Increasing US energy production could made a difference amid Russia-Ukraine war: Brit Hume
'Special Report' panel reacts to growing calls to ban Russian oil.
This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," March 7, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Let's bring in our panel, FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, and Guy Benson, political editor at Townhall.com and host of "The Guy Benson Show" on FOX News Radio.
You heard it there, the national gas price average now as of today is $4.07. And you can is see that how that has gone up from one month, one year ago. Quinnipiac had a poll out tonight, Brit, that says support a ban on Russian oil if it meant higher gas prices in the U.S., look at this, 71 percent from this new poll out today. And steps the Biden administration has taken to punish Russia for invasion, too tough, three percent, not tough enough 56 percent, about right 30 percent. What about that and where the administration is on this issue?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Bret, I think the political notion of, from a political standpoint, the notion of cutting off our own imports, the United States' own Russian oil is going to prove irresistible. We'll have to do it. But let's make no mistake about it, we import on a grand scale, on the bigger scheme of things, very little Russian oil, and it's not going to change anything very much. They could sell it elsewhere and somebody would sell the same amount of oil to us. So it might create some short-term supply disruptions or shipment disruptions, but it's not going to make any real difference.
What would make a real difference in the midterm and long term would be more energy of all kinds produced in the United States. And Jen Psaki, who is clever, has lot of glib answers about why that is not happening and how we are doing as much or how it wouldn't make any difference if we did a little more, or whatever. But the one thing you will not hear her say is that this administration is doing everything it can to increase America's energy production. And until you hear her say that, we'll know they are not doing it. And if we did, it could make a difference not only to us, but to our allies who could use energy exporting from here.
BAIER: Right, Mara that is a big question, the allies, German chancellor Schultz, according to "Politico," "Europe has deliberately exempted energy supplies from Russian from sanctions. Schultz said in a statement. Adding, "At the moment Europe's supply of energy for heat generation, mobility, power supply, and industry cannot be secured in any other way. It is, therefore, of essential importance for the provision of public services and the daily lives of our citizens." So if you thought that Europe was somehow going to say "nyet" to Russian oil, that's not going to happen.
MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Right. The ban is going to be a U.S. ban only. I agree with Brit. I think there's a bipartisan consensus for it and it's going to happen. How fast it, will take Germany and other European countries to wean themselves from Russian oil, I know that the U.S. is going to ship a lot of LNG to Germany, liquified natural gas. They are going to have to put it in big ships and get it over to Europe. But the world is going to have to shift. People are not going to want to be dependent on Russia anymore. But it's going to take a long time. And that's why in the near term, prices at the pump in the U.S. are going to go up.
BAIER: Here is the keystone pipeline debated incapsulated, Senator Hoeven from North Dakota.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN HOEVEN, (R-ND) SENATE ENERGY COMMITTEE: I sponsored legislation to pass the Keystone XL pipeline years ago. That would be in place now providing 870,000 barrels a day. We can do a lot more with LNG export, with infrastructure in this country. Taking the moratorium off producing oil and gas on federal lands, both on and offshore.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The keystone was not an oil field. It's a pipeline. It actually would have nothing to do with the current supply imbalance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Guy, what about that?
GUY BENSON, POLITICAL EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: This reminds me of the debate we all watched play out during the Obama administration over Keystone and energy policy. And we remember as a candidate Barack Obama said proudly that his energy policies would create prices -- a run on prices where those prices for American consumers would necessarily skyrocket was the phrase, and he said that was a feature and not a bug in his policy.
And whenever there was a discussion of any temporary pain or momentary frustration or prices going up, the argument always would come from the other side, from the Democratic side saying, oh, well, that might be true, but that would be medium or long-term. It wouldn't help us immediately. Well, here we are years later, and I think that hypothetical future is now. So, bad decisions then are leading, or at least contributing to some of the pain now. And making the same mistake now will probably be cited if this policy continues years down the line when there is another pressure point.
