stops right here cause we are definitely looking out for you. breaking tonight, republicans and the white house gearing up for what looks like the ugliest political battle in years as we get new details on the white house's plan to allow some 5 million illegal immigrants to stay in america. welcome to "the kelly file" everyone. i'm megyn kelly. just last night we reported right here on the president's plan to ignore congress. and with the stroke of a pen allow an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants to stay here. specifically those with children who were born in the united states. it would also expand the break he already gave many children brought here illegally by their parents. republicans tonight are vowing to fight. >> i'll just say this. we're going to fight the

president tooth and nail if he continues down this path. >> i believe he will make the subject of immigration absolutely toxic for a decade. >> surely the president understands the kind of explosion that would occur up here if he takes that unilateral action. >> we are looking at all options. they're on the table. our goal here is to stop the president from doing this. >> now worries are running high over a constitutional crisis between a lame duck president with little to lose and a republican majority which thinks this plan goes way too far. effectively suspending deportations for nearly half of all the illegal immigrants living in the united states. a power held by the congress, not the president, as mr. obama himself once admitted. >> the notion that i can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not

the case. because there are laws on the books that congress has passed. there are enough laws on the books by congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president. >> moments ago i spoke with charles krauthammer, a syndicated columnist, fox news contributor and author of "things that matter" which has sold more than a million copies. charles, good to see you. that would not conform with my appropriate role as president. and the notion that i can do it is just not the case. what a difference a few years make because he has now done a complete 180. >> and i think his own words will sort of indict himself. it is very clear that what he's doing now as he has said many

times in the past is a flagrant assault on the constitution on the separation of powers. congress makes the laws. the laws call for certain things. and if you suspend it unilaterally, that is an assault on the constitutional system. now, i'm sure obama will be able to find particularly his attorney general holder will be able to find a bunch of lawyers who will say it's okay. i mean, as we know, if you're district attorney you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. you'll always be able to find a government lawyer who will say anything that you do is legal. but this is clearly illegal. i think in time the courts will invalidate it. of course that will be way down the road. i do think it's important though for republicans to vigorously oppose this but not lose their heads. do not shut down the government over this. we've tried that, we republicans

have tried it 20 years ago, we tried it a couple of years ago. it is always a losing proposition. and i think that apart from the policy one of the reasons the president is doing this is a way to make him relevant, a center of attention again after the shellacking he took in the election and the loss of the senate. >> before we talk about what the republicans are likely to do and in your view they should do, i want to stick with the potential lawlessness of this action. there's no question a president has prosecutorial discretion. he can push for certain enforcement policies. but there's -- it's a sliding scale. and just as, you know, a prosecutor looking at murderers who are brought before him for potential charges can say i'm going to go for life without parole with this one and bare minimum for this one. if that prosecutor were to say i'm not going to prosecute any of the murderers who come before me, he would be thrown out of office.

this president is pushing it and pushing it and pushing it on the sliding scale. if we're talking 5 million illegal aliens, we are in unprecedented territory. don't let anybody tell you a president has done that before. they haven't. when ronald reagan gave amnesty to 3 million, he did it with the congress. the rare and new unchartered waters here. that's why some say republicans have no choice but to call out that perceived lawlessness and do something as politically unpopular as impeach him. >> look, i believe it is an impeachable offense. if the circumstances were different, if we were at the beginning of a presidency, if we hadn't had years when the congress has been supine and unresponsive at other grabs authority like the executive like obama unilaterally changing obamacare after it was passed about 30 times with no response from the congress. the same as obama essentially

re-writing some of the drug laws. this idea of prosecutorial discretion is really a travesty. it is intended for extreme cases. for a case where you want to show mercy for individual or two where it's unusual incident unusual circumstances and you say, okay, we're going to give this person a pass. it was never intended to abolish a whole class of people subject to a law and to essentially abolish whole sections of a law. and that's exactly what's happening here. >> what they keep saying is sort of this plaintiff complaint that we really want this. it's time. the republicans didn't do it. we tried to get it passed in congress and we couldn't. and therefore the president must act. which as i have to tell you somebody practicing law for ten years, it makes my brain freeze up. that's not the way the system is designed. >> well, that's the way the

