xfdfx FOX-ON-THE-RECORD-WIT-03
<Show: FOX ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN>
<Date: August 1, 2012>
<Time: 22:30:00>
<Tran: 080103cb.260>
<Type: Show>
<Head: Interview with Greg Turner, Rick Klein>
<Sect: News, Domestic>
<Byline: Greta Van Susteren>
<Guest: Greg Turner, Rick Klein>
<Spec: Politics; Homosexuality; Government>
VAN SUSTEREN: From California to Chicago to Texas and Florida, today across the country long lines at Chick-fil-As. Why? Supporters of the fast-food chain are calling today Chick-fil-A appreciation day. They are backing it is company’s president who, is under fire for his public opposition to gay marriage. The mayors of Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston telling Chick-fil-A it is not welcome in their cities. “The Boston Herald” deputy business editor Greg Turner joins us. Nice to see you, Greg.
GREG TURNER, “THE BOSTON HERALD”: Thank you for having me, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: Greg, first of all, I want to get an idea about Chick- fil-A. Is it privately held? How big is it? Tell me about it?
TURNER: It’s a pretty big company. They have 1,600 restaurants, mostly across the south of the United States. They have started up in Atlanta and 1967. The family-owned restaurant dates back before that under another name. But they are pretty sizable fast-food chicken company.
VAN SUSTEREN: I assume revenues are giant with a company that big?
TURNER: Yes, somewhere around $4 billion last year. So they do pretty well.
VAN SUSTEREN: Is it — I forgot to ask. Is it publicly or privately owned.
TURNER: It’s a family business, has been all along.
VAN SUSTEREN: And who is the owner right now? A man named Dan Cathy?
TURNER: Yes. Dan Cathy. A lot more people know about him than they probably used to in the last few weeks. He is the son of the founder, Truitt Cathy. It’s a strong Southern Baptist family. As many people know, they wear their values on their sleeve and have been speaking out lately in and gathered a lot of support because ever that.
VAN SUSTEREN: When he made his statement about marriage, was he doing it in the context of a personal vent or it was he doing it on behalf of the corporation?
TURNER: It depends on how you read into it. He speaks for the corporation. He was speaking as the president of the company to, I think it was the Baptist press. It was sort of the first time that he had publicly come out and spoken about his positions on family values. You know, a lot of people didn’t agree with his views on gay marriage. Many people did, obviously.
VAN SUSTEREN: I know that Chick-fil-A — it’s been a company that has with the CEO has been devoted to his religious principles. I have been to airports on Sunday and they are not opened on Sundays. I am curious whether or not, besides his statement, has he been at all active in anything that would be — that would be offensive to gay citizens?
TURNER: It’s hard to say. I think he has had some statements here and there have been financial support for anti-gay groups, you know, along the way. And that’s what has brought out the gay and lesbian community against the company. That’s what —
VAN SUSTEREN: I am trying — I’m sorry. Go ahead.
TURNER: No, that’s what prompted the mayor of Boston up here where I am to speak out against that and try to stop them from coming to Boston.
VAN SUSTEREN: I am trying to understand whether his statement is any different from, let’s say, a gay CEO of another company who would be, you know, promoting gay marriage. Is it functionally equivalent?
TURNER: I think so. I think a lot of people would think so. That’s why they seem to be getting a lot of support today with thousands of people lining up across the country at the restaurants to show their support and have a delicious lunch at the same time.
VAN SUSTEREN: Any assessment on how much their revenues jumped today out of the ordinary as a result of this?
TURNER: There is no way to tell because that’s obviously not disclosed by the company. But, you know, we had a reporter, Aaron Smith, from the “Herald” at the local Chick-fil-A, there is one outside of Boston here. And, you know, there were reports that the business was up 150 percent, 200 percent. There was a customer who came from a nearby town who was a kosher vegetarian and wanted to be there, ordering the fruit salad, not even getting the chicken.
VAN SUSTEREN: It’s hard to assess whether people are there for freedom of speech or whether people are there because they are opposed to gay marriage. How do we know?
TURNER: I — it seems to be more free speech when you talk to people about it, especially around here, because that’s — you know, people were reacting to the mayor of Boston, you know, putting his — you know — opposing the chain coming into Boston, in particular.
