'Special Report' All-Star Panel on Senate push for new voting bill

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Biden’s voting rights rhetoric is dangerous: Hemingway

‘Special Report’ All-Star Panel discusses the push for election reform in a divided Senate.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," January 17, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Please wear a mask. If you are -- you know, I think it's part of your patriotic duty. It's not that comfortable. It's a pain in the neck.

GOV. GLENN YOUNGKIN, (R) VIRGINIA: We are providing parents an opt-out. We are providing them the ability to make the right decision for their child with regards to their child's well-being. We are going to use all the authority that I have to consider all options to protect that right.

WINSOME SEARS, (R) VIRGINIA LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: There are certain combinations of moneys that we send to the state and to the local school boards, and he could withhold some of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, new Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, with a list of executive orders, one of them dealing with mask mandates in schools getting a lot of attention already in Washington, neighboring.

Let's bring in our panel, Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist," and Juan Williams is a FOX News analyst. Mollie, what about this? And it's interesting that when it came to mandates, the Biden administration was pro-mandate as far as executive order, and obviously the Supreme Court has prevented them for the business side moving forward. But now there is a big uproar about Glenn Youngkin's executive orders about mask mandates.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST": And their position seems to be that blue governors are issue mandates or blue presidents, but not red presidents, and that doesn't seem to be how it works in the real world. Glenn Youngkin won this state, the state that Biden won by 10 points, by promising parents that they could have a say in their children's education, whether that's in the curriculum or in whether they decide to mask their children.

And this is an issue that clearly worked very well for him in winning that election, and also will probably be a big issue going forward. People are, of course, free to put two, three, four, or however many masks they want to on their children under this Youngkin ban on a mandate, but now parents who do not think that's in their child's best interest either for health reasons or for developmental learning issues or social learning or any of the number of reasons why you might oppose it. Remember, studies show that there is no statistically significant health benefit to masking children, but there are a lot of downsides to masking children, particularly compelling them to be masked.

BAIER: Jen Psaki was touting one of the school districts that's pushing back on this executive order. She tweeted "Hi there, Arlington County parent here, (don't believe you are @GlennYoungkin) but correct me if I am wrong). Thank you to the school district for standing up for our kids, teachers, and administrators and their safety in the midst of a transmissible variant." Trey?

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: I just find that so stunning that a school district would be more interested in the welfare of children than the parents. And Bret, I have got to confess, I live in South Carolina. We don't follow Virginia that closely. I'm pretty sure he ran on this. I'm almost positive he won. And I'm trying to think, I think the word that we hear a lot now is anti-democratic. Wouldn't it be anti-democratic for him not to do what he said he was going to do? So if you don't like it, then win in a blue state. But they didn't. He is doing exactly what he campaigned on.

BAIER: Juan?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: That's a fair point, Trey. Elections have consequences, as we say, and policies are going to change. I don't think there is any doubt about it.

Now, in terms of the school district, the local counties pushing back, remember, local school districts have tremendous autonomy in the United States. Federal and state governments can try to manipulate money and funds to try to press them on various issues, but ultimately, they don't usually win. And it usually goes to courts where they are adjudicated, but they don't usually win.

And with regard to children, I think when you look at what Jen Psaki said, I think every parent in America thinks, you know what, schools are communal setting. We want to protect all the children, and I think that's why people have concerns about if one child says I'm not doing it and that child is spreading something, it impacts the entire school.

BAIER: All right, now, let's talk about voting rights and this push by the administration to try to get this bill through. It does not have the numbers in the Senate. Here is a changing tone, Mollie, from the president on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?

Where do we stand? Whose side are we on? Will we stand against voter suppression, yes or no? Will we stand against elections subversion, yes or no?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So different phrasing there, and there was obviously a lot of pushback even within his own party about that original speech in Atlanta.

HEMINGWAY: Yes, that original speech, a lot of people in the media loved it, but it went over like a led balloon on Capitol Hill, calling people racist for opposing his fairly radical voting changes legislation.

The thing is this whole issue, whether he is softer on the rhetoric or not, has been an extreme gaslighting of America. Nobody thinks that we have a voting rights problem like we had in 1964 in this country. Nobody thinks that in an election where you had tens of millions of people voting with no problem, that you have a voting rights problem.

We do have an issue where election integrity is in question, where we had hundreds of changes to our laws and processes, sometimes done in an unconstitutional manner, where we flooded the zone with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, where we had insecure drop boxes. And so this idea that if you care about election integrity or you want to make it slightly more difficult to cheat that you are therefore engaging in voter suppression is a lie, and it's really dangerous lie that should not be said because, of course, if both winners and losers can't trust election results, and that changes depending on the election who is frustrated by this, then you can't have a republic going forward. And so this rhetoric, while softer, is still dangerous if we want to have a country going forward.

BAIER: Trey, we put up earlier the Gallup poll and the big shift that we have seen in self-identifying Democrats and Republicans. Now there is all kinds of analysis about this bad situation over the past year, and Democrats, well, they have just had interesting things to say. Here is Paul Begala.

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PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He got infrastructure passed and that's a good thing success can breed success. He is putting the full force of the presidency behind him. I think the problem for the Democrats right now is not that they have bad leaders. They have bad followers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: They have bad followers. That sounds like a basketful of deplorables, or something.

