'Special Report' All-Star Panel on Russian oil and energy independence

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Should US ban or sanction Russian oil?

'Special Report' All-Star panel reacts to new sanctions imposed on Russia.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," March 3, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

BRET BAIER: Let's bring in our panel, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, and Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio.

Mara, the president met with his cabinet today and was hitting on what he said was the successful sanctions and adding sanctions on Russian oligarchs. Yet there is a real debate about whether Russian oil should be stopped, that U.S. should not be buying Russian oil at all. Where do you think that's going?

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: There's a big debate about whether we should ban Russian oil, whether we should sanction Russian oil. And there is a bipartisan consensus forming in Congress that it should be banned. In other words, the United States shouldn't buy Russian oil. That's actually an easier move for us to make. If we want to put sanctions on Russian oil, that means we have to get all of the allies to go in tandem, just like President Biden has worked with the allies to go in tandem in all of the other restrictions that he has put on Russian finance, central bank, oligarchs, et cetera. So that's harder.

And also, there are domestic repercussions to sanctioning Russian oil, maybe even to banning it, although we buy extremely little bits of it.

BAIER: About 10 percent.

LIASSON: Yes, 10 percent, OK. But that's small. But we could make that up. The U.S. is now a mighty energy producer, which is something that is a good thing for us.

BAIER: There is another question. Will that production be unleashed?

LIASSON: I think there is going to have to be. Biden has already released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. There is talk about trying to ramp up American energy production. But anything you do probably will increase prices at the pump, for which Biden is going to be blamed politically. And he has very few tools to mitigate that cost to Americans.

BAIER: Listen, releasing 30 million barrels from is three days. Literally three days.

LIASSON: Yes, very small.

BAIER: Marc, Senator Manchin, not a surprise that he is calling for Russian oil to stop flowing in the U.S. Lindsey Graham, not a surprise. But here is what was a surprise today up on Capitol Hill -- Speaker Pelosi. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: Ban it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ban the oil.

PELOSI: Ban the oil coming from Russia, yes. The issue of the price of gas and the price of oil is directly related to what is happening in Ukraine. I'm not for drilling on public lands.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As long as we are buying Russian oil, though, aren't we financing the war?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, Jacqui, again, it's only about 10 percent of what we are importing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Anyway, Speaker Pelosi says what she says, the White House is still where they're. Marc?

MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": So I never thought I would say these words on your show. Mr. President, listen to Nancy Pelosi.

(LAUGHTER)

THIESSEN: Every barrel of Russian oil that we buy comes with Ukrainian blood on it. And what the president needs to say to his party and to the climate change caucus in his party is, yes, we have to save the planet, but first we have to save Ukraine. And we can't do that while cracking down on domestic production of oil like we have done for the last year.

And the problem he has right now, and this is where the intersection of domestic and international policy comes in, is that he has unleashed 40- year high inflation in this country with the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill that he passed, which has created a supply chain crisis, a labor shortage and this amazing inflation. The war on fossil fuels has driven gasoline up by a $1.15 from when Donald Trump left office to today per gallon. So he doesn't have any room for Americans to accept more pain on behalf of the Ukrainian people.

If gas was at 2.35 a gallon like it was on Trump's last day in office, and it went up to $3.50, then Americans would say, OK, I can live with that for a little while because I see what's happening in Ukraine , and I see the heroism of these people and I want to stand with them in solidarity. But when you are talking about going up to $4, the highest it's ever been on average is $4.11 a gallon. We're going to exceed that over here. There is no room for more pain with the American people. And so he has created a box for himself.

BAIER: Meantime, mara, the Ukrainian president continuing to show resolve, meeting with reporters today. He said this about Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: First of all, I wanted to talk with Putin. I think I have to talk with Putin today. The world has to talk with Putin, because there are no other ways to stop this war. That's why I have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Have to talk to Putin. Today, the French president did talk to Putin and came away with a readout that essentially was not good, that it's going to get ugly and violent.

LIASSON: Yes. So Macron did talk to Putin and he came away with, I think, one of the most downbeat assessments that anybody has come away with from talking to Putin, which is that he believes Putin wants to take over the entire country. He's not looking for an offramp. He wants to finish the job. This is something that Putin has wanted to do for many years, and he has actually signaled and previewed that he wanted to do this. And now he has.