system is in venezuela. if the the -- isn't able to get stuff done through congress, he issues a decree and that's it. and he'll arrest anybody who gets in the way. the whole american system is designed that it has to be a collaboration between the congress and the president. congress hass to pass it, he ha to sign it. that's the way the damn thing works. incidentally the cynicism of obama saying i waited and waited, he was in control of the congress, the democrats had majorities for two years, in '09 and '10, he could have proposed and passed any immigration reform he wanted. he didn't propose it. he waited. and now he says i waited for republicans. where were you when you had control of the congress? and you can't just say i waited. you have to work with the republicans. and you cannot simply issue decrees. we don't rule by decree in this country.

i mean, obama says he's a constitutional scholar. the interesting part as you showed earlier, he knows that he shouldn't be doing this. but i think he's reached a point in his presidency he's not ever going to be on the ballot again even indirectly. and he doesn't care. >> what would happen, charles, in this country if we had a republican president who said i'm going to use my prosecutorial discretion to just not go after those who harass women who are going into abortion clinics? i realize there are laws on the books that say we should go after them. but i see them worthy of my mercy and i try to push a bill through congress but the darn democrats wouldn't allow it. so now we're going to say we're not going to prioritize those prosecutions. i mean, this is a precedent that the left may not want to set. >> well, the example i like to use is, let's say you get a republican president who says i try to get the abolition of the capital gains tax because it's hurting our economy, but the congress simply won't cooperate.

and i will not wait. so i have issued an executive order that the irs will no long collect capital gains taxes or pursue anybody who doesn't pay them. everybody would say this is obviously a breach of the constitution and it would be an impeachable offense. >> uh-huh. >> of course if it's a democrat and it's for an issue where the media are rather sympathetic, they let it pass. but i think you're right. the democrats will rule the day when this kind of invasion of the territory of congress was allowed to pass. and it isn't only that democrats are not defending their own institution as you would have expected in the day of the great democrats, it's that they are applauding and encouraging this sort of user pags of their power. and they will regret it because there's going to be a republican administration one day. and they will be on the receiving side of presidents that they themselves have set and did nothing about.

>> it's extremely short sided. and they will not always like the person they have in the white house. charles, thanks for being here. >> pleasure. legally the republicans do have options to thwart president obama's actions although their choices are limited. here are a few. number one, they can file a lawsuit to stop it. they already have one. it's pending now that claims lawlessness by the president. but many say it's a loser and called feckless. number two, they can impeach the president. a remedy the founders consider indispensable to abuses of executive power but a path with huge political risks that conservatives like krauthammer find too dangerous. number three, they can cut off the funds needed to carry out the executive order. senator jeff sessions who's about to over as chairman of the senate budget committee in january says this is where the gop will fight back the hardest. and number four, they can punish the president another way, by holding up his judicial and other appointments which require senate approval until he

reverses course. this and the budget measures are the ones advocated by krauthammer. all have political risks, which president obama clearly believes favor his party. but with even liberal legal scholars like jonathan turley arguing this president is pushing us toward a constitutional crisis, the public may have the stomach for some pushback. only time will tell. well, there are also new worries tonight about the thousands of american military officers being quietly fired in recent months. some getting their pink slips literally on the battlefield. general jack keane with a warning tonight. plus, white house advisor john gruber again making news for all the wronge reasons. just ahead see how nancy pelosi was among his biggest fans before she suddenly forgot who he was. >> i don't know who he is. he didn't help write our bill. so with all due respect to your question, you have a person who wasn't writing our bill commenting on what was going on

