joins us tomorrow as does pastor robert jeffress among our guests. we hope you join us. follow me on tweeter, instagram @loudobbstonight. good night from sussex. elizabeth: president trump, dropping the hammer, president trump dropping the hammer on big social media like twitter. the president just signing a new game changing executive order that would target social media amid rising anger that they are biased and censor conservatives, republicans and president. silicon valley is blasting back, threatening to sue, saying the president is doing this in retaliation to twitter putting new fact check labels on president recent tweets. now even nancy pelosi is getting involved like you won't believe what we found. two powerful democrats have supported the president in this controversy. they have supported the issue

that the president is taking on in the past. now with us tonight on this social media showdown, white house economic advisor kevin hassett. we have with us tonight former whitewater independent counsel robert ray. attorney general william barr's new investigation into this. dozens of obama administration officials during the presidential transition made repeated requests to unmask the trump team including michael flynn. again this was done during the presidential transition. this is the question, were they doing a fishing expedition to target the democrats political opponents? we also have with us tonight former trump 2016 campaign manager corey lewandoski with us on reports that u.s. attorney, john durham, his criminal probe into abuses under the obama administration and doing surveillance on the trump campaign and the flynn probes, that could wrap up in months. also, will this throw a big

wrench into team biden's race for the white house? and with us tonight, michael fln attorney sidney powell, on richard grenell saying a powerful democrat is trying to block him, cherry-picking what should be declassified and shown to the american public and documents from those prones. democrats accused of trying to set the democrat narrative. with us tonight, retired army major general robert scales, on china, taking a major new step to bring hong kong under the communist government's control. and minneapolis braces for another night of clashes over the death of george floyd, an african-american who died in police custody. protests are spreading to other u.s. cities. thanks for joining us. i'm elizabeth macdonald. "the evening edit" starts right now.

elizabeth: welcome to the show. you're watching the fox business network. we begin with the latest on protests and rioting over the death of george floyd and the federal probe into what happens. edward lawrence with more from washington. reporter: protests, liz, in minneapolis violent again. we're talking about looting, fires, someone drove a truck into atm and a death. president donald trump has seen the video and also wants the truth. >> i want to start by acknowledging the horrific tragedy in minnesota of george floyd, the death of george floyd is absolutely tragic. that video that we saw, that i saw, my staff saw, the president saw. the president put out statement last night at his request, the fbi and the department of justice are already well into an investigation as to the very sad and tragic death in minnesota of george floyd.

reporter: the u.s. attorney's office in minneapolis said they opened up a robust criminal investigation into the death. fox news obtained this video footage, body camera footage, from police supporting the call. the view of the incident is actually obstructed. we have not seen video from the minneapolis police department. they show flood not resisting sitting on the curb. the officers involved claim he was resisting. house speaker nancy pelosi claiming he was very blunt. >> they want to see federal investigation and action. we saw a murder take place before our very eyes and so the fact that the police officers were fired that's one thing but there has to be some justice in all of this. reporter: protests not limited to minneapolis. in los angeles 1000 people marched around the city in protest for george floyd. some blocking the 101 freeway through downtown l.a. there were

protests in memphis where two people were arrested. the family of floyd says firing the officers is not enough. they want them in jail. elizabeth: that was edward lawrence in washington. thank you so much, edward. we should note just a few minutes ago federal officials at a news conference appealed for calm and promised again a knew re thorough investigation. the fbi is holding a press conference on it. we're monitoring it. we'll bring you any developments. president trump signing a new executive order that could roll back the legal shield, safe harbor immunity, protection from lawsuits social media companies like twitter facebook, other online companies have for third party content on their sites. this legal shield also protects them from lawsuits when they remove or block content on their sites as well this is happening after twitter did add fact check label to the president's tweets about fraudulent mail-in voting and now that move did infuriate

the president and his supporters. they're blasting twitter and social media for censorship and bias. >> choices that twitter makes when it chooses to suppress, edit, blacklist, shadow ban or are editorial decisions pure and simple. they are editorial decisions n those moments twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform. they become an editor with a viewpoint, i think we can say that about others also, whether you're looking at google, whether you're looking at facebook. elizabeth: let's welcome white house economic advisor kevin hassett. great to have you on the show. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. elizabeth: good to see you. republicans on house judiciary moving on new legislation to try to strip social media giants of this legal immunity. changing the law would be required to have a broad consensus. the congress is deadlocked. trump administration can't go it along. unclear if the fcc or ftc would