VAN SUSTEREN: Has he backed off by the way? I see the July 20 letter, in which he wrote Dan Cathy, but has he backed off. He said he urged him not to locate a Chick-fil-A in Boston. Has the mayor now backed off that?
TURNER: TURNER: When the Boston herald broke the story, he started out by saying Chick-fil-A does not belong in Boston. And he told us that he would — that the chain would find it very difficult to get whatever license they would need in the city. And that drew some negative reaction in the private sector just as a business issue. And a week later he did soften his stance and told us that he would — he wouldn’t actively oppose them trying to open up in a private deal. That’s their right. But he maintained his opposition to Dan Cathy and stood by his letter to the head of the company.
VAN SUSTEREN: I take it that Dan Cathy has not changed his statement, either?
TURNER: No. The company has not said too much publicly since issuing a statement stressing that their restaurants don’t discriminate in their service at all to people. And, you know, it is sort of — carried on in social media, people passing around the mayor’s letter. It is really created a groundswell, and then with Mike Huckabee, you know, calling for the appreciation day on the other side of the issue.
VAN SUSTEREN: Is this over? Is this going to go on? Have you figured that one out?
TURNER: It’s amazing how long it has gone on, and it may be going to end up being good for business for Chick-fil-A because maybe they are having more customers show up. But, you know, it’s hard to tell how long this will go on. It is interesting.
VAN SUSTEREN: Indeed, it is. Thank you.
TURNER: Thank you.
VAN SUSTEREN: Coming up, are there big secrets at the White House? Some Republicans just discovered emails sent from private addresses at a White House official at meetings held away from the White House. Why the cloak-and-dagger tactics?
And in two minutes, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is taking on President Obama and he is using his Twitter account to do it. What has Senator Rubio so fired up? Find out when you see his tweet. That’s two minutes away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Florida senator Marco Rubio take egg swipe at President Obama. Why? He doesn’t think it’s fair that U.S. Olympic medal winners have to pay taxes on their prizes. They receive cash payments and they earn $25,000 for gold and $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze. Then, though, and the IRS collects taxes. Senator Rubio says our tax code punishes success, and now Senator Rubio is tweeting, “Olympic champions shouldn’t have tax on medals unless President Barack Obama believes they didn’t earn them — someone else did that.” That’s obviously a swipe a President Obama’s controversial partial comment “If you have a business, you didn’t build that.”
Senator Rubio is not only tweeting, he is introducing a bill to eliminate taxes on prize money won by U.S. athletes. So what do you think? Should Olympic champions get taxed on their winnings? Go to Gretawire.com and tell us. We are back in two.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: House Republicans are blasting the White House and President Obama’s campaign manager, accusing them of failing to live up to the administration’s promise of transparency and maybe hiding something. According to a new House Commerce Committee report “Obama campaign manager Jim Messina and other administration officials sent emails from private addresses, not their White House email accounts, and scheduled meetings away from the White House. In one email an administration official tells an executive to meet him at a coffee shop to avoid showing up on the White House visitors list.
So is the White House trying to avoid official records? ABC News senior Washington editor Rick Klein joins us. Rick, what were these emails about?
RICK KLEIN, ABC NEWS: This is in the middle of the health care debate, and the White House is furiously cutting deals with all kinds of interest groups and trying to keep Congressional coalitions on board. So these were emails to Pharma among others. They need a sign on from these big groups. They needed them to stay on board. They are cutting side deals and going back to Capitol Hill, trying to balance all these competing coalitions. At the same time they are telling the public, this is the moist transparent bill process you have ever seen. They said they would have all the conference committee investigations on C-Span so they were really playing dirty politics.
VAN SUSTEREN: In my office, I have three email accounts. I use which are one comes up. Sometimes it’s the personal, sometimes it’s FOX. There is nothing in my emails. Is it possible that — I mean, does it look deliberate, or does it look like Jim Messina does emails like I do?
KLEIN: There may be some of both. In some cases, according to the White House, Jim Messina’s aide would get an email someone who would send it to his private and can he would respond from that account, preserving the record, cc-ing the White House or keeping it. In other cases, it seems like there might be a deliberate attempt.
VAN SUSTEREN: Private meetings off campus.
KLEIN: Particularly Republicans calling this the Caribou cover-up because there is a Caribou Coffee where they are having key meetings. They know the names of people who spend a couple of bucks on a cup of Joe, won’t be on the visitor logs and the White House did make the logs public, but that’s an incomplete picture of the meetings.
