'Special Report' All-Star Panel on October jobs numbers

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McCarthy questions spending bill after better than expected October jobs report

'Special Report' panel weighs in on the reported 531K job numbers during the month of October

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report" on November 5, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, (D-WV): The CBO scoring talking more about the effects it has all through our economy and all through people's lives, that's something reasonable to ask.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: There will not be a CBO score until Thanksgiving. There's a reason why they want to run the bill through without having a Congressional Budget Office tell you how much it costs. There are gimmicks behind this.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE, (D-TX): The secretary of the treasury believes we are on the right track. There are economists that believe we're on the right track, and I think we can rely on those individuals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Here is where we are right now, the Congressional Progressive Office meeting up on Capitol Hill. So far they say they are voting against the bipartisan infrastructure bill because there is not a deal on the other one, the reconciliation bill, Build Back Better bill. If 20 progressives vote against it, there won't be 20 Republicans that vote for it to cover that, so Nancy Pelosi will not have that bill passed potentially. She has not put it forward.

Let's bring in our panel, Harold Ford Jr., former Tennessee Congressman, CEO of Empowerment and Inclusion Capital, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist," and Kimberley Strassel, a member of the editorial board at "The Wall Street Journal."

Harold, I called this a game of legislative Democratic chicken up there. But there are phone calls. There's pressure. The president has called into the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and so far they're not budging. And if that's the case, you are going to have to wait. It may punt to December.

HAROLD FORD JR., FORMER TENNESSEE REPRESENTATIVE: First off, thanks for having me on and happy Friday, and what a day for the country as we bury Colin Powell.

I'd say two things. Put the bill on the floor tonight, Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team should. I think that those progressives who wish to vote against it should be allowed to vote their conscience and then go home and defend it. If I was still in Congress and I represented a district in Memphis, if I had to go home and defend why I voted against the $1.2 trillion bill that would build more roads and bridges, that would build more broadband, make America more competitive against China and I voted against it, maybe I would have a good reason. Bret, I can't think of one right now, but those people should go home and defend those votes.

I know Speaker Pelosi doesn't like it bring a bill to the floor where she does not have the votes. But this is one of those moments where I think you have to test the mettle, because if you don't, you could end up in the minority next year. As I can tell you, as someone that served 10 years in the minority, it's much better being in the majority.

BAIER: Well, they may be in the minority anyway depending on what happens one way or the other here. Kimberley, the thing is that it's clear that this strategy by Speaker Pelosi of linking these two bills together has absolutely failed tonight. They have already punted. They say just vote on the infrastructure. We'll deal with the reconciliation later. They don't want to do that.

And this is one of the reasons why there is a delay. From "Wall Street Journal," $3.98 trillion trojan horse. If all of the provisions of the bill except green energy tax cuts are made permanent, new spending would increase by $3.98 trillion while the tax revenue would stay at $1.55 trillion over 10 years. This means the real cost of the Sanders-Biden- Pelosi budget is $4 trillion and it will put the U.S. on a path to European entropy. That's what these moderates are saying, we need to see the score.

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, this is, what, the third or fourth time they have tried to do this? And look, if they'd brought up this infrastructure bill back in September, and Nancy Pelosi had simply said we are holding a vote on it, it probably would have passed. But I think that those numbers you just read out go to the weakness of the progressive Democratic position. They know that the rest of their party is very uncomfortable with this. They know that this isn't necessarily popular in big parts of the country, so they deliberately tied it to that more popular bill to try to force both of them through. And now we are seeing the limits of that policy.

BAIER: We'll follow it.

I want to turn topics here, Mollie, to the Durham probe, and it is moving forward, and we knew it was going to come eventually, but it took some time. Take a listen to Jim Jordan and Andy McCarthy here on the developments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM JORDAN, (R-OH): These are not about these individuals lying to John Durham and his investigative team. They are about the original lies they told back in 2016 and 2017 to the FBI that started this charade that was the Trump-Russia investigation.

ANDY MCCARTHY, FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: The FBI didn't interview Danchenko until February of 2017. Well, they were in the FISA court in October of 2016 bringing to the judges there what is supposed to be a verified application, which means they are supposed to corroborate the information before they go to court. They didn't do it until much later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Mollie, here is "The National Review" write up. "Donald Trump might have desired a closer relationship with Vladimir Putin, but it was Democrats who had aggressively and successfully disseminated Russian disinformation during and after the 2016 election, manipulating a pliant media and law enforcement, plunging the nation into four years of paranoia meant to undermine trust in the American electoral system. We now know that the premise of the narrative that undergirded hundreds of stories was created in a public relations lab. What we don't know is how much the media knew. Even if we generously concede that most journalists were merely dupes rather than participants, the lack of skepticism and professionalism is still jarring."

