And the Good News Is... Page 15

  ERIC BOLLING

  Eric Bolling and I had met a couple of times before The Five. For a while, Eric had a show on Fox Business called Follow the Money. I appeared on it once and it felt like being on a Tilt-A-Whirl with no seat belts. It was so raucous that I just sat there all shaken up. He took pity on me and understood when I said I didn’t think I could do the show again. We still laugh about it.

  Eric started his working life as a professional baseball player, but an injury scuttled his chances for the big leagues. As a result, he had to take the first job available. He pumped gas for a few weeks, and then he got a call from a friend who’d heard about a job opening in finance in Boston. He packed that night.

  Eric grew up in Chicago with very modest means and was taught the value of education and hard work. That foundation helped him later on when his business sense and tolerance for risk in the oil and gas business helped him achieve financial security for his family. Sadly, he witnessed both World Trade Center attacks and lost many friends on September 11, and he speaks passionately about matters of national security and freedom.

  Eric married Adrienne, a bright light wherever she goes. She’s beautiful—in fact, Bob tried to hit on her one night before he knew she was Eric’s wife (he didn’t get too far). They have a teenage son and he’s given them several minor heart attacks, as teenagers do. Eric is an attentive father—his son will do well.

  When Eric’s mom went through chemotherapy treatment, she had to fast on Tuesdays and so he did, too. Even after she died, he continued the tradition to remember her.

  Eric’s a solid, dependable guy. Of all the people I’ve met in New York, he’s the first person I’d call if I ever needed help (then if I needed a lawyer, I’d call Kimberly).

  GREG GUTFELD

  Where to start? He’s the brother I never wanted. We’d never talked before we sat down to tape the pilot of The Five and we hit it off immediately.

  Greg is a comic genius—he’s got a lot going on up there in his brain. I get his sense of humor, and his jokes send me into fits of giggles. Sometimes I start laughing before he’s finished a sentence because I can see where he’s headed. Every now and then I’ll suggest he say something that I would never say out loud—unlike me, Greg is not afraid, and that’s why he has so many fans.

  Greg is astounded by my innocence and thinks I’m goofy. I love his phony grumpiness and have learned to read his moods. Our conversations are my favorite part of the day. We crack ourselves up.

  He met his Russian wife, Elena, when he was in Portugal at a conference. They both worked in the magazine business—he was an editor and she was a photo stylist. He told his friends, “I’m going to marry that woman.” They thought he was crazy, but he proved them wrong.

  Greg’s been fired from every job he’s ever held, so we worry that it’s just a matter of time before it happens again. But Fox appreciates his talent and humor. They give him a lot of room to run—and thankfully, they’re not watching Red Eye at 3 a.m.

  Greg lost his mom, Jackie, to cancer in 2014. She was eighty-nine. He wasn’t afraid to write in her eulogy that he was a “momma’s boy” and proud of it. When Greg was a kid, his mom recognized his unique sense of humor and encouraged it. She’d buy him MAD magazines and National Lampoon, which fed his imagination. Later Greg’s mom appeared as a guest on Red Eye and would spend all day preparing for the segment. She was one of the most recognized faces on Fox News.

  Another thing I like about Greg is that he makes us work harder by forcing us to abandon the jargon he hates (his banned phrases are famous). His commentary is so good and so different that sometimes it takes a few seconds for it to sink in. He uses humor to get us to think about issues differently. It was a little unconventional to have him on air at 5 p.m. on cable news, but that’s why he’s built a loyal following of viewers that adore him. So do I.

  BOB BECKEL

  If you watch The Five, you know that Bob is one of life’s great characters. There’s not enough room to tell his whole story (after all, he covered Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural).

  Bob is like a cat on its ninth life. He’s a recovering addict, and he says he’s living on borrowed time. While some guys his age think about retiring, taking it down a notch, Bob thrives on work. The Five gave him a new lease on life, and he’s become a Fox favorite.