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helping ripping off the feds in hundreds of millions in health care funding. >> the dirty secret in massachusetts is the feds pay for our bill. in massachusetts we have a very powerful senator you may know named ted kennedy. ted kennedy basically figured out, and smart people of massachusetts, basically figured out how to rip off the feds for about $400 million a year. >> he's a charmer, isn't he? the white house is having to respond to a week of gems like that. ed henry is traveling with the president in burma and just filed this report. >> president obama posed in asia today in front of a buddhist statue that looked like a massive gold throne as republicans back home stepped up their attacks over jonathan gruber's comments charging it's a glaring example of an executive branch out of control. >> what this insider's saying confirms that they were spinning tails from beginning to end because they knew they couldn't tell the truth about obamacare and have a chance of it passing even with a democratic senate with 60 votes. >> reporter: from capitol hill to burma, democrats today

struggled to push back on the fire storm with the president spokesman actually trying to shift blame to the gop. >> it is republicans who have been less than forthright and transparent about what their proposed changes to the affordable care act would do in terms of the choices that are available to middle class families. >> reporter: except it was gruber, an architect of the president's health law, who said the opposite. >> lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. call it the stupidity of the american voter, whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get this thing to pass. >> reporter: house democratic leader nancy pelosi who famously said you needed to pass the bill to find out what's in it, today tried to say she knew nothing about gruber. >> i don't know who he is. he didn't help write our bill. and so -- with all due respect to your question, you have the person who wasn't writing our bill commenting on what was going on when we were writing the bill who has -- withdrawn some of the statements that he

made. so let's put him aside. >> reporter: one little problem, pelosi seemed intimately familiar with gruber in 2009 when she was selling the bill's benefits. >> i don't know if you have seen jonathan gruber's m.i.t. analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo versus what will be in our bill. the bill is to seek insurance within the exchange. and our bill takes down those costs. >> reporter: now democrats are running from gruber. you get that voters are stupid and that's how you passed it? >> i disagree vigorously with that assessment i think is what i would say. the fact of the matter is this was a very difficult undertaking, but ultimately this is a law that's had significant benefits for millions. >> reporter: republicans counterer the ends do not justify the means. >> i expect we're going to strip out the most damaging parts of the law, focus on things that have already passed the house with bipartisan support, the employer mandate, get rid of

that, eliminate the individual mandate. >> reporter: another architect, former hhs secretary kathleen sbil yous ducked a question today. >> i don't have a comment about his comments. anything else? >> thanks, ed. joining me now, marc thiessen, fellow at the american enterprise institute. so now i've got everyone is stupid except for professor gruber and john kerry and the good people of the commonwealth of massachusetts. >> well, first, he's the architect of romney care as well. so he was saying he was very smart in ripping off the feds. this guy's very impressed with himself, isn't he? >> he is. >> he ripped off the feds, fooled the congressional budget office and tricked the american people. in a way jonathan gruber has done the country a great, great service because we always knew this is what liberals thought of

us. we always knew they felt this way but we never heard one come out and say it so openly. this is what the left thinks of america. that the american people are stupid, we don't know what's best for us and we need experts like jonathan gruber to tell us what's best for us. and if public opinion doesn't come along, if we were in his words too economically illiterate or uneducated to figure it out, then it's okay to lie to us in order to get the ends they want. the gruber view and obama administration's view of the world. >> what's shocking is, or maybe not, he's not the only one misleading because nancy pelosi gets on camera and says i don't know who this is and then we play the sound bite i refer you to the analysis by jonathan gruber and then says he didn't help us write this bill and then in "new york times" writes, mr. gruber helped put together the proposal and the white house lent him to capitol hill to help congressional staff members draft the specifics of the legislation. >> it's almost mind numbing. he's obviously not such a genius because he's made himself

politically radioactive. even when nancy pelosi is saying i don't know who he is, you know you're pretty much never going to be testifying on capitol hill or be consulted by a republican or democrat or independent seeking -- >> speaking of super smart people from massachusetts who know who's smart and who's dumb, remember this one from john kerry? >> if you make the most of it, and you study hard and you do your home work and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. if you don't, you get stuck in iraq. >> i mean it just drips of contempt and reinforces a belief about some people in our country. wait, i want to play the sound bite on nancy pelosi who thinks you're also a sexist if you ask her as a woman, a female reporter asks her if she plans on sticking around in leadership. this is how she responded. >> what was the day any of you said to mitch mcconnell when they lost the senate three times in a row, aren't you getting a little old, mitch? shouldn't you step aside? have you ever asked him that

question? has any of you ever asked him that question? so i don't understand why that question should even come up. but it just is interesting as a woman to see how many times that question is asked as a woman and how many times that question is never asked of mitch mcconnell. >> marc. >> why does that issue come up? because on your watch the republicans have just gained the largest majority since world war ii. maybe that's why it came up. i mean, if mitch mcconnell had not gained the senate this time around, people would be asking he won, that's why nobody was asking him. >> it was a female reporter and by the way the other channels were asking whether harry reid should step down. thanks, marc. up next, don't go away. you're not going to believe the next report.

