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This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," December 15, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight on a day marked by what looks like a lone wolf terror attack overseas and an ongoing debate about how America has waged the war on terror. We tonight get our first chance to interview the man singled out by a controversial Senate report produced by the Democrats alone, and then attacked by some in the media. The man who personally interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks....

Only eight days prior to the horrendous slaughter of children and school staff in Pakistan, Barack Obama released Pakistani Taliban leader, the second in command of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This is the exact group claiming responsibility for today’s massacre in Peshawar, leaving 141 dead.

What if domestic animals — pets such as dogs and cats as well livestock like cows and chickens — were granted citizenship rights? That may sound like a crazy question, but Canadian philosopher Will Kymlicka thinks it's a critically important one. Kymlicka, a professor at Queen's University, is a well-regarded figure in modern political philosophy. He's also the author, along with writer Sue Donaldson, of Zoopolis, a book making the case for animal citizenship. Their basic premise is simple: animals are already part of our society, as pets and work animals, therefore we should formally recognize them as such. That's...

I don’t usually get so personal in these columns, but today I want you to know that I feel particularly blessed. I am in the Holy Land with my friends, Dr. Ben and Candy Carson. Israel is one of my favorite travel destinations in the world. This will be my eighth visit. It is the first trip there for the Carsons and it is truly a privilege to escort them through this remarkable country. Dr. and Mrs. Carson are deeply faithful Christians, who I suspect will soon find themselves enveloped by the deep sense of spirituality that is palpable in...

If government anti-poverty programs focused on individual outcomes, the results would be those like Lance from Michigan. His father on death row and his mother a prostitute, Lance wandered into Florida and lived behind a dumpster at a 7-11. Hungry, dirty and homeless, he later found a place to live, became sober, got a job and will go to college on a scholarship. We don’t hear stories like that attributed to government assistance. That is because there are over 90 government welfare programs ranging from cash payments to housing and nutrition that are projected to cost $14 trillion over the...

The city of Scranton hiked property taxes 57% and garbage collection fees 69% to shore up a police and fire pension funds that will run out of money anyway, in 5 years and 2.5 years respectively. Amusingly (to outsiders) but certainly not to Scranton taxpayers, Scranton Pensions Increased as Much as 80 Percent as a result of inane mayoral promises. The 2011 court ruling that awarded huge raises and millions of dollars in back pay to Scranton firefighters and police officers was a windfall for retirees too, with some seeing a more than 80 percent hike in their pensions between...

My recent interview with Bret Baier, and his new book "Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love"Gayle Trotter: I am speaking with Bret Baier, Fox News Chief Political Anchor, and anchor of the top-ranked evening news program, Special Report. Thank you for joining me, Bret. Bret Baier: Thanks Gayle, good to be here. GT: Bret wrote an awesome book called Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love, which chronicles his journey in his career and his family life. It is hilarious and vividly written, and it brought me to tears at least twice. Bret,...

The stunning 40% drop in the price of oil over the past few months has scrambled global economic forecasts, changed the geo-political landscape, and has severely pressured many energy sector investments. Economists are scratching their heads to determine if the drop is good or bad for the economy or whether cheap oil will add to or decrease unemployment, or complicate the global effort to "defeat" deflation. While all of these issues merit detailed discussions, the first question to address is if the steep drop is here to stay and whether energy prices will stay low enough, for long enough, to...

Among the journalistic takeaways from the late Congress' death frenzies is the equivocal plight of the two parties -- the grown-up deal makers in both cases squeezed by hardcore, do-it-our-way extremists. On the Republican side John Boehner beset by Ted Cruz, in the Democratic camp the pragmatic Hillary Clinton wing forced to contend with the true-believing fans of Elizabeth Warren. It is the strategy some of our friends in the liberal media may have seized on to take away the bitter taste of defeat at the polls. In this telling, the left-left MoveOn.org/Daily Kos faction, anti-military and pro-big government, has...

Unlike the American Political System, third parties have more influence in the British System. Currently, the Conservatives, by David Cameron, have the majority because of their fraught combination with the Liberal Democrats, with Lib-Dem deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. While their union makes strange bed-fellows on paper, the coalition permitted massive spending cuts in the first few years of the Cameron Government. Concerns about immigration, government spending, Big Business and Big Government getting bigger have pushed Britons to the brink, and empowered an anti-establishment, pro-free market backlash from a formerly marginal third party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, otherwise known...