  Our viewers have a love-hate relationship with Bob—they hate a lot of what he says, but they love him for who he is. They know that as the only liberal on the show, he’s working against the odds. Bob says it’s four against one, but anyone who’s watched Bob spar with us knows it’s more one against four.

  Sometimes our audience thinks that Bob is a secret conservative and that he’s coming around to thinking like they do. The truth is Bob is a true liberal, with an open mind, and he calls balls and strikes in politics just like an umpire would. He’s just about seen it all, and our show is better because he can share his real-life experiences.

  Bob is a good sport who puts up with a lot from the rest of us on The Five. That includes me. As he says, “She may look sweet but watch out when she gets mad.” One night I hit him below the belt with a shot about his age, and I felt bad about it for three days. He handled it perfectly by making fun of me for not being such a nice person after all. He let me off the hook (and reminded me what President Bush had taught me—forgiveness is the key to being happy in work and life. Bob does that naturally).

  It wasn’t the first time I relied on his good nature. On election night in November 2012, the Republican Party lost big time. A lot of us had false hope that Mitt Romney could beat President Obama. For a couple of weeks before the election, Bob warned us it didn’t look good for the GOP. He wasn’t playing mind games—he was right.

  Bob and I got paired up to give reaction throughout the night on Fox. Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier were anchoring the network’s coverage and occasionally they’d call on us for commentary. We had a lot of downtime, so we just sat and watched the returns. It was depressing.

  “Bob, this is terrible,” I said.

  And instead of pouncing on my disappointment, Bob didn’t rub it in.

  He said, “Yeah, kid, it’s bad. Now, let’s keep it in perspective—it’s not like losing forty-nine states kind of bad—now that was embarrassing.” He was referring to the 1984 Presidential race when he managed Walter Mondale’s campaign against Reagan. Mondale lost in a landslide.

  Fox wanted us to stick around that night until the returns in California came in, but I desperately wanted out of there. I tried to leave and a producer stopped me. But Bob whispered, “Go—I’ll cover for you.” So I thanked him and snuck out the studio door. I walked home to our Hell’s Kitchen apartment, took a shower and an Ambien, and was asleep by midnight.

  Bob’s become our favorite houseguest on weekends. We invite him over to watch football on Sundays, and he pretends to hate Jasper but he lets him sit on his lap while he eats his pot roast (he’ll walk a mile for a meal made in a Crock-Pot). One time we took him to a comedy show downtown, and I laughed harder at Bob’s reactions than I did at the comedians.

  At Peter’s sixtieth birthday party, Bob gave one of the toasts and stole the show. Watching everyone hang on his every word that night, I realized that this really is Bob’s world—we’re just living in it.

  The Magic Formula

  When I accepted the offer to be on The Five and move to New York City, I felt that familiar worry about taking a different direction from what I’d planned. I was concerned that moving to New York for The Five would cut me off from other interests, or prevent me from being able to return to public relations—I’d just spent two years building a business and knew how hard it was to start over. In D.C., I was on a couple of charitable boards—one matched wounded warriors with rescue animals and the other encouraged more support for better maternal health and early childhood development in Africa—and had just been appointed to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

  But far from limiting my involvemen
t, Fox News has helped me expand upon it. In August 2013, my husband and I went to Congo and spent a week with Mercy Ships, a charitable surgical ship that serves the forgotten poor around the world, but mostly in West Africa. Peter and I went on our own accord, but Fox sent us with some audio equipment and Peter shot amateur video that the young producers at Fox turned into a three-minute package. That Mercy Ships segment aired multiple times on the network and reached millions of people. That was my first experience after leaving the White House where I finally found the best way to make a difference when it came to issues I cared about.

  Somewhat to my surprise, I’ve come to find being on TV very professionally fulfilling. I say that because I wasn’t sure at first. I’d just left a job where I spoke for the President of the United States, managed a team of twelve people, and started my own consulting business. I wasn’t sure that being on a roundtable for an hour a day would be enough to keep me busy. I was wrong. I take the show preparation seriously, and I really love that part of my job.

