'Special Report' All-Star Panel on congressional infighting over social spending bill, supply chain issues

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Fleischer: Reconciliation bill is '$3.5T in spending for a nation that's already going broke'

The panelists of 'Special Report with Bret Baier' take on Congressional infighting over the social spending bill, supply chain issues, and Vice President Kamala Harris' space video.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report" October 12, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does she need to do a better job at messaging? And going forward how do you sell this? 

NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: I think you all could do a better job of selling it, to be very frank with you. But it is true, it is hard to break through when you have such a comprehensive package. 

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There are choices that need to be made. That's the point we are at now given there will be fewer dollars that will be spent. His view is we can still do something historic and that will fundamentally change the economy for the American people. 

REP. DAN CRENSHAW, (R-TX): What we should be encouraging the Biden administration to do is really the opposite of what they are doing. If we are going to incentivize anything, it shouldn't be incentivizing workers to stay at home. It should be incentivizing them to come back to work. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

BAIER: Speaker Pelosi saying its reporters' job to do a better job, talking about the packages, the legislative packages up on Capitol Hill that appear stalled, at least for the moment. The White House conceding they will be scaled back, and they're optimistic they can eventually get across the finish line. We will see. 

Let's bring in our panel, Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters, Leslie Marshall, Democratic strategist, and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. 

Jeff, at the White House they are still holding onto this optimism, but it is starting to kind of drag on. The president said it could be six hours or six weeks. It's definitely leaning towards six weeks at this point. 

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "REUTERS": It certainly is. And one thing he didn't say, Bret, was six months. They do have a deadline. They do need to get this done this year. He wants some of that money to be injected into the economy by next year, and he's going to have a whole new political reality next year with people in Congress beginning to run for reelection. So it is absolutely dragging on, and though the White House says it's not frustrated, it's hard not to see some frustration there with the fact that one of the main reasons it's dragging on is disagreement within the Democratic Party. 

BAIER: Yes. One Democrat would love to have it done November 2nd. I think that is Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia. 

There is this moderate progressive push, we've talked about it for weeks now, Leslie, and here's how FiveThirtyEight put it about Kyrsten Sinema, the moderate senator from Arizona, "Once a staunch progressive," they write, "Arizona's senior senator has taken a hard turn to the right. On the surface that appears to have been an effort to make her more electable by courting moderate and conservative voters. If so, she may have overcompensated. Arizona is no West Virginia, and no other swing state Senator vexed Democratic leadership so thoroughly. In fact, Sinema has established such a firm anti-progressive reputation that she may have lost the support of enough Democrats to endanger her election just the same." 

Leslie, is it possible that the party went further left and she didn't take a hard right? 

LESLIE MARSHALL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I don't think the party went further left. The majority of us, myself included, are still centrist, moderate Democrats. I think for years now, Bret, and you have and I have talked about this before both on and off air, Bernie Sanders kind of set the tone years back with things like raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, universal health care, and other programs that at one time were looked at a socialist if not communist, and now they are pretty much part of the regular Democratic platform. And is that perceived to be more progressive? Yes, but it really isn't. 

Here's the problem that we have with our Senator in Arizona and that she has. You mentioned it, you said it, Bret, popularity. Is that what she's concerned about? Because if she's concerned about her constituency, her constituents actually support this. 

And speaking of West Virginia, which is more conservative than Arizona in her state, Joe Manchin's constituents in that state also support what the Democrats are trying to do. It bothers me that I see this in my party, but I am not surprised. I have seen it on the right when you have your Tea Party faction. I see it on the left with the progressive faction. At the end of the day, I do think they get things done, but they don't end up where they are started. 

BAIER: I assume when you say that they support it, you are pointing to broad polls and questions that say do you like this thing, but Ari, do they know what this thing is? And aren't Senators Manchin and Sinema really fighting for the big picture on deficit and debt in the long term? 

ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There's so many things in this expensive spending bill that adds up to one big that thing, and that thing is $3.5 trillion in spending for a nation that is already going broke. And so it's going to be very hard to make the components speak louder than the sum of those parts. That sum is what is dragging this down. It's way too big. Even $1.5 trillion is going to be too big. 

But back to Arizona. It's a fact that Senator Sinema is more popular than Senator Kelly, the Democrat from Arizona, the other Democrat from Arizona. So she has figured her stayed out better than the senator who is supporting all of this in the United States Senate. So I think the Democrats are still going through this very difficult strain of having a three vote majority in the House and a zero vote majority in the even tied Senate, and it's showing. 

I think, Bret, the only thing you can count on is this is going to go down at Christmas, they won't figure this out and get out until about Christmas Eve because they need a deadline to force action, and who knows how it's going to end up? 

BAIER: Former House Speaker John Boehner said nothing happens negotiation- wise until it has to happen on Capitol Hill. So when they start smelling the jet fumes in the building before Christmas break, they may do it. 

Jeff, meantime, the supply chain issues are a real issue across the country. And today Jen Psaki said the supply chain task force has been working for months to address these issues. We are going to hear from the president tomorrow on this. We haven't really heard from this task force or the president on this issue. 

MASON: Which I think is one reason why they are making that a key theme tomorrow, and it's a theme that is also vulnerable to some extent politically, or creates vulnerability for him politically, Bret, because when people go to the stores and can't find what they want, and when they see gas prices going up and all of this is related, they'll take it out, or they are likely to take it out on the current administration. 

But the White House has been working on it, they do have this task force that you just mentioned, and the president wants to highlight what's going on, and also I think give a little bit of a warning to Americans on what to expect. And one of those things may be, come holiday time in December, it's not going to be as easy to get all the gifts and all the things that we normally expect to find on the shelves when we are buying our presents.

BAIER: Yes. Leslie, I'm going to play this video, we've played it before, but this is this NASA video. Take a listen. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just love the idea of exploring the unknown. 

And then there's other things that we just haven't figured out or discovered yet. 

I want you to really remember this -- never let anybody tell you who you are. 

I have more advice for you. 

(LAUGHTER) 

BRANDON JUDD, ACTIVE BORDER PATROL AGENT: There's a time to talk about the moon with children and get them excited. This was not the time. 

SEN. MARSHA BLACKBURN, (R-TN): Every town is a border town, every state is now a border state because of this open border. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

BAIER: There are big issues obviously. Vice President Harris is in this video. They have child actors in the video, Leslie. It was put on this company, Canadian Company called Sinking Ship Entertainment. The vice president's office saying they didn't hire the child actors, but this is not a good look. 

MARSHALL: I would agree with you there. I have said it before and I will say it again. She was tasked with immigration on the border. I don't want to see her on "The View." And I'm a Democrat, and I support her and the president, but I don't want to see her on "The View." I don't want to see her doing these videos. But it is common in videos like this for children to be cast by outside companies. The vice president certainly doesn't handpick children for things like this in any administration. 

BAIER: All right, you have 10 seconds, Ari. 

FLEISCHER: It is not common for anybody in the government, particularly the White House, to pay people to sit in your videos. That's called fake news. 

BAIER: All right, when we come back, tomorrow's headlines with the panel. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

BAIER: Finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines with the panel. Leslie, first to you. 

MARSHALL: Texas hospitals brace themselves for incoming patients as the governor has banned mandates for vaccines throughout the state.

BAIER: OK, Ari? 

FLEISCHER: Biden continues to avoid questions from the media. He has only done nine sit-down interviews at this point in his presidency compared to 50 for Donald Trump, 113 for Barack Obama at the same point in their presidencies. 

BAIER: We continue to ask every week. Jeff? 

MASON: Buy those Christmas presents right now a not glum White House warns of supply woes to come. Going back to what we were talking about earlier. 

BAIER: Yes, exactly. All right, panel, thank you. 

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the SPECIAL REPORT, fair, balanced, and still unafraid. "FOX NEWS PRIMETIME" hosted by Jesse Watters just down the hall starts right now. Hi, Jesse. 

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