go along with it. what do you think about this going forward? >> i think you could get bipartisan consensus for action if the action makes sense. on this one, put it this way, if you were to do something that was to sort of falsely assert that somebody did something awful, then they could sue you, they could sue fox, if you were to publish it on the fox website they could sue you because you have libeled them or something but if you're a social media platform and somebody posts something that is actionable then they're immune. the difference between a social media platform and say fox is that you guys have editorial control of what you present but if they start exercising editorial control, then the distance between what they're doing and what you're doing becomes more of an open question. i think it is a good time to investigate and examine the choices that they're making to see if they have become basically publications rather than platforms. elizabeth: you know, republicans liz cheney and mitt romney say the president should stop tweeting about the death of the

political aide, blaming msnbc's joe scarborough over that. what is your reaction to that? >> sorry. elizabeth: all right. i want to move on to this twitter is privately owned and publicly held company. did you, when the president was basically tweeting about california's push to do mail-in balloting for everybody, we had former, basically, let me back up. we basically had twitter using as a fact check for the president's tweets here and now columns at cnn, wanton post, a story in the hill, those are not considered red check fact sources to fact check you know the president on this or other individual on this. what was your reaction when you heard that is what twitter cited as their fact check? >> fact check something used as

a political weapon. in fact i can remember when i was here in my first time here in the trump white house as cea chair there was one time when the price of drugs for the first time since world war ii declined for an entire year because of president trump as policies to deregulate drug approval and, the council of economic advisors we wrote a memo about it. the president and other people at the white house started to celebrate it and "washington post" gave us a whole bunch of pinocchios for something that was factually correct. i remember calling up the person who gave us the pinocchios complaining about it. he didn't have a good response. the fact they gave us pinocchios for accurately citing gold standard consumer price index because it made president trump look good. they decided to call it a lie. fact check something a political weapon. there are places like "the washington post" don't always seem to be playing it straight up to me. i think only rely on them for fact check something that would probably lead to a political bias.

elizabeth: you know, the other thing too is, back in january, "the new york times" published an interview with joe biden said yes, take away immunity shield. joe biden agreed to that. seems like he supported the president here. jerry nadler 16 years ago said yes, there is fraud in mail-in balloting. that was the issue was taking on and twitter basically put fact check labeling warnings on the president's tweets. we'll get into what jerry nadler said in the next segment but your take what the democrats are saying there? >> fact we do know there have been elections like the al franken election in minnesota that were almost decided or influenced by like randomly finding a box of ballots somewhere or so. so that this is something that has been a problem in the past, that you know, if ballots, we don't have people going to the polling place and voting or doing an absentee ballot which has got lots of established

hurdles, if we're just mass mailing ballots everywhere there is the potential for fraud and fraud is something that really goes to the heart of our democracy. people don't trust the election result, basically the people will start to stop relying on their government for advice. i think absolutely for trust democracy, trust the election results, to trust the election result we need to watch out for fraud. there are definitely a lot of cases of voter fraud. a lot of people have been convicted of it. if we're mailing ballots around willy-nilly -- >> at a time when democrats have been complaining and republicans too of russian interference in elections and now now this. move back to social media accused of censoring conservatives. we've had conservatives on the show showing evidence of that that they were censored. it happened on facebook, social media. facebook chief mark zuckerberg he is in a very public fight with twitter's jack dorsey.

watch zuckerberg with fox news's dana perino? no i believe strongly facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth that everything people say online. in general private companies, shouldn't be, especially platform companies shouldn't be in the position of doing that. elizabeth: but house speaker nancy pelosi is saying mark zuckerberg is pandering to the white house. wants tax cuts. your reaction to that? i want your take reopening the economy. go ahead, kevin. >> honestly let's go back to the first thing we talked about. it is pretty sensible if they're exercising editorial control they should be treated like a thing that exercises editorial control. if they're platform of free exchanges of free speech and they're not exercising editorial control and they could be treated the way they are being treated perhaps. suck mark zuckerberg, that is discussion of future discussion

but i think he is correct, that as soon as they start going around acting like a publication, perhaps they should be treated as a publication. elizabeth: okay. reopening, going forward, solid 3 q and 4q, there is push back and concerns, covid-19 will infect more people cause more fatalities. your take on this? >> well definitely, right now the congressional budget office is calling for a really strong second half of the year. i think that is consistent with the outlook we and the white house have right now. we're already seeing that happen big time in the states opening up. that economic activity is really closing in on where it was at the beginning of the year much faster than we expected. so i think right now we're on track for, as even jason furman, president obama's cea chair said, a historic third quarter, a historic second half of the year. you know, it is absolutely true that one would question that outlook if all of sudden the disease were to rage back. elizabeth: okay. >> we watch every day, the data