The Obama administration is now trying to outlaw single-sex classrooms, a practice that has been growing as parents and teachers see its good results. The Obama administration is discouraging that option in conformity with demands by the feminists who believe in the interchangeability of the genders and insist that schools forbid any deviation from their peculiar belief that there is no difference between male and female. The Minnesota State High School League, which controls policy for all extracurricular activities in all schools, public and private, voted 18 to 1 to outlaw recognition of all sex differences in high-school sports. The...

INDIANAPOLIS -- If success at the state level were enough to recommend someone for president of the United States, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana would be among the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. According to the governor's office, Pence has "signed into law $643 million in annual tax relief: That includes: $313 million for hardworking Hoosiers, thanks to last year's 5 percent income tax reduction, the largest state tax cut in Indiana history." In addition, the state corporate tax rate was reduced from 6.5 percent to 4.9 percent, making it the third lowest in the country and contributing...

Anyone skeptical about entrusting ambitious tasks to the government was not stunned by the dismal rollout of the Affordable Care Act. It featured technical snafus, cost overruns and false advertising ("If you like your plan, you'll be able to keep it."). Things got so bad that President Barack Obama apologized and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned. This epic fail occurred even though the administration had more than three years to prepare for the launch and $840 million to spend developing the website. It was a textbook case of government bungling. Truth be told, a rocky start should...

America's Christophobes have been plenty busy lately. Maybe the Christmas season makes them especially nervous. A few weeks ago, Atlanta Fire Rescue Department Chief Kelvin Cochran was suspended for a month without pay for the unforgivable sin of self-publishing a Christian book in which he expressed his disapproving views about homosexual behavior, among other things. City spokeswoman Anne Torres said: "We understand that (Cochran) was distributing the book to other employees. We are still not sure yet what the circumstances surrounding that are. ... The bottom line is that the (Mayor Kasim) Reed administration does not tolerate discrimination of any...

In an earlier column, I looked at the role the abortion issue would play in the 2016 election -- not very much, I concluded -- and promised another column on other cultural issues. Here goes. On anyone's list of cultural issues that have been debated over the last decade, same-sex marriage ranks just behind abortion. And unlike abortion, opinion on same-sex marriage has changed dramatically in recent years. Not long ago, it wasn't a political issue at all. The gifted writers Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch were making an intellectually serious, and interestingly conservative, case for same-sex marriage. But the...

Liberalism is… 1) ….idiots who think the police can keep us safe from criminals without ever accidentally hurting thugs who are resisting them and think the CIA can get information out of terrorists by giving them lattes, fluffing their pillows, and hugging them until they give in. 2) ….encouraging sexually deviant behavior at every turn, teaching young children about fisting and graphic gay sex, laughing at people who encourage modesty, and then demanding that college kids give formal consent before they kiss each other. 3) …a bunch of morons "occupying" a public park for months or blocking traffic who can't...

Democrats are the masters of deceptive persuasion, meaning they will take our attention off something they have really screwed up and put it on something that's not quite so bad. And chief among those masters is he who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. For example, let's look at the bumbling idiot Jonathan Gruber, who has repeatedly said that the key for passing Obamacare was the stupidity of the American people. When Gruber was called before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to explain himself, he ducked and weaved questions, to the point that even Rep. Elijah...

Inspector general's report is "embarrassing to our nation’s brave men and women."WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs is facing renewed criticism over its inability to properly meet the needs of former service members – this time over the poor operation of a call center established to aid homeless vets. A recent inspector general’s report revealed that homeless and at-risk veterans who contacted the call center, which costs $3 million a year to operate, often experienced problems either getting in touch with counselors or receiving the necessary referrals for services. Of the estimated 79,500 homeless veterans who contacted the hotline...

Recently Iranian Army General Hossein Salami claimed that Iran had infiltrated the United States with orders to attack America from within should the U.S. or Israel attack Iranian territory.A clear reference to our concerns about Iran’s nuclear research facilities, which are widely suspected of conducting research into the development of nuclear weapons. It certainly is plausible, considering our porous borders, that Iranian agents may well have entered the United States with instructions to wreak havoc in America.But when I hear boasting and threats such as this coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran, I think back to an exchange that...

Rumor has it that Draghi is so fed up with German opposition to everything he wants to do with stimulus and sovereign debt bond buying that he is about to leave the ECB. The Fiscal Times asks Why the Hell Does Mario Draghi Want to Leave the ECB Now!? What would happen to EuropeÂ’s prospects for recovery if Mario Draghi left his job as president of the European Central Bank? Would DraghiÂ’s plans to implement an ambitious policy of monetary stimulus get bulldozed by German inflation hawks and others favoring continued austerity across the Continent? Even a week ago there...