GOWDY: I think he needs to get that Kool-Aid off his upper lift. That sounds delusional. I will give you a perfect example. Joe Biden eulogized a man who ran for president as a segregationist. He was friends with other segregationists when he was in the U.S. Senate. So what these people are wondering is if people can change, can states change? Like my own in South Carolina where we have one of only three black U.S. Senators. And by the way, two of the three are from states that they want to monitor under the Voting Rights Act. Georgia and South Carolina, two of the three.

So we have had an Indian descent governor, our chief justice is an African American, and we have the highest ranking African American in the House, Jim Clyburn, who will stay in office as long as he lives and maybe even beyond that. So I will just be damned if South Carolina needs limousine liberals telling us that our state has not changed. And when that's the message then, yes, your party is in trouble.

BAIER: Juan, what about the "bad followers" line?

WILLIAMS: Well, I like the bad followers. I thought it was funny, because if you talk to people in the Democratic Party right now in terms of their disappointment with Biden, it's what's driving down the poll numbers. It's what's driving down that chart that you put up earlier, Bret. It's not Republicans. Republicans never bought in. So what you're seeing is that people who were supportive are saying hey, where are the results right now? And we wanted results on x, y, z, be it the climate, be it voting rights. And they say we don't see it, so they are disappointed.

Does that carry through to the midterms? Does it carry through to 2024? I don't know. Obviously, right now people are having basically a referendum on the first year of President Biden.

BAIER: Up next, President Biden's first year on foreign policy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No one wonders whether I know a great deal about these issues in foreign policy.

You're not going to find anybody who has pulled together more of our alliances.

I have gone head-to-head with Putin and made it clear to him we are not going to take any of his stuff.

It's not because the example of our power, but the power of our example. That's why the rest of the world has repaired to us. And it's got to be restored.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, Joe Biden ran, in part, on his experience in foreign policy, and he made that part of his campaign. Now we have seen one year of foreign policy under the Biden administration. We're back with our panel for some analysis. Trey, you look at Afghanistan. That was really the biggest thing, I think, that caught people's attention. But around the world, if you bounce around the world, there aren't big foreign policy wins for this administration.

GOWDY: No, Bret. I think Biden is teaching us is a very, very hard lesson to learn, which is there is a difference between experience and acumen. Yes, he has been around for a long time, but as Robert Gates said he has been wrong on almost every single major decision. You mentioned Afghanistan. Russia is emboldened, China is emboldened, North Korea is undeterred, but thank God he was tough on France. One of our oldest and most treasured allies, thank God he undercut them on the submarine deal. That's the only country we have been tough on, France.

BAIER: A lot of talk on the Sunday shows about the state, the current state of foreign affairs. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think we are in a new cold war with Russia?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, (R-TX): I do, because I think Putin, again, smells weakness here.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY, (R-UT): He has to take NATO apart to weaken it. We need a strong NATO, not just for Russia but for the emergence of China.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iran is getting very close here to the ability to produce a weapon. Jake, I've got to wrap you. I'm sorry.

JAKE SULLIVAN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: The reason we are in the situation we are in right now is because the previous administration.

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC ANCHOR: Not a great time on the foreign policy front.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: It was quite something, Mollie.

HEMINGWAY: Yes, it really is also something to look back where we were a year ago. We had an administration that had reoriented our Middle East policy away from Iran and toward peaceful cooperation between Arab countries and Israel with these historic peace accords. We had seen the killing of Iran's top terrorist. We had seen NATO being encouraged to take a more active role in its security posture vis-a-vis Russia. We had seen the entire country reorient our focus away from the Middle East and more toward China.

And then now here we are a year later, and everything seems to have gone poorly. The manner in which we withdrew from Afghanistan was a disaster, but Iran and Russia seem to be taking advantage of weakness. And President Biden has been touting his friendship with China but doesn't seem that we are doing what we need to do to really tackle what an economic and military powerhouse they are trying to become. And all in just in one year. It's just really amazing how far things have gone.

BAIER: Yes, when you ask the question about foreign policy, Juan, Quinnipiac said what's the job approval on foreign policy specifically. It's upside down, just like a number of over fronts, but 35 percent. "The Wall Street Journal" writes it this way, "Biden administration's foreign policy initiatives hindered by domestic troubles. As the President Biden begins his second year in office, he is still grappling with many of the issues that consumed much of the first year trying to bring the pandemic under control, shore up the economy and foster unity in a deeply divided country," saying that that is also hindering his foreign policy, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Yes, I think that's right. I think you have to look at us as the American people here. We were just talking about Afghanistan. I think it's pretty clear the American people wanted an end to the longest war in our history. And there were three presidents who didn't want to do it because there was such political risk in withdrawing forces. President Biden kept his word. He campaigned, saying he wanted to end the war in Afghanistan and he would do it. And he did it.

So you can talk about the exit. And I think, sad to say, some people lost their lives. But you compare to exits by other countries from Afghanistan, there is no comparison. I think that the biggest issue here, if you want to somehow have a scorecard after one year, it's to simply say China and Russia loom as big problems on the horizon.

BAIER: Trey, is the administration doing something right on the foreign policy front?

GOWDY: We're not in a war to my knowledge, unless something has happened since we came on air. Are they doing something right? Mollie and others think it was right to get out of Afghanistan, but I'm kind of old school. You can do the right thing and still do it the right way. You don't have to leave your friends behind. You don't have to leave the military vulnerable, and you don't have to leave your equipment behind. And oh, by the way, you don't have to drone a carful of kids. So making the right decision is about half of it. Doing it the right way is the other half. So yes, we are not in war. I give him credit for that.

BAIER: Panel, thank you very much.

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