on that. the right now there are no indications that the places that opened upturned into hot spots again and so on. by the way we now have a much better capability of testing and isolating and so on. so we're in much better shape if we spot a case now than we were a few months ago. elizabeth: okay. kevin, kevin hassett. thanks for joining us. come back soon. great interview there. good to see you, coming up in the show we have corey lewandoski, sidney powell. we're also going to talk about what was going on in the obama administration, transition to the trump administration where they targeting and trying to go after in a fishing expedition people on the trump team? also coming up is former whitewater independent counsel, assistant counsel, robert ray. stay there. your bank can be virtually any place.

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♪. elizabeth: okay. welcome back. the president's recent fight with twitter started after the republican national committee joined a new lawsuit brought by the california republican party and others to overturn california governor gavin newsom's executive order that every state voter must get and receive a mail-in ballot for the november general election, even if they didn't ask for one. let's bring in attorney, former congressional investigator sam dewey.

they all get mail-in ballots. because of the covid pandemic. house democrats like nancy pelosi wants this too. what is your position on this? what do you think? >> i think it is rather extraordinary to fundamental change how we do elections and to put into place on very little notice a system that has been proven to have serious election issues. the lawsuit is correct and it seems to me to be a perhaps, well intentioned but flawed approach. elizabeth: okay. jerry nadler in 2004 said paper ballots have, are rife, have a lot of fraud. they're extremely susceptible to fraud. that is a quote. watch jerry nadler in 2004. >> in my experience in new york, paper ballots are extremely susceptible to fraud. at least with the old clunky

voting machines we have in new york, the deliberate fraud is way down, compared to paper, when the machines break down they vote on paper, we've had real problems. that is, there has got to be a way, there has got to be a way, i'm simply observing that as a problem. there has got to be away of getting the best of our methodologies. i want a paper trail. i want paper somewhere but pure paper with no machines, i can show you, i can show you experience which make your head spin. elizabeth: sam, okay. there has been complaints about russian meddling and russian interference in our election. there has been complaints that states do not update their voter registration lists and don't monitor them. so how can you have live mail-in paper ballots sent to every household in america when that is not being done? >> i don't think you can, liz, with any amount of reliance or security in the results made

then are just as valid now. i'm not sure were moved on them. maybe a flawed premised perhaps well-intentioned. i think it is something that needs to be stopped. elizabeth: comeback. >> thank you very much. elizabeth: next up more of the news that attorney general william barr has asked a new, has brought in u.s. attorney john bash to conduct a new investigation into the dozens of obama administration, administration officials and their repeated use of unmasking, the names of trump team members in intelligence documents, like michael flynn. now were they trying to do a fishing expedition? was this political targeting? we're going to talk to former whitewater independent counsel.

he is robert ray. he is going to answer just is all of that heading? that is coming up next.

>> the attorney general determined certain aspects of

moving need to be approved separate as report to john durham's investigation. one of our u.s. attorneys out of texas on that. we know unmasking inherently isn't wrong but certainly the frequency, motivation, reasoning behind a masking can be problematic. elizabeth: that was justice department communications director kerry kupec on kennedy last night. welcome back former whitewater independent counsel, counsel to president trump he is robert ray >> you characterized it as dozens of people in the

transition or in the campaign that were unmasked, that's the first question. so, you know, totaling up, actually identifying and who was within the campaign were targeted by officials in the obama administration, and the second related question, is, you know, isolating who was doing the requesting, and why. and i guess then the third reaction that i have is, remember that this is a criminal investigation, underneath the durham investigation, which is in existence. they will have grand jury subpoena power and authority not only to identify who all those individuals were but also to grab their telephone records, their emails, text messages any documents to get better hashed dell who was targeted, why they were targeted and where that

information ended up, what happened and for what person. a lot of unanswered questions. enormous amount of power is being conferred to the get to the bottom of the unmasking episode. elizabeth: ag bar is report he had analyzing obama officials had political motives doing these requests. basically when whether they were going on fishing expedition. let let's talk about why. steele's own sources were undercutting it, basically saying it is hearsay, just talk over beer and speculation. even steele was questioning his own sources. james comey, late 2016. we're not seeing anything coming up on michael flynn. the fbi moves to drop the case against michael flynn. we know obama didn't like michael flynn, fired him as his dni, in his administration in

