From Monday night’s Fox News All-Stars.

On whether there is still time for the White House to negotiate a debt ceiling compromise with Republicans:

I’m not sure we that we do have a five day or a one week deadline, because you can have a negotiation in principle, or at least outlines [of an agreement], right up to midnight August 1 — which I think is a phony date nonetheless. But let’s assume it’s a drop-dead date. And then you can have a short-term rise in the debt limit for a week or two, a month or two — as happened in the budget negotiations — to tide you over while the [legislative] language [of the agreement] is being written. So they actually have a month.
But I think the real news [is] that Republicans are open to defense cuts as a way to satisfy Democratic desires. I think it is something new and disturbing.
There are already isolationist tendencies among the Republicans expressed on the Libya [and] Afghanistan operations, although in those cases, you can argue that people have misgivings about the benefits of these operations or about their chances of success.
But if you want to cut the defense budget — after we have heard from Obama’s own secretary of defense six months ago that, say, a 10 percent the cut would be a catastrophe — what you are doing is voting against Americans strength abroad. It would satisfy Ron Paul. It would make Reagan… absolutely appalled — and disappointed that Republicans are the ones who are looking to diminish America’s reach and power. …
Well that’s true. Look, even if you did all the defense cuts — a 10 percent cut is $50 billion. You could do that for — what – for 30 years [and]… collect all that money. It wouldn’t cover one year of Obama deficit spending.
That [defense spending] is not where the money is. The money isn’t in that — or the… tax breaks the oil companies are getting, which is $2 billion a year. The money is in entitlements.
And unless the Democrats are willing to do something important on entitlements, we’re not going to get anywhere on this. That I think is the ultimate redline. And I think Obama has decided he doesn’t want to touch entitlements in a significant way, because demagoguing entitlements — and [especially] Medicare — is the way he gets re-elected.

On Michele Bachmann’s campaign launch in Iowa:

I thought it was not a particularly inspiring speech. I don’t think that stem-winders are her strong point. It was a straight speech. It had Reagan elements about ‘government is not the solution,’ which is a Reagan trope. He used it in his inaugural address, actually, in 1981. She is sort of running as a Reaganite/tea party [candidate]. Her strength is in the give and take, the way she distinguished herself in the debate, the way she has on the floor of the House, the way she has on television. So I think she is going to be somebody who will impress, not necessarily through speeches.
I think also that she is now — and this is probably going to be tough on her — the front-runner Iowa, which nobody would have said six months ago. Which puts pressure on her because she needs actually to win now. I think anything less than that will be seen as a disappointment.
I think her chances are good at winning [Iowa]. If she does… the script was written in 2008 by Huckabee, the expected second tier candidate who emerges and distinguishes him or herself in Iowa and becomes a strong candidate in the rest of the primaries.
Her path is a difficult one, and I would assume she won’t succeed in the end. However, if she does well after Iowa, assuming she wins it, I think she’d be right up there as a choice for vice president.

On Chris Wallace asking Michele Bachmann if she is a “flake”:

Look, it’s simply a convention. If you’re a questioner, the rule is supposed to be, you say: “Other people are calling you a flake, how do you react?” You know, if he had done it that way, nobody would have mentioned anything.

On whether the “flake” question was intrinsically sexist:

I think it’s a legitimate question that you can ask of a male or a female candidate. I would ask it of Ron Paul, and that’s not a sexist thing… He wants to abolish the Fed and FEMA and practically everything. So it’s a legitimate question in some context. I don’t think it’s a matter of sexism.