  I also wasn’t sure if I’d consider being on the show enough of a contribution to national debates. But that concern was crossed off my list when we started hearing from our fans. They loved the show and said that it kept them informed and laughing. One fan stopped me at a Broadway play to say I’d helped her win arguments with her neighbors by presenting ideas in a fact-based and more persuasive way.

  I’m regularly impressed by how many people can recall specific moments from the show, even from years ago. They remember that I dunked Bob on the Fourth of July in 2011, and that Kimberly beat him in the chicken wing eating contest. They love Greg’s banned phrases, Bob’s swear jar, Eric’s Constitution, Jasper’s appearances, “One More Thing,” and more. My career change came at just the right time and now sharing my thoughts with our fans every night is the best part of my day.

  What’s the secret to The Five’s success? It has to be the chemistry of the co-hosts. Chemistry is something that can’t be manufactured—you either have it or you don’t. And since we do, we just have to stay unpredictable, authentic, and smarter than our competition. That’s our recipe for success.

  Oh, wait—there’s just one little thing we have to do—remind Bob to take smaller bites. We’re counting on him to be around for a long time.

  Bob’s Unlikely Nemesis

  Five fans know a few personal things about us by now—such as how much I love my dog, Jasper, and that Jasper drives Bob crazy. And that makes fans happy—they like to see Bob’s head nearly explode whenever I mention him. Bob’s turned making fun of Jasper into a daily rant. “That damned dog!” he yells. He’s just kidding—I think.

  Before Jasper, there was Henry—and Fox fans knew him, too. Those who followed me at the White House heard about Henry occasionally, and when I started with The Five, I talked about him a lot. I bonded with other dog lovers that watched the show.

  Henry was a Hungarian Vizsla, handsome and loving. Peter and I were extremely close to him. He was nearly fourteen and in failing health when we moved to New York City, and I knew it would be a tough move for him.

  Henry was my only companion during the days in England, and I taught him to behave better than the other dogs and to do all sorts of tricks. Political jokes were his specialty. In 2004 I asked him to show us what he really thought about John Kerry, and he’d fetch my flip-flop. His last trick was to play dead if I asked him about Obamacare.

  Henry grounded me during the White House years. He was the only one in Washington that wasn’t impressed with my job. He disliked the BlackBerry and would sulk when I checked e-mails. He was one of the only reasons I ever set my phone down.

  When Peter and I argued, we’d lower our voices when Henry was around because he hated fighting of any kind. Once we had to tell a friend she couldn’t say the “F” word in front of him because he’d get too upset.

  I worried about moving to New York because I didn’t think he’d survive the stress of relocating to Manhattan, where it’s so noisy and hard to find a blade of grass. Everything that was familiar to him would be left behind in Washington.

  Henry slept most of the day by then, and was almost completely white in the face. Sadly I was right, and after the move, Henry’s health went downhill. We hired a young pre-med student named Kyra from Columbia University to take care of him when we went out to dinner because he needed constant care. I knew the end was near, and I wanted to give him one last trip to his favorite place—the ocean.

  I looked online for a dog beach. It was slim pickings in New York, but we found one that was about an hour’s drive away. It was a long walk from the parking lot to the water, and the March wind was really cold. But when we got to the ocean, it was worth it. Henry put his nose up to sniff the sea air. He had pep in his step and even pranced a bit in the water. My chest was tight because I felt like I was walking with twenty-pound weights on my ankles. I knew it was the last time Henry would be on a beach.

  On the way back to the car, Henry fell and Peter carried him for a while. It took us three times as long to get back to the car. I held Henry’s face in my hands and we drove in silence back to the city. At home we gave him a painkiller, and when that didn’t seem to work, the vet said we could give him another. But the second pill made Henry seem like he was drunk. Finally, at midnight, Peter took him to the all-night emergency vet to get him stabilized. I kissed Henry’s head as Peter carried him to the elevator. It was a rough night.