2014. given the context what i just said, why were they unmasking? was it a fishing expedition because it was falling apart? did obama pressure the fbi to keep the flynn probe open in order to go after flynn? what is your reaction? what do you think? >> those are all good questions. look at a minimum it looks like meddling in the obama administration and obama administration officials in the transition and into the new administration which would suggest a political motive. if the tools of counterintelligence being used as a political operation, that is a political scandal of the highest order and it may also possibly indicate crimes were committed. so that is the purpose of a criminal investigation. that is why the u.s. attorney in the western district of texas is being given separate authority to do this. i think the attorney general is being smart about having another person get involved to lead it because, you know, sort of

deflects attention away from the democrats narrative which is to pick on the attorney general or the individuals leading an investigation to suggest that they are politically motivated. this investigation now has been spread around enough different people that it is very hard to make an attack like that stick. i would hope that it would be an investigation that would yield results on a non-partisan basis to say why, if it turns out, that counterintelligence tools were used as a political operation, that's very dangerous and that, all americans should be concerned about. elizabeth: robert ray. come back soon. love having you on. good to see you, robert ray. >> thanks very much, liz. elizabeth: coming up, the associated press is now reporting that the criminal investigation led by u.s. attorney john durham into alleged abuses by the obama administration and the trump russia probe and michael flynn probe, that might wrap up this summer, right smack in the middle of the 2020 race. we're bringing in former trump

2016 campaign manager corey lewandoski on how badly it might damage joe biden's race and democrat as well. stay right there, we have more show for you coming up. dear fellow business leaders and technologists, i see all the amazing things you have been doing. you are transforming business models, and virtualizing workforces overnight. because so much of that relies on financing, we have committed two billion dollars to relieve the pressure on your business. as you adapt and transform, we're here with the people, financing, and technology, ready to help.

♪. elizabeth: welcome back. the associated press now reporting that the criminal investigation led by u.s. attorney john durham into abuses under the obama administration in the trump russia and michael flynn probe could wrap up this summer, right in the middle of a 2020 race. will it damage joe biden and the democrats? welcome back former trump 2016 campaign manager corey lewandoski. corey, this is about to explode right in the middle of the race. what do you think? will it damage joe biden because he is one of the individuals accused of unmaking mike call flynn? >> liz, joe biden did unmask

michael flynn. we know that he did it legally, went through the proper channels. why did he do that with two weeks left to go in his administration and what other people were they spying on? that is the question. senator lindsey graham sent a request with my name included with the dni, was my name included? were the children of the trump family included? were other people included, including chris christie, george papdopoulus and others were they also being spied on? we want to know those answers. what we know is, joe biden was in the meeting when sally yates and comey and clapper and brennan and barack obama were discussing this. so we knew that he knows about this. elizabeth: you know, john durham has given just one public statement. he said he disagreed with the doj inspector general, michael horowitz, that the horowitz concluded that the russia investigation was open for a legitimate basis but john durham

is saying, no, it wasn't. it was not properly predicated. now here is the thing. the fbi has to have a basis a predicate to open a probe. they didn't have it with the discredited steele dossier, fbi used to get fisa wiretaps. two of those warrants lacked probable cause. late 2016, things were falling apart. did they, is it your sense, that the fbi and government officials did unmasking to establish a predicate to move forward to do investigations by leaking to the media, then using those media stories to establish as a predicate to go forward and go after the trump team? >> liz, i think that is exactly what they did and what most people don't remember the first type the fbi or actually the department of justice went into the fisa court and asked for a surveillance application they were denied. in fact the judge on the case stepped off the bench and called

a second judge, this sounds like the fbi is asked about spying on political opponents. that application was denied. james baker, former general counsel of the fbi and andy mccabe were leaking stories to media outlets, sole-sourcing them, the second application provided media stories which helped to fisa applications. they were clearly spying on us after placing stories sole-sourced to get the application approved. the judges should be outraged at the process. elizabeth: the fisa judges, read the documents, the judges were outraged at the fisa court. the big democrat pushback fence the durham probe. the accusation the trump campaign will use the durham investigation to win the white house again. how does this hit the biden campaign and your take on the democrat pushback on the trump campaign with the durham probe? >> liz, this should never be a