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of fox news, it's "the kelly file" with megyn kelly. a maryland school board is now getting national attention after voting to strip all references to religious holidays from its school calendars. trace gallagher has more from our west coast bureau. trace. >> megyn, the montgomery, maryland superintendent gave three choices, keep as is, add muslim holidays to the calendar or take jewish holidays off the calendar. the schoolboard voted 7-1 in favor of number three. christmas break is now winter break, easter break is spring break and all other holidays are listed as simply no school. in other words nothing changed except the names, which even some of the school board members don't quite understand. listen. >> we call it winter break. never heard anyone say happy winter break. >> we are still kicking the can down the road. >> the move came in response to muslim leaders pushing for years

to get schools to close for the local muslim community recommending parents pull their kids out of school on muslim holidays to pressure schools to close. but the effort failed because the absentee rate wasn't much higher than a normal school day. so in an effort not to offend anyone, the school board pretty much offended everyone. listen. >> as a member of the muslim community, that's not what i was looking for. i think they made a mistake. >> i think it's ridiculous. i'm not sure what they're trying to do or accomplish by it. that means we're just going to pretend they're xyz holidays. >> next year muslims do get the holiday off but only because it falls on yom kippur, officially known as a no school day. megyn. >> trace, thank you. with the grand jury ready to rule on a controversial police shooting in missouri, we today heard from president obama,

attorney general eric holder and local officials all concerned about what comes next. and they are advising folks now to stock up on supplies, on food, on water and plan potentially on staying indoors for several days. we have a full report after the break. in a "the kelly file" exclusive as well, we will speak with one of the men in charge of keeping the calm in ferguson as we discuss what's happening there. plus a shocking update on the attack against three american sailors in one of our allies. the cold truth. i have a cold, with terrible chest congestion. better take something. i'll catch up later. awww... truth is, theraflu severe cold doesn't treat chest congestion. really? new alka-seltzer plus day powder rushes relief to your worst cold symptoms plus chest congestion. oh, what a relief it is. here we go! woooo! woooo! and now, alka-seltzer plus has a

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with that decision coming any day, president obama today said he has a "real heart driven concern about the prospect of another round of violence in ferguson." attorney general eric holder also spoke up saying he hopes the law enforcement response is appropriate and proportionate. and one local community in the st. louis area sending a letter to residents telling them to prepare for the worst, suggesting they should stock up on water, nonperishable food items, prescriptions and gasoline saying they may be indoors for several days. joining me now for a "the kelly file" exclusive, st. louis county police chief john belmar, one of the men in charge of ferguson response. chief, thanks for being here tonight. we know when this grand jury returns its decision that you and two other police departments will be operating under a unified command system. the missouri governor talked about the possibility of bringing the narvel guard back

to keep the peace. have you been given any heads up as to when to expect the news? >> well, you know, the governor spoke to us last week. and we're in a meeting with him i think part of the plan is perhaps the national guard, we saw that last time, i don't think that's unusual. i've been working very closely with chief sam -- in the city, the highway patrol and a lot of our municipal partners to formulate a good plan to keep people safe. i heard what you said stocking up on food and staying inside. i'll be honest with you, i think that's an overreaction. i certainly hope that is. as far as the guard goes, that's going to be the governor's decision. i think we saw last time that the guard was able to play a support role. they really weren't out front. they did some force protection for us. took care of the command post. >> some people are criticizing the governor for even saying that's still an option, saying that that possibility is an overreaction. and my only heightened potential anger from the residents seeing

the national guard come in. >> sure. i understand that. but i think you got to recognize here in st. louis there's quite a bit of anxiety in the community, really in the protester community and really on the part of law enforcement too regarding this decision. we saw what happened in august. it wasn't always perfect in august. and because of that i believe people are looking at this and they're saying, hey, what could happen this time? there was a lot of rhetoric out there and a lot of threats frankly. people are paying attention to those things. >> president obama came out and said that he urged a small group of the nation's top civil rights leaders and their groups to work to keep the peace. do you believe there's a real danger of, you know, the safety of your residence and the surrounding counties if this grand jury declines to return an indictment against officer wilson? >> well, i certainly hope not. listen, we had 11 days of pret si serious riots that occurred after some peaceful protests.

