0 thank you for being with us. you make a show possible, but s we do hopeet you'll remember to set your dvr so you never miss an episode of hannity and tomorrow i will alwaysom promise to give you news you'd never get from the media mobob. in the meantime, let notrt your heart be troubled. the ingraham angle is next . bgr have a great night.ou see you back here tomorrow. i'm laura ingram . this is ingraham angle at federal district judge in tampa has vacated by the cdc national mandate for planes and other modes of public transportation are going to have more on this monumental ruling. i'm ruling for freedom just a bit but for now sinora sucker. we begin tonight with the old debate trap. that's the focushat's the f of s angle. now imagine asking nick saban to tolerate a game or all the referees are known to hate the alabama football team. now, in fact, these referees have made public statements saying how much they despise the crimson tide. well, that's prettyti much been the situation with republican presidential candidates and the moderatorsat chosen by the commission on presidential an years of after conservatives urging the rnc saying please cut tiess f this ridiculous organization on friday, it finally did. chairwoman ronna mcdaniel said in a statement, we are goingng e find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that futurea nomineest are not forced to go through the biased cpd in order to make the case to. the american people. now the gnashing of teethll that you can imagine that followed was predictableowg this is a big deal , another blow to our democracy. it's's also a virtual guarantee that america will retreat further into its partisan echo chamber once the republican party decided that the americand free press is bad,ot that journalism is something they can not only do without but that they are against as a party .s. >> well, yeah, this is where that ends now writes. re they're not against journalists but they are against playing in a rigged game was not a spontaneous demonstration. >> is that what you'rens saying please proceed, governor. i want to make sure we get that for the record because it took b the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act ofe terror. >> get the transcript. terrier. >> he did in fact, sir. so let me let me call it an accident. that little of words he did cal an act of terror in the transcript. and then there's the time one of those unbias moderators began a primary debate with personal questions. your ex-wife gave an interview to abc news and another interview with the washington post. in it she says that you came to her in 1999 at a time when you were having an affair. sheer says you asked her , sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that ? >> no, but i will say i think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to to attract decent people to n for public office. i and i am appalled that you p would begin a presidential debate on a topicn a john had to adjust. it depends there that momentd then the cnbc turned cnn hack john harwood played his preferred role of dem operative mr. trump. you've very well in this campaign so far by promising tod build a wall and make another country pay for it. right.te and make americans better offe because your greatness would replace the stupidity and incompetencece of others. that's right. let's be honest. is is a comic book version of a presidential campaign. l evenau the guys over at c-span weren't immune and went to great lengths to cover up their bias. steve scully is caught seeking advice from the mooche. remember that who would becomer a ever trumper when w his direct message was mistakenlymi put out as a tweet??ump calle of course trump calledd him out and he ended up being right. i could go on and on but why bother? we all know that theseur so-called journalists when they know how they feel aboutna conservative and as you can see from the way they treated all romney and gingrich, santorum, so many others, this isn't limited to trump. the notion that democracy somehow requires that conservative candidatesbl submit to horribly biased questioning every four yearsy . that is ludicrous unless democracy of course was meaninglessan. ham lincoln back in 1858 when lincoln faced off against douglas in one of the most storied debates in usus political history with no moderatorshe and no panelists. i'der say the american people learned a lot more just by reading exactly back .e candidates said now the modern day candidate confab didn't really begin till 1960 when for the first time in history the debate betweenan two major presidentialdi candidates back then john f. kennedy nixon was televised.woud remember people who listened on the radio thought that nixon had won.ut on but on camera itcamera was the opposite. kennedy looked really cool and polished. nixon looked kind a, sweaty andt little bit shifty. and after that there was a debate lull for 16 years,6 a pick back up in 1976. but but by 2012 it was beyond obvious that the moderators were dead set against whoever the republicans nominated. obama was their lord nomina and savior and he had to be venerated p and protectro it at all costs. the bias had worsened over the next presidential cycles in 2016, the commentariat hated trump so muchre that there were serious demands supposedly respected media figures that the press had a duty notve to be objective when covering trumpri you cannot cover trump the way that you would coveror a normal person because he is not a normal person. the trump presidency has changed the way we cover news.co we have been trying to treat o donald trump's presidency as if it's normal trying to normalize what can't be normalized. well, there's not been a single moderator fromm the past i think three election cycles except maybe of course from fox who viewers wouldn't wholeheartedly believe supported the democratic party and to say otherwise look at these fools laughable. the press shouldn't complain though they have only't themselves to blameey had they actually made the effort to call and strikes to report the truth about the results of both