So that was no hope for diplomacy, no hope for an offramp. Putin wants pretty much to do to Ukraine what he did to Chechnya or Syria. And there is going to be a lot more loss of life, and I don't think that he is ever going to be talking to Zelenskyy.

BAIER: Chilling discussion. Stand by, if you would. Up next the China- Russia new world order, or that's what they want.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: China is looking at Russia saying this was sloppy. They didn't do it well. But China is not saying, OK, this going to keep us from moving in on Taiwan. What they're saying is, OK, who is sending arms to Ukraine? Which companies are pulling out of Russia? What -- how is the world reacting?

MIKE ROGERS, (R-MI) FORMER HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: They are great students of history. When the rest of the world is going to be under pressure for natural resources, China isn't. They are going to be buying everything that Russia has left. Beijing could do a lot to hurt Russia economically. They just haven't done it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: And it looks like they are cooperating with each other. Now we have confirmed that China asked Russia not to start their invasion until after the Beijing Olympics had finished up, February 20th. And Vladimir Putin complied with that.

"The Wall Street Journal" before all of this wrote, "Some Americans will want to concede Russia this fear of influence and say it's Europe's problem. But a world in which Russia dominates eastern and central Europe, Iran dominates the Middle East, and China dominates east Asia will not be safe for U.S. interests. Regional powers have a habit of becoming global threats, especially when they work in concert, as Russia, China, and Iran are already doing."

Now, we have Russia, Marc, in Ukraine. We have China acting, flying sorties over Taiwan. And you have Iran sitting at the table in Vienna close to a deal, it seems, with U.S. and western powers.

THIESSEN: Yes. It's interesting, Russia did China a favor by delaying its invasion, but they may have done Taiwan a favor by screwing it up so badly. This war has not gone by any stretch as Vladimir Putin planned it. In fact, we know the Ukrainians have captured the Russian warplanes, and they were supposed to be done by March 6th. Three days from now. They're not going to be in Kyiv in three days, if at all. And if they do succeed in getting Kyiv, there is going to be insurgency in Ukraine that is going to last years. It's going to be sending Russian soldiers back in body bags. It's going to make the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan look mild by comparison.

So Xi Jinping has to be looking at this and calling in his generals and saying, why are the Russians doing so badly? What are they doing wrong? Are you prepared for an invasion of Taiwan so we don't repeat these mistakes? How are you going to fix these problems? They are going to go to school on the Russian mistakes.

But it really has to cause them to question, are we going to face an insurgency in Taiwan like the Ukrainians are fighting? This is -- the Ukrainians are really doing the people of Taiwan a favor by their tenacity and by their courage.

BAIER: And Mara, that relationship has to factor in to the balancing act that the Biden administration is doing. I'm talking about the Russia-China relationship.

LIASSON: Yes, look, we are in a multipolar world, and the two totalitarian polls have now joined an alliance against the west and the democratic poll. So there is no doubt that China is looking to see how the west reacts to this, not just how Ukrainian resistance works. And don't forget, occupying a country of 44 million people, each and every one of them hate you with a passion, is pretty hard to do. And that would be the same thing in Taiwan.

But I think what's interesting is China is an economic superpower. Russia might soon be an economic basket case. And China is going to have to prop up Russia. It's going to have to buy everything Russia makes, and who knows what else it's going to have to do. But we don't know the full impact of the sanctions yet on Russia.

BAIER: I agree. And they are going to be devastating if they continue.

After Putin meets with Xi at the Olympics, they released this 5,000-word statement. Among that, in that, "The new interstate relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances in the Cold War era. Friendship between the two states has no limits. There are no forbidden areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries." The rest of it is word salad there for people listening in, but there are no limits to the engagement and friendship. Marc, quickly.

THIESSEN: Yes. If they want to create their own little totalitarian trading block they can. American businesses should look at what is happening with Russia and all the sanctions that are being put on, all the businesses who have pulled out, and think we better get out of China fast and decouple from that economy, because we are going to be in big trouble if they invade Taiwan.

BAIER: Marc, Mara, thank you.

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