  At 10 a.m., we got a call asking us to come back to the hospital. It wasn’t to bring him home but to say good-bye.

  I felt bad for the taxi driver that picked us up—he must have thought the world was ending since we could barely speak through our distress. Somehow we managed to give him the address and he got us there safely. There were many different animals in the emergency room, as if on that Saturday night in New York City, every puppy, bunny, kitten, parrot, and ferret got sick and went to the doctor. Thankfully, Henry was away from the chaos in the intensive care unit.

  The young veterinarian led us to Henry. He lay on his side with an oxygen mask over his nose. He was barely conscious. We took turns getting on the floor and kissing him good-bye. We thanked him for being such an important part of our lives, and I tried not to cause a scene. I remember what my grandfather said about not letting any creatures suffer, and I gathered myself and took charge.

  “We’re ready,” I said.

  I pulled Peter toward the door and we waited in a room for the doctor to bring Henry in to give him the final shot. My hands shook and Peter was collapsing inside.

  The vet walked in, but he was empty-handed. He said he wouldn’t have to give Henry a shot because he’d died as soon as we walked away. Ever a noble dog, Henry seemed to have waited for us to say our last words before he left.

  We thanked the doctor and slowly walked home. Our doormen were waiting for us and they expected good news. But when we shrugged and looked upward, they were crushed. We’d been in New York for only six months, but they loved Henry, too.

  To get the news out all at once, I tweeted a “Rest in Peace” note and was flooded with sympathy (even from Bob). The outpouring shored me up, and the next day The Five gave Henry a fitting send-off on the show.

  I still think of Henry every day. He was the kind of dog that made me a better person.

  Jasper

  The night Henry died, I got a call from Greta Van Susteren. She and her husband, John, knew Henry from trips we’d taken to visit them in Annapolis. She had some advice.

  “I know this is the last thing you want to do right now, but take it from me, the best thing you can do is to get another dog immediately,” she said.

  I told her I didn’t know if I could handle a dog in Midtown Manhattan. She said that I could and that I must.

  She was right.

  We called a Vizsla breeder we knew in Maryland who used to take care of Henry when we were out of town. She’d heard about Henry on The Five and was expecting our call. She had a litter coming an
d could reserve us a male puppy. We named him Jasper before he was even born. It sounded like a good name—like a gentlemanly rascal.

  The day before we were to pick him up, I took off from The Five and Peter drove us to Washington, D.C., to go to the Queen’s Jubilee celebration at the British Embassy. It was a proper English garden party and we ate mini ice cream cones and drank a British version of a mimosa called Bucks Fizz (it was just like being at Buckingham Palace—the only thing missing was the rain). A lot of our friends were going out on the town afterward, but we declined. We had an important pickup in the morning.

  As we pulled into the driveway at the breeder’s house, I was opening the car door before we’d come to a full stop. I had to see him.

  The puppies were penned in the living room. Newspapers lined the floor, and a few toys were strewn inside the gate. The breeder reached down, grabbed a pup, and handed him to me.

  “Here he is—Jasper. He’s the sweetest one of the litter.”

  He had fuzzy red-brown fur, blue eyes, a fat little belly, and pink paws.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sir Jasper,” I said.

  I snuggled him but he wouldn’t settle right away; he kept pushing his legs against my chest trying to get a good look at my face. I kissed his head and tucked him into my arm. Then I gave him to Peter so that he could meet him, too.

  On our way home, we went through a drive-thru for Diet Cokes and showed him off to the cashier. It wasn’t until about an hour into the journey that Jasper finally gave up and relaxed into me. We both breathed a little easier and I started to stroke his head.

  That’s when I noticed that he had an odd-shaped ear. It was much shorter than the other one and it looked to have been cut somehow. We don’t know what happened to it, but we didn’t care either. Jasper was such a gorgeous puppy, and his little ear makes him even more endearing. He has no idea how cute that marking is. It kills me.