democrat and republican policies on domestic and foreignan p affairs that mot americans would consider the debates important to preserve. exciting, tough but fair to both sides. look at just the last few years the press did. they sold the phony russianhe collusion narrative. they buried hunter's laptop. they silenced those who actually reported on it. thenen they pushed the destructive lockdown'ss and vilified those who question the lockdown's. they touted universal masking even of little kids. they sided with blm at the same time covered for violent antifa and anti-government protesters and of course can't forget they obsessed endlessly over january six and then they downplayed inflation stillme on , they're covering for china. we know that even when they're starving china is tens of millions of their own people unfortune as we've seen in so many other areas of american life, the media lost its prestige and credibility long ago just like a public health sector has lost the respect of a huge segment of the american people, just likee the courts,s, just like the prosecutorth, just like the intel agencies, even the pentagon. they've all become hyper partisan. ork for but remember, they're supposed to work for us .working agai but toons often it seems like they're working against us andco the ideals that made ourun country great for many years the gop was run by the bushes and the changes and those folks have proven over and over that they would rather lose to d the democrats than actually do what the republican voters want. so i think they were kind of happy to live with a biased press corps because they hated o their own voters more than they feared the left. even romney was treated horribly in 2012. you just saw that clip he was happy to go down quietly rather than rock the bipartisan establishment vote. those days are but my friends, those days are over . republicans have new leaders now leadersrs who actually think we're right and that giving power to the hard left is bad for america. so the gop is finally finally beginning to stand up for itself and the country as a result will be better off. and that's the angle. cd joining me now is ron mcdaniel, chairwoman of the republican national n committee, as well as mike huckabee, a mant who stood on that dais at stage as a presidential candidate, former arkansas governor. ron, t why was the time right nw to do this ? >> the time hwell, the time spent long overdue as you just chronicled, laura . but w get it was time to get rif a biased middleman who was negotiating debates, who had the democrats best interests at heart and the republican party took a huge step to say, you know what , we can negotiate for ourselves.ymore. we don't need a middleman anymore. we need to do what's best foror our candidates caca and for our voters and that's giving a free and fair debate and an opportunity for our candidate to not deal with biased moderators and a biased commission likethe commissionba on presidential debate. well, governor, here's what somete the media are suggesting happened in retaliation for withdrawings these big debates. >> the republican national committee voted unanimously to say we're out of the presidential debates. the reason to for that also is b get literally those debates and their viewersvi from watchio mainstream networks and to keep them isolatedrkrk in theirss information bubble unless the fcc steps in and regulates t this false disinformation speech. i think it's going to mean more problems for information discourse in this country. jughead, disinformation. what are you talking about, uc governor huckabee? tellka us your perspective. having stood e up there on that stage with this decision. well, having been on that stage in two different presidential election cycles. let me reach out and give a great big electronic hug to ronald mcdaniel to members of the rnc. thank you . thank you for finally wakingk yp and getting this right. ress and i cannot express enough how much i appreciate the gutsiness that ronnie politie rnc has shownt. rule one of politics,cs laura , never help load a gun if it'sry pointed at your own head and every one of these debates have basically been asking republican candidates for to help load the gun that was pointed at their own heads. and it's insane and i'm gladon that it's going to stop. there arenath a lot of things that we can do to improveho this process. the first one is n who needs a moderator? you only need a clock keeper if everybody exactly the same amount of time don't let the networks for their own purposes of getting ratingss decide who gets the most time. t give everybody exactly the same amount of time, put it on a clock and when their time isfi finished it's over , their mikes cut off. that'sou one way that would c improve it a lot.ou and i've got a lot of other things that could do it.t. but the big step has been done today and thank god, ron, that youou a and others have doe it and i hope the press will just slowly melt away like water on the wicked witch of the west. >> yeah, yeah. they act like they'reth the story. rana and this hasn been going on since i've been watching presidential debates, which is since i wasen really in college like nineteen eighty eight nineteen eighty four. but it'ss not about the press, it's about the people and themo issues. crto but i think democrats are really afraid to be out on that stage with none of the protective bubble wrap they've had as governor. huckabee noted over all these years, i think they'ref petrified of having to defend their policies. exactly right. and let's look ato 2020. they started the first debate after twenty six states a had started voting. work they picked a moderator that worked for joe biden for. m we went to the commission. we sent them a letter a year ago and said, can you give assurances to n seventy four million republican voters that you will not do this againot? and they said pound sand.re they didn't want to workty with the republican party. go so we just said to them, we don't need you. we can negotiate on our own. we're removing the middleman and we're removing the