VAN SUSTEREN: This is one email, which Leader Pelosi won’t be crazy about. It says, I will roll “Pelosi” to get the $4 billion,” and that Messina wrote to a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing lobbyist Jeffrey Forbes from his personal account.
KLEIN: Exactly. They needed to find ways to get these coalition group groups on board and find numbers that fit and go to Congress and say this is what we have done. Again, they promised to be open, honest, transparent —
VAN SUSTEREN: And not dealing with lobbyists.
KLEIN: Right. No access for lobbyists. But this is the way you get legislation done in Washington. You need to get interest groups on board. You need to get lobbyists on board. They were trying to create a public perception of the president conducting himself in a different matter, but this is the way that things get done.
VAN SUSTEREN: That is called deceitful. If you say you are going to do it one way and you do it another and you try to cover it up — I don’t know about the email — it could be like I do. But I know when I am getting a meeting off campus, that’s deliberate.
KLEIN: It’s interesting in the Republican response on this. They are not saying that they would have done things differently or that they will in the future. They are saying that the president promised better. They like to remind everyone that the Democrats were furiously investigating Cheney’s secret energy task force and the meeting and all the Congressional hearing that happened out of that. And they say this is akin to that.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do we have all the private emails? Are they all there?
KLEIN: No. We don’t know that.
VAN SUSTEREN: So there could be more to this.
KLEIN: There could be more that the White House hasn’t said what steps are taken to preserve them. We don’t know if we have a complete record. According to the White House, in most of these cases, the aides took pain to make sure these were preserved in some fashion, but we don’t know for sure.
VAN SUSTEREN: Rick, thank you.
KLEIN: Sure, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: Straight ahead, an internet family feud, why is Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg losing his own relatives to the competition? Also, a zip line stunt goes wrong — very wrong. You don’t want to miss this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: You have seen our top stories, but here is “The Best of the Rest.”
Is there an imminent family feud brewing? Two relatives of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are now working for the competition. That’s, Zuckerberg’s sister and brother-in-law are both working for Google. Facebook and Google are fierce competitors. It turns out Google just acquired Wildfire interactive, one of Facebook’s top marketing partner. Zuckerberg’s youngest sister and his brother-in-law both work for Wildfire. So Thanksgiving at the Zuckerbergs could be awkward this year.
And the car is smart — but the driver, not so much. A man driving a smart car led police on a chase through Houston. They spotted him speeding at 92 miles per hour. They tried to stop him but he took off again. The driver pulled into his own driveway and stopped. He was charged with drunk driving. Yes, not smart. Try stupid.
Another bizarre crime, this one in Kentucky. The police in Louisville say a suspect stole a textbook about ethical living. That’s right, it was about ethics. Police say the thief stole the book from one college bookstore and tried to sell it back to another bookstore, but by then the book had been reported stolen. So the police caught the suspect and arrested him.
And the mayor of London won’t get a gold medal for zip ling. Mayor Boris Johnson got stuck dangling in mid-air while riding a zip line. He was ho holding a hardhat and holding two Union Jack flags while he tried to glide to the ground and stopped in mid-air. The mayor dangled about five minutes. He did keep his sense of humor, asking for a rope or a ladder. The staff came to his rescue and towed him to the bottom of the line.
And who needs a piggy bank when you can have a kitty bank? A clever cat in Japan is helping his owner save money. The cat helps the owner makes cash deposits in the box. The cat pulls the coins through the slot. We have never seen a piggy do that. Maybe we need the new banks.
There, have you it, “The Best of the Rest.”
Coming up, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown just got a big promotion. What’s his new job? Start guessing. That’s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: Flash the studio lights, time for last call.
Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown got a big promotion. He was promoted colonel in the Army National Guard. Senator John McCain presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of office to Senator Brown. Senator Brown says she is privileged to serve along the best men and women in our nation. He first joined the National Guard in 1979.
And that is your last call. Lights are blinking and we are so closing down shop. Thanks for being with us tonight. We’ll see you tomorrow night. Make sure you go to Gretawire.com. Goodnight from Washington, D.C. And keep it right here on FOX News, the most powerful name in news. We’ll see you tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. eastern.
END
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