we were fortunate we haven't lost any lives. and we really can't keep from planning in case those things would happen. but i got to believe i have more faith in this community than that. again, i think -- >> with all due respect we saw it too. >> uh-huh. >> and there is so much anger there over race relations, over this shooting, over the way it's been portrayed, whether that's accurate or not, the viewers can make up their own minds. but i don't know that our audience has the same doubts you do. i mean, this community looks like a powder keg. and if this grand jury does what the community thinks is the wrong thing, all hell could break loose, could it not? >> trust me, when i stepped out of my car about 9:00 p.m. on august 10th, i've been here 28 years been in law enforcement for 28 years, i'd never seen anything like that. but here's the deal, we have been constantly, we the law

enforcement, engaging the community. i talk to young people, i talk to different groups. i make sure they know who we are. what we can do to change, what we can do moving forward. their voices have to be heard. a group the other day called lost voices, these guys are unique because they're young people. and oftentimes -- sometimes their voices are lost. but they went to do a press conference with me perhaps over the weekend talking about making sure we don't have violence. that's a step forward. >> let's hope that that's how this turns out one way or the other no matter how the grand jury decides its case. chief, good to see you. thank you for being here. >> sure. thank you, megyn. well, there are new worries tonight about the thousands of american military officers being quietly fired in recent months. some of these guys are getting their pink slips while they are fighting for us on the ground in afghanistan. and they appear to be going after the ones who enlisted and worked their way up from the beginning, who have worked the hardest, who have missed

countless christmass, countless vacations, countless birthdays with their kids and then go to afghanistan to fight for us and then get a pink slip on the battlefield? general jack keane is here with a warning for us tonight. we'll look at the layoffs. and it's the lowest troop number now since world war ii. plus, two retired s.e.a.l.s. are here. did the man that killed usama bin laden break the brothermen's code? >> what are you thinking? you just killed the most wanted man in the world. what are you -- >> i'm thinking the best analogy is the 1980 olympic team playing the russians, the hockey game. when you're looking at the clock and thinking we might do this. i'm thinking we might live through this.

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the turkish foreign ministry has condemned the act. why'd you go public? >> i wasn't planning ongoing public with this until this summer when i went to the 9/11 memorial. i started to talk to them. and as i was talking i was looking at the audience, no dry eyes in the room. i was watching women put their heads in their hands, leaning their heads back. i told a lot of the story. and then just hearing them afterwards when i talk to them saying one woman in particular told me i didn't close a chapter in the worst thing that ever happened, i closed the entire book and she was not afraid anymore. >> that was earlier tonight on "the factor." the man who shot usama bin laden on why he decided to go forward. since o'neill has revealed himself he has faced criticism from a divided s.e.a.l. community and armchair quarterbacks in the media who think they know better. joining me now is retired navy s.e.a.l. sniper and current vice president at the training

center, chris sainog and howard who was on the blackhawk down mission and author of several books on s.e.a.l. team 6. chris, let me start with you. you've been critical of rob. you get to say whatever you want because you were a navy s.e.a.l. you fought for this country. it's the media pundits who think they know better who are irritating to listen to on this. you explain as a s.e.a.l. who we respect why you think this is an issue. >> you know, i don't think so much it's an issue that he brought out that he was actually the one that pulled the trigger. but there's a lot of other information that's coming out about it such as, you know, how they got on target, what they did on target, all those steps. and i think it's that information right there that's putting my brothers overseas in danger. >> what do you say to the critics who say this is all been out there, there have been two books including one with information released by the administration and a movie?

