Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debate
HILLARY CLINTON: It is so great to be here with all of you. Did we have a good debate last night?</s>LEMON: That was Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas just a little while ago. She dominated the Republican debate -- excuse me, the Democratic debate, and she is making the most of it on the campaign trail. Joining me now is Hugh Hewitt host of radio's "The Hugh Hewitt Show" and author of "The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary Clinton and the Coming of a Second Clinton Era." Now that would make some news if she dominated the Republican debate, Hugh.</s>HUGH HEWITT, HOST "THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW," AUTHOR "THE QUEEN: THE EPIC AMBITION OF HILLARY CLINTON AND THE COMING OF A SECOND CLINTON ERA": Yes, it would.</s>LEMON: Fifteen million people watched this debate last night. I mean, many more than most people expected. What do you think about that?</s>HEWITT: Well, I think the audience for American politics is always vastly underestimated. The American people are sophisticated, interested. They like a good debate. Anderson opened with a hardball aimed high and inside for Mrs. Clinton with will you say anything to get elected and that kept them there, Don, and the Facebook that you were administering from the back of the room involved lots of younger Americans who normally might not watch television and so I think everything came together to produce a huge audience for CNN and a very good performance for Mrs. Clinton, but I will say this, it answered one of two questions. First question is does she have the energy and the passion to prepare for a debate? The answer is yes and a lot of Democratic Party faithful were happy, even though Bernie Sanders won the focus groups and Bernie Sanders won the online donations and the number of twitter followers. A lot of professional inside-the-beltway democrats were happy, but she did not answer the question of what is she going to do a week from today because Bernie Sanders is not the boss of me and not boss of you and not the boss of the Benghazi committee.</s>LEMON: I knew you were going there.</s>HEWITT: I am going there because when she said sensitive information was mishandled about Edward Snowden that is going to come back to haunt her on the twenty-second because I am not done with the emails, I am not done with the server. I am coming back for the next CNN Salem debate and coming back for the third CNN Salem GOP debate and it is on my mind and until I am certain that she is not going to be indicted I think every democrat is not certain she is not going to be indicted.</s>LEMON: Let us talk about that moment because that moment with Bernie Sanders, it really played well in the room, and I think probably across America and the world as people watched it. It may have been a gift to Hillary Clinton, but do you think it in some way just cut Joe Biden off at the knees of trying to get into this race because it took all of the wind out of sails of the other people, -- all their ammunition away for the other democrats in the race who may want to criticize her on something?</s>HEWITT: Well, let me agree with half of what you said, it certainly played well in the room. And it played well with democrats everywhere who love confirmation bias, and I always resist confirmation bias. I think she is going say the words Kevin McCarthy more often than Catholics say Hail Mary in the next couple of months, we are going to be hearing about Kevin McCarthy forever and it does not have anything to do with the merits of the Benghazi committee so Joe Biden is on a high board and last night he edged backwards from jumping in, but on October 22nd he might just jump in because she cracked. Now she has a history cracking under pressure. She cracked on the night of Benghazi. She cracked in the 2008 campaign against the president. She cracked in the first Benghazi hearing when she said what difference does it make? So we will see if Hillary cracks again. -</s>LEMON: But you said she cracked but a lot of people thought that the that she was being strong and saying, hey, let us move on from here and talk about how we make it better. I think Republicans may have seen it as her cracking but others saw it as strength.</s>HEWITT: Well, I will go with numbers. I am a numbers guy. Half the American people, actually 55% do not trust her at all on being truthful with them. Others are concerned that she made money in inappropriate fashion. I'm mostly concerned, as I said last night in some of the CNN shows in Vegas and boy am I glad to be out of Vegas, hotter than heck, good work in that heat. People do not understand. We were melting out there, but it is really more than the untrustworthy numbers and more on how did she make her money? I want to know how she botched Libya so badly that it is now an ISIS volcano. What about Syria? What about Iraq? Not negotiating a status of forces agreement that lost the peace. What about the Russian reset? --</s>LEMON: Is that all on her or part of the administration, if you do indeed believe that is all on Hillary Clinton's hands or is that part of the administration she belonged to?-</s>HEWITT: I definitely do believe it. Oh, I believe it, and I believe she was the one who handed Lavrov, Sergey Lavrov, the reset button. Now, he knew she was going to hand it to her because her server was not secure and the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians almost certainly knew what she was going to do every day in real time. So there is a certain extent she was headed off at the pass every day by anyone with cyber capability. But I will say this, she does not get to say Medvedev job was good and Putin was bad or she is proving that she does not really know what is going on in Russia because Putin was running the whole show and Medvedev was pretending to be President, so there was a lot last night which I call iceberg moments. - You do not really know like when John Kerry said I was for the war before I was against the war and when he said global tests, there are things like Edward Snowden compromising sensitive information that will haunt her for a long time. So let them have their false positive, good cheers for her, good energy, but a long way to go in this campaign.</s>LEMON: Hugh, I want to get this in. This is new and I want you to respond to it as a radio guy. You mentioned Kevin McCarthy just a couple of seconds ago, another house Republican tonight, representative Richard Hanna, reportedly told a radio station that McCarthy was right and that, quote, "This may not be politically correct but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton." That's a direct quote. What do you make of that?</s>HEWITT: Happy to respond to that. I think he is completely wrong and out of line. I know Mike Pompeo - Harvard Law graduate and I know Trey Gowdy, elected prosecutor, one of the most ethical men. I do not know Susan Brooks. I know she was a United States attorney which meant she was confirmed by Congress, I know Pete Roskam was a member of the committee, one of the most revered and respected members the United States House of Representatives, they are doing this because of the national interest because four Americans were killed in Benghazi and I do not forget Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty and I do not have their names in front of them. I do not forget them and I do not believe for a moment that this committee has anything to do with politics. It is about why were they killed that night? Why did Hillary Clinton fail to have them protected? Why did she lie to the widows and the survivors about the video? When is she going to tell the truth? We will find that out on October 22nd.</s>LEMON: Why are Republicans coming out though, at least two of them now, saying it was politically motivated though, Hugh?</s>HEWITT: Kevin McCarthy did not say it was politically motivated. Kevin McCarthy actually has been manipulated well by what he said, "I do not know Mr. Hanna. I have never heard of him. I do not know what district he is from." - There is a bell curve of intelligence in every group. -</s>LEMON: That is also the former intelligence officer who spoke with Jake Tapper as well.</s>HEWITT: Well, that is a different issue. That is a question of whether or not he was fired for different reasons, but I do not want to conflate two things. Mr. Hanna, I will be happy to have him on the show and talk to him about it. I will be happy to talk to the whistleblower. I told Jake, I have got to read his complaint before I know whether it is the standard I got fired and let me begin up some reasons I should be paid money or if there is a legitimate issue there. But I will say this, those prosecutors that I just named. I have had them on many times, especially Mike Pompeo. They are interested in no dramatics, no theater but a simple question, Don, when you get a Hillary Clinton person on. Who exactly went through those e-mails? Who exactly? Not David Kendall, he did not do it. He is a partner. He hired associates. Which ones did they delete and the fact she had classified material violates 18 U.S.C. 1924 and her very mysterious dealings with Sidney Blumenthal seem to be an exact replication of what happened with Valerie Plame. -</s>LEMON: -- Thank you, Hugh Hewitt. I will see you soon. I appreciate it. When we come right back, the most talked about moment in last night's debate and what it could mean in the race.