bias and we're going to put it in the hands of the american people and republican voters and make sure that our nominee is given a fair platform because if we're givenen a freer and fair debate, we're going to win. and thank you, governor huckabee, foranerat your great suggestions. i look forward to talking bec te you more because we're going tom use those as weit go forward. but we are absolutely committed and the media is lying again when they're saying we're walking away from danger. we're walking awa away from a biased middle man that we don't need anymore. > i like the idea of if ifsu it's just a democrat versuss , republican , it's like trading cards. okay, we'll give you this moderator forerator for t this moderator or we'll just goo five minutes on the economy, ten minutes on the border. but then, you know, one can complain afterward because youou had your chance to to maket your point or get your moderator or no moderate at all. but that's the way to do it. but they are governor. they are so afraid of this and i want to put this on the screen for everyone to see now this is just a small sample of 2020 left wing outfits calling for a complete elimination of presidential debates forever. now governorev, how quickly they forget like look at all the new republic. let's cancel them forever. an they didn't want any of this . and now suddenly how can you do this ? democracy's over . we had selon. we had volks. the list goes on and on new p republic. are they still publishing? yes, i guessth they are. governor again, the hypocrisy reign supremegn. well, they may forget, but republicans are the party of the elephant and elephants never forget nev. . let me also mention something. people forget f that the purpose of the debates, particularly in the primaries, is not to give the networks high ratings for a tv show. the purpose is to let the voters of that particular party hear their candidates and make the decision. or it'sks the party's primary, not the network's primary. the party ought to take total n control of it. they ought to control every aspect of itt where it's held, who gets to broadcast it, who gets to ask questions. if there are questions, maybe don't have questions, maybe just letty's candidates make statements and react to each other. but other. they have the same at of time. quit having an a and a b, the so-called kiddies table.s ao that's insulting. it's also destructive. but keep in mind more than anything else we've got to educate the american voter that the purpose of these debates is toeb give them the voters the opportunity to hear about what the candidates think. laura , i can't tell t you how many times a reporter or a a questioner on the debate stage would ask me a question, would spend m two minutes asking the question and then say too me, okay, there'sme my two minue question. you've got thirty seconds to answer it. aree you kidding me? i'm running fori president. u you're not i want to say shut the heck up and let me have the two minutes. you take the thirty seconds gov. talent if they want to went go on amers got talent and have it be allif about them, they should gofe ino a different line of work with again it is not about anyit of us . it's not about a reporter. it's aboutheri the american peoe in the issues. ranna it took a woman to get this done. i'm so happy the masks are gone on the planes and the debatek commission is back on its heels. this is a great day, governor, thank you so much for speaking of institutions that of course have suffered greatly in the eyes of the american people and of course filingea late friday, special counsel john durham argued that the cia t concluded data from clinton campaign lawyer michael sussman allegingha this coordination supposedly between trump and russia was quote notum technically plausible and was quote usedpno or created.ot in othere words, it's phony. durham also alleges that on february 2017, sussman provided an updated set of allegations including the alpha bank claims and additional allegations related to trump to a second u.s. government agency that fox news confirmed was indeed the cia. >> joining me now, jonathan turley, george washington university law prof and fox news contributor. professor, why did durham find it necessary to get this information, this new information out and file it so it's obviously in the public domain? well, for one reason, susman the former clinton campaign attorney, has been really r taking a scorchedea earth approach to the trial, which i understand. but he's tryingsc to keep aboutn evidence, trying to opposede the witnesses receivingss immunity, all of them effort to keep out some of these facts. and so that has forced the hand of this special counsel who told the court why this is all important and these are very important disclosures we haven't seen before. you know, the finding by the cia is quite telling because we know that the law firm perkins cooey had two of the critical figures here, sussman, who's under indictment and the general health of the market is a lobbyist is the figure most associated with the steel dossier and the campaign was just sanctioned by the fec after they hid the funding off the steel dossier. is the legal cost at that firm .rm so elias was accused of aiding the funding of the steele dossier. sussman was accused of hiding the clinton campaign's role in the elphabatopaig. both of them were debunked. werd russian collusion claimsebunke. well, professor, let me just say that on a friday with news ,very few of the other networks actually covered it. i mean, really covered it and i wonder why i mean, you just laid it out for us perfectly and you might have heard me ore seen me throw the mask off literally at the beginning of the show. but tell us why judge catherine mozelle decision essentially vacating the cdc's massive mandate was important here and basically she said ite was beyond the scope ofdc the cdc's authority, both arbitrary and capricious. arbiy and here's how americans began to respondre and they heard the news professor was i think likes to continue to do that . we do have access to professor.