time bringing people to justice who committed crimes. we know multiple crimes were committed. we know andy mccabe lied under oath. he had a criminal referral that wasn't prosecuted. we'll see attorney durham will bring people to justice. doesn't matter if that takes place, today, tomorrow, a week, the day before an election. these people committed crimes against us because they didn't like our politics. they need to be held accountable. the democrats can push back all they want. the fact is this was sanctioned by the highest levels of the obama administration, including i believe the president and vice president themselves. elizabeth: you know, john durham has a solid track record. he looked into fbi, al al allegations of fbi mishandling of the white at this bolger case and handling of prisoners. the fbi inspection division also investigating what happened. you know, we also have

journalists, fox news contributor john solomon continuing to get text messages, you know, between peter strzok and likes of lisa page about what happened, about what they were saying during the trump russia probe saying things like, you know we have got to hold back information from the obama administration about the trump russia probe. we don't want to show our hand. this feels like a slow drip of news that will hit the biden campaign. your final word, corey? >> it is. i'm disappointed it took christopherway took 3 1/2 years to have a investigation into the crossfire hurricane and michael flynn investigation. we knew there were crimes committed here. there should have been done right away. the fact if those people are to longer fbi employees. they have no recourse. we leave this in the hand of u.s. attorney durham, to bring these people to justice so it never happens again. elizabeth: cory, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you.

elizabeth: come back soon. corey lewandoski. former outgoing acting spy chief, he is richard grenell. he is saying that the senate intelligence committee's top democrat is trying to quote, cherry-pick the intelligence that richard grenell wants declassified to show the american people what went on. this again is about alleged surveillance abuses of political opponents under the obama administration. the democrat push to try again to set the democrat narrative here. we're bringing in flynn attorney sidney powell on that story just ahead.

♪. elizabeth: the outgoing acting director of national intelligence richard grenell now says that the senate intelligence committee top democrat, he is senator mark warner, is trying to quote,

cherry-pick the intelligence that he wants, that richard grenell wants declassified to show the american people about alleged surveillance abuses under the obama administration against the trump team. he is saying essentially, the democrats again are trying to set the narrative here. welcome michael flynn's attorney. welcome sidney powell back to the show. great to have you on, sydney. always terrific to see you again. what you heard the story what is the initial reaction? >> here we go again with the democrats lying to the public and trying to avoid getting the truth out. people want to see the actual documents and real information and what witnesses actually testify to. that is what we need to know the truth of exactly what happened. we now know that every time the democrats said anything about any of this for the last three years they were lying. mr. warner is no exception here. in fact we know he was communicating, trying to establish a back channel between himself and christopher steele while all the dossier mess was

going on and it was all being crafted and perpetrated in the media writ large. elizabeth: is that what senator mark warn he is now worried about? he will be somehow implicated and dragged into this? by the way why was senator mark warner trying to set up back channel with christopher steele? >> that is a very good question and i would like to know the answer to that and i imagine he is worried about some of his own liability there. elizabeth: you know, sidney, he basically, senator warner is saying richard grenell is selectively declassifying material to benefit president trump. then the democrats want to have it both ways. they want to stop the declassification of documents. richard grenell is moving, i think has moved to declassify the phone call between michael flynn and russian ambassador. have you seen the transcripts of that yet? >> no, i'm not seen that. i'm looking forward to looking at that. as i understand, everyone that

reviewed them said there was absolutely nothing wrong with them, yet it was used to create a felonious offense against general flynn who had done nothing wrong and was honest with the fbi agents when he talked to them. i'm fed up with everybody that is trying to hide the truth, i guarranty you, that is the democrats, not people declassifying the documents. that will be obvious more and more that are declassified. elizabeth: sydney, correct me if i'm wrong. did d.c. court of appeals invite back the justice department in the review of how judge emmet sullivan is handling your client, michael flynn's case? >> yes. the d.c. court of appeals ordered judge sullivan toe respond by this coming monday, june 1st, but invited the department of justice in its discretion to file something if it chose to do so. elizabeth: what do you think the justice department is going to bring to the table here, and the

reason why they dropped the case against michael flynn? anything new? >> i don't know. there might be something new because they sure know more about it than i do. i generally find out my news from the press or something just pops in my in box when they file it. i don't get advance notice of anything. yes, i'm expecting they might elaborate even more on the reasons they are dropping the case. obviously they know far more about it than i do. there is still a lot more information that we've requested that i know is exculpatory that we haven't been given for whatever reason, some of which i'm sure is being used in other investigations now. so it could be very, very interesting, but i would certainly expect them to provide additional reasons why the case should be dropped and explain why they dropped it in the first place. elizabeth: final question, did the fbi have a predicate, a basis, did the obama administration have a predicate and basis to open up the