>> you know, i think the administration shouldn't have come out and said anything. they could have just said we have reports that ubl is killed and we're trying to confirm those reports right now. and, you know, they can go and confirm it. but when you have a leak in operational security, you want to plug that leak. you don't want to exploit it. that's what we do to our enemies is we exploit those leaks. in them. but we seem to be exploiting it in our own group. >> howard, you know, when you listen to what this man did, the years he sacrificed, the training he went to to reach this elite unit that you yourself served on, s.e.a.l. team 6, it's painful to listen to people condemn him. >> yes, i agree 100%. and the thing is i'll disagree with chris on one thing. you sign a letter saying you won't divulge classified information. and after reading the book, listening to this man, he

divulged nothing that this administration hadn't already said. and one more thing, we make heroes here in america out of movie stars, sports figures and then when we have a real hero come forward showing the commitment to god, country, dedication, lifestyle, you can't condemn a man for that. and here's another thing that nobody gets unless you've been there. there's probably a lot on his chest that he needs to get off. and i for one am never going to condemn him for that. >> i know you've written about the difficulty of, you know, reassimilating after especially a s.e.a.l., what you give to the country and what you go through and all your years of service. and i don't know why. i mean, chris, why hasn't there been more of a brotherhood behind him saying we don't agree with what he's done here, but he's our brother, he fought alongside of us he went on the riskiest mission one of which we've ever had -- notwithstanding him speaking out

about it. >> i do support what he did. if he would have come out and said i shot him, that would be one thing. but information like why do our enemies need to know exactly down -- from the united states to the middle of the indian ocean ready to operate, that's information as a navy s.e.a.l. operator i would want to know about my enemy. >> what do you say about that, howard? >> you don't give up classified information or anything that will give your enemy an edge. however, you can do anything besides talk to this man. you can google that, you can read a book, you can talk to tom clancy or anybody else, mark bouden -- >> go ahead, howard. >> the real point here is backing this man, backing this brother and this admiral who came out and wrote the letter

condemning this man and the s.e.a.l.s. who have written books, i can tell you for a fact that man did not send a letter to vice president biden when he said s.e.a.l. team 6 conducted the op. he did not send a letter to this administration when they showed how the op was conducted or he would be one of those silent people on the battlefield getting his pink slip. what he needs to do is back his troops now and the troops coming back and layoff the real heroes. >> howard, i know that you believe there may be -- we focused last night on whether rob endangered himself possibly or others with his disclosures. you actually believe he may have -- he may have made us more safe. that the terrorists watching that may have had a different reaction than just i want to get these s.e.a.l.s. tell us. >> absolutely, megyn. and i have said this in many interviews. the only way we're going to defeat terrorism, we don't have enough navy s.e.a.l.s. to defeat terrorism. never will have. the only way you're going to defeat terrorism is to inhibit their recruiting.

and if they realize you got a man like rob o'neill, you've got a whole community of s.e.a.l.s. who will spend their life, know they're going on a one-way mission, wait ten years to knock on your door and team 6 calling, put two bullets in your head and know they're never going to stop until they find you, that might be a pretty good deterrent to recruiting for terrorism. >> guys, listen, we're so grateful for your service and for coming on and sharing your perspectives. i'm going to say good-bye to you but i want to leave the audience of this clip of rob o'neill last night refusing to take the credit for himself. watch. >> -- asks who killed him, who took the shot. my buddy and i were like well, we all did. >> why didn't you just say i did it? >> this is not about me. my guys got one of our guys into a spot to take the shot. the analyst that found him working for years, they deserve the credit. the pilots that got us there. the guys on the ground that physically got people into place

by blowing up doors, breaking down stuff, moving, holding security and then finally someone gets a shot in. i mean, this wasn't just -- definitely wasn't me. wasn't the team. this was the country. this was the entire country. we were just the means to an end. >> up next, while the navy s.e.a.l.s. this week got a new round of well-deserved credit for killing bin laden, thousands of military officers are being quietly fired right now. some getting their pink slips while they are risking their lives for us in places like afghanistan on the battlefield. general jack keane is next on a story behind this. bank 24/7, but there are no branches? 24/7 it's just i'm a little reluctant to try new things. what's wrong with trying new things? feel that in your muscles? yeah... i do... try a new way to bank, where no branches equals great rates.

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now to a story unfolding for months and getting very little attention. now thanks to a series of sharp budget cuts the u.s. army is in the middle of a massive round of layoffs firing officers who have dedicated years to climbing through the ranks and taking to the lowest level of fighting men and women since the end of world war ii taking pink slips to them. general jack keane is a former army vice chief of staff and chairman of the institute for the study of war. and you read this and it's shocking how they are about to deliver pink slips to some 550 fighting men and women -- fighting army majors, some serving in afghanistan on the battlefield. even general john campbell, vice chief of staff of the army telling they're out of a job is difficult, but general, they have to do it. >> there's no doubt about it, megyn. this is tough stuff.

we peaked at 570,000 in the army during the 13 years of war. and the fact of the matter is even at that number, megyn, we could not fight two wars simultaneously. we started prior to 9/11 with a force of about 480. the intent is to actually bring us down to a number lower than that, 450,000. to get there the army is on a glide path to start to make some of those cuts now. it has no choice. it has to take those cuts. so now these things are personal. now it's soldiers. now it's families. now it's children. now we're changing people's lives. and some of that is absolutely devastating. i've been through it a number of times in the past. and this is really very difficult for the leaders in the army to watch this happen and particularly those who have to issue these kind of orders. >> this is because the folks on capitol hill could not get their act together and imposed these draconian budget cuts across the board including on the military

through sequestration. and they haven't been completely rolled back. and now the army's getting cut. and it's getting cut. and it's getting cut you say to 450,000 over the next few years. general dempsey's already said i'm telling you 420,000 is too low, we're talking dangerously low. are we getting in danger? >> absolutely. this is no longer just misguided. this is absolutely reckless, megyn, because as i said at 570 we could not fight two wars at the same time. we were involved in two wars, but we went from one to the other because of the lack of resources we had. we never put afghanistan back on an even plain until we turned the surge around in iraq in 2008. so afghanistan never received troops from 2002 to 2008 until we got iraq straightened out. we can't do that and we go to 450,000 and we can't fight two wars at 570, what that means for

sure is at best we can deal with one and we'll never be able to deal with another one. and that will encourage our adversaries because the united states will be in a position that we haven't been in in 40, 50 years. and we're facing a new threat with isis in syria and iraq and the explosion of radical islam itself and putin on the march. this makes no sense. >> the sequestration had a lot of, you know, believers. and made some cuts that many felt were necessary. this is one of the areas that was most controversial. they tried to roll back some of it. apparently they haven't done a good enough job to save the army. what's going to happen to these men and women? some no pensions and some reduced pensions. your thoughts. >> well, if you're there for a career of service, you know, 20 years i think they can modify it to 18 you'll get a pension. but for many the officers and ncos who are in the service eight, nine years, they're not

getting any pension. they're just getting a pink slip. that's the reality. what makes it particularly painful is that they have all been in combat multiple times that's for sure. and now it's a meritocracy to go up in rank and it's also a meritocracy to go out. >> i just want to leave you with this, we spend $100,000 on coast guard party patrols, $380,000 on swedish massages for rabbits. $856,000 for mountains on a treadmill. leave it at that. general jack keane, thank you for being here. thank you for your service. we'll be right back. cocoa or eggnog?

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so hurry in! and sea food differently. let us know what you think of the army cuts. facebook.com/thekellyfile. up next, "hannity" with george bush 41 and 43. welcome to this special edition of "hannity" on the campus of texas a&m university at the george bush presidential library. for the entire hour we'll be interviewing president george w. bush. his brand new book "41, a portrait of my father." we're going to take a tour of the museum as the show continues. glad you're with us. mr. president, great to see you again. >> sean, thank you. >> you call the book a love story, a personal portrait of an extraordinary man you're blessed to call dad. >> yeah, it is a love story. i mean, you know, people pick up this book, buy this book they expect to read an objective analysis of george bush are going to be disappointed. those who really want to find out what he's like from a p