You have done a lot on this, Mollie. It is coming to roost here.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": Kim and I both did a lot on this story. We actually always knew that it was a Democratic operation. We learned it was Democratic funded, that it was Democratic Party sourced. And yet, the major corporate media coverage said otherwise, causing untold damage. We know, in fact, that one of the people mentioned in this indictment yesterday, Dolan, was meeting with media figures. They already knew that as part of the Russia hoax. They already knew who some of these people were.

And this is what is so frustrating about this. Some accountability can be had. We had one FBI lawyer who was indicted for his lies in wiretapping Trump campaign affiliates. We have one DNC, or Democrat party lawyer who has been indicted for his role in the hoax. And then yesterday we have this other operative who was indicted. But there are so many more people that need to be held accountable. They basically got away with so much that they did, and it's so much damage to the country.

BAIER: Yes, and it's a wonder why none of this was covered in the Mueller Report, and we have got a lot of things to continue to look at.

OK, panel, stand by. Up next, the Friday Lightning Round, and it will be lightning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In October, our economy created 531,000 jobs, well above expectations. This recovery is faster, stronger, and fairer, and wider than almost anyone could have predicted.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: That's great for America, but they have been utilizing their poor jobs numbers to say why they need Build Back Better. So if this was the case today, why would you need the bill?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: OK, there you have it, the jobs numbers were better than expected, 531,000 jobs added in October, unemployment rate falling to 4.6 percent.

Back with the panel. Harold, it is good for America. No doubt about it, no matter what party you are in, a better than expected jobs report is a great thing. But what about what Leader McCarthy said there, why then push these big, massive spending bills?

FORD: Well, I think two things, and two reasons. One, we should be celebrating the numbers. We've had a 1.5 percent drop in unemployment since January. I think there has been a lot of hope and optimism on the part of many that the reopening of our economy is going to continue to expand, and if we have government supporting and investing in the right thing we can grow even more.

I think of the spending bill a little different than Leader McCarthy does. To me, this is about allowing us to be competitive with our adversaries and even allies around the globe. And first and foremost on that list is China. While we are debating and investing $1 trillion, they have invested $10 trillion in infrastructure. Think about that.

BAIER: Yes. Kimberley?

STRASSEL: I think if you look at this, what you see is that the farther we get away from some of those big spending bills already, the better the economy is becoming. It's government that is getting in the way, and that really ought to give all of Washington some real pause about inventing all of these new programs that, again, throw a bunch of unknowns out there as well as imposing a lot of new taxes on corporate players.

BAIER: Mollie, quickly on the vaccine mandates. There are going forward, and this rule goes into effect in January. But there's already pushback, legal pushback as well as businesses concerned. Where do you think this goes?

HEMINGWAY: It's also interesting that we just had news about a pill that's been approved in Britain to do a good job with COVID treatment which, as you noted, it decreases even the best case for a vaccine mandate. That we would be enforcing a vaccine mandate that disproportionately affects those precise sectors of the economy that we need to have going really well is also unfathomable. But this is what the Biden administration would be doing.

BAIER: All right, Winners and Losers around the horn. Harold, first?

FORD: My winner is Colin Powell, his life, his patriotism, his example will be missed, loved, and hopefully replicated by future generations of soldiers and diplomats.

My loser, and I call my loser the person who could have done it better this week is Aaron Rodgers. I hope that he shot straight with his teammates and the league and others including fans about his vaccine status, but it doesn't seem like he did.

BAIER: All right, Kimberley?

STRASSEL: My winner are the nation's police departments who got a huge boost from Americans who voted down anti-police initiatives and candidates. And my loser is the Democratic argument that we need a federal takeover of election laws to save democracy. I would point them to this week's booming turnout.

BAIER: There you go. Mollie, winner and loser?

HEMINGWAY: My winner is John Durham who has done such good work on unraveling some of this horrible stuff the country was put through with the lie that Donald Trump was a Russian agent.

My loser is Major League Baseball and Rob Manfred who banned Atlanta from hosting the All-Star Game because he threw a temper tantrum about Georgia's work on election integrity and then had to give the award to the Atlanta Braves when they won the World Series this week.

BAIER: That's exactly right. OK, panel, thank you. Make it a great weekend.

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