investigation into michael flynn and to bring charges against him? >> no, absolutely not. in fact one of the things i requested that we still haven't received is general flynn's defense intelligence agency prebriefings and post-briefings for all of his foreign contacts. people act like he did something in secret and he didn't at all. he was talking to the defense intelligence agency before and after any of his foreign contacts, including his trip to russia everybody wants to seem to want to got upset about. also his involvement, one meeting with somebody from turkey. elizabeth: all right. sidney powell, we love having you on. can you come back soon? great to have you. >> i will come back sometime next week. thank you, liz. elizabeth: good. we'll look forward to that. sydney powell. coming up, china taking more steps to bring hong kong under the communist government's control. this is a new aggressive push,

what does it mean for hong kong? also taiwan and the south china sea. we're bringing in retired army major general robert scales on all of that, what is at stake. that is coming up next.

♪. elizabeth: welcome back. china's xi xinping now taking a new aggressive step to bring hong kong under the communist government's control. china's legislature rubberstamped a new aggressive proposal to outlaw, criminalize all protests against china hong kong. let's welcome u.s. retired army major general robert scales back to the show. general, this has implications for independence of hong kong and implications of china in the south china sea. your reaction to this push? >> this is just terrible. essentially what happened, the rubberstamped congress, the national peoples congress basically given xi permission to begin to erode and degrade all the uniqueness of hong kong. that is the crown jewel of capitalism in china, the rule of law, the elements of finance, ownership of private property. all of that is anathema in

beijing and its home, as far as china is concerned is in hong kong but if this government begins to erode the ability of people of hong kong to conduct the business of china, the consequences for china and for the rest of western world are just going to be, are going to be tragic. and it is a shame because, hong kong is very unique and very precious, not only to china but also to the rest of the world. elizabeth: general, secretary of state mike pompeo has notified congress effectively saying that hong kong no longer has sufficient autonomy and independence from china but should the white house keep the u.s. government special trade and economic relations intact with hong kong, not abandon it? >> boy, that's a great question, and it is a delicate balance there is as much in this for washington as it is for china. just because xi does something really stupid, doesn't

necessarily mean that we have to follow suit. the issue is simply this, how far is xi willing to go to ursurp the freedoms of hong kong? what happens if he puts his national security police inside of hong kong? what happens if he puts his national intelligence services in hong kong? what happens if he beginning to tear apart the, the internet and social media communications within hong kong? all of these things are slow, corrosive steps over time, that will be begin to break apart that special relationship. i think what secretary pompeo is doing is exactly right. he is measuring his response, generally paralyze, parallelling what the chinese are doing to hong kong as he is responding in kind. that is the right action to take but the chinese need to think long and hard about what they're giving up by putting the heavy hand of the chinese communist party on the people of

hong kong. elizabeth: there is unconfirmed reports that president trump may take action or announce action tomorrow about this. for the past six years, even more, the people who want democracy in hong kong, they have mounted massive, courageous resistance. they have taken to the streets in vast numbers to protest attempts to bring them under the repressive communist rule of beijing. they at times, general, even held up the american flag during their street protests but now they face even more violent suppression. are you concerned about that? >> oh, boy, you know, whether it is hungary in 56, venezuela in 2017, ukraine in 2014, and now hong kong, when you deal with communist dictatorships, sadly, sadly, at the end of the day the advantage always goes to the side with the guns and, you know, we can, we can, we can open our hearts to the people of hong kong. we can do whatever we can to

support them but at the end of the day, the chinese communist party is going to do what they want to do, they have the ultimate power. the only advantage the president has is international opinion. look, the chinese have not had a good couple months with covid nutt and their, and their lying and intransigence when it comes to the virus and they're operating from a very weak position right now. maybe, maybe this administration can sort of collect international opinion and do something about it but the long-term prospects, liz, are not good. elizabeth: all right. general robert scales, thanks for your insights and perspective, sir. come back soon. and thanks for your service to our country. i'm elizabeth macdonald. you've been watching "the evening edit" on fox business. we want to thank you for joining us. join us tomorrow night. we'll have a great show again and have a good evening. ♪

"lou dobbs tonight" starts now. ♪ ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. we begin tonight with breaking news. president trump has just signed an executive order that takes on the partisan activism of social media platforms. president trump calling that activism of social media firms one of the greatest threats to free speech. >> we're here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers it has faced in american history, frankly. a small handful of powerful social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the united states. unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide,