1st.
Shannon.
BREAM: Can’t wait. Got mine on order.
Trey Yingst, thank you very much.
And just a quick note, my podcast “Livin’ the Bream” drops today. This week I had the privilege of talking with one my heroes, speaker, author and disability advocate Joni Eareckson Tada. We talked what her new book, “The Practice of the Presence of Jesus: Daily Meditations on the Nearness of our Savior.” Get it anywhere you like to get your books. And check out the podcast, where you like to get your podcast.
That’s it for today. Thank you for joining us. I’m Shannon Bream. Have a great week. We’ll see you next FOX NEWS SUNDAY.
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