BAIER: I just want to play this soundbite from John Kirby. It is about the Russian forces in Ukraine, talking at the Pentagon today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: They are having morale problems. They are having supply problems. They are having fuel problems. They are having food problems. They are having -- they are meeting a very stiff and determined Ukrainian resistance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Brit, that's not to say that eventually they are not going to bombard each one of these cities into submission. But they are not exemplifying stellar military moves right now.
HUME: No. Exactly right, Bret, and they haven't come anywhere near breaking the back of this Ukrainian resistance which has been quite extraordinary. The problem is, of course, the more brutish Russia becomes, and it has already and will continue to, in order to do that, the greater the reign of destruction and death and misery will be on the people of Ukraine. And those streams of refugees pouring out of there into what we used to think of as eastern Europe now is almost part of western Europe are only going continue to crease. This is going -- we are going to be dealing with this for a long time, and a lot of the decisions in the west will have to be made as to how we respond to this, not only just for the moment but for the future.
BAIER: All right, panel, stand by if you would. Next up, reaction to my interview with the former Attorney General Bill Barr.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: Russia-gate essentially froze the Trump administration from engaging with Russia. It kept the president pinned down for the first half of his administration.
When Biden won, I felt that there would be no incentive on the part of the Russians to try to use diplomacy to reach a stable modus vivendi, and that they would just grab what they wanted under Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Former Attorney General Bill Barr had a prediction in his book about if President Biden was the president, what Russia would do. And they are doing it.
We're back with our fan. Mara, what do you take from the interview?
LIASSON: I thought they were really two interviews in one. One was Bill Barr's blaming the left and Biden's weakness for what is happening in Ukraine and the Russia probe. But, also, there was what Bill Barr said about Donald Trump post Election Day, that he became petty and fixated on this false notion that somehow the election was stolen from him. He doesn't want Donald Trump to be the nominee in 2024. Of course, he said he would vote for the Republican nominee, whoever it would be.
But I thought it was pretty interesting. We know that Bill Barr is a staunch conservative, that came through loud and clear in your interview. But he also has really soured on his former boss.
BAIER: Brit?
HUME: I agree. I thought the interview was very interesting. I like Bill Barr. I thought he was a block of granite in the Trump administration in the extent to which he resisted Trump's worst impulses come through, I think, in the narrative in the book. I look forward to reading it in full. And I would say, Brit, that I have a feeling that this is a book that the Trump lovers are going to hate and that the Trump haters are going to hate. So I hope he can find a market for it.
(LAUGHTER)
BAIER: Find a marketplace.
Guy, what's interesting is that he talks about his misgivings about the former president, especially after the election very explicitly. But tomorrow we're going to get into the crime. Illegal immigration, Chinese spying, a lot of substantive issues that he really delves into.
BENSON: Yes, I'm excited to see that part of the interview and read the rest of the book. I have started it.
This is one of the few political memoirs that I can remember really looking forward to, because it seems like in this town in our politics there is a dwindling number of adults in the room, and Bill Barr was one of them under two presidents, really three presidents, but two as attorney general.
And to Brit's point, some partisans who love and hate the former president will and have loathed Bill Barr at various times to the point of derangement, I would say. But he's a serious person with serious thoughts. The book so far has been great, fascinating interview, and more substance tomorrow.
BAIER: Yes. I want to play one soundbite, this is the Durham explanation, a little bit longer than we put in the interview. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: What people forget about the Durham investigation, and I find it annoying, is that Durham came in, and he spent -- I asked him to spend some time looking at what I would say were peripheral issues. But we had to look at them, like the role of foreign intelligence services and so forth, because we were waiting for the I.G.'s report to be finished, which really got into what the FBI's, quote, spying on the president's campaign. And that was not provided until December of 2019. So at the end of 2019, that's when he is able to get into that stuff.
What happens three months later? COVID. Grand juries shut down across the nation. If -- whether or not he had a grand jury, if people know that you can't call a grand jury, they are not going to come in and voluntarily talk to you. So that definitely hampered the investigation until almost the eve of the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: So part of the timing on the Durham investigation, just an added little piece there. Panel, thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow.
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