'Special Report' on Ron Klain's tweet endorsing inflation as ‘high class problem’

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Chief of Staff slammed for tweet endorsing inflation as ‘high class problem’

‘Special Report’ All-Star Panel breaks down the rising prices as Biden claims a renewed focus on infrastructure.

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report" on October 14, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would Ron Klain tweet that? And would you agree that's a little bit tone-deaf?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are act this point because we've made progress in the economy, and what would be worse, in our view, is that the unemployment rate was at 10 percent, people were out of work, hundreds of thousands of people were still dying of COVID, and people were able to lose their homes. So that's the full concept.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not the first time that Ron Klain's Twitter has drawn some sharp criticism. Is that something the White House is addressing at all given the pushback, this criticism?

PSAKI: Are we addressing the chief of staff's Twitter habits?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

PSAKI: It is not a top priority, I would tell you at this point in time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: It's not a top priority at this time. The tweet in question was really a retweet, he points to this from Jason Furman. "Most of the economic problems we are facing, inflation, supply chains, et cetera, are high class problems. We wouldn't have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem."

Well, if you look at the price jumps on common items here, gas up 42 percent, used cars up 24 percent, TVs 13, furniture 11, meats, poultry, fish, and eggs up 10 percent year-over-year, 2021 to 2022, high class or not.

Let's bring in our panel, Bill McGurn, columnist for "The Wall Street Journal," Mara Liasson, national political correspondent of National Public Radio, and Steve Hayes, editor of "The Dispatch." Steve, what you think of this?

STEVE HAYES, EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": Well, look, I think it's one thing if you have a respected economist like Jason Furman tweeting this. I think he is widely respected among the Republicans and Democrats alike, and I think he was making a defensible point. It's another thing if you have the White House chief of staff seeming to endorse this. And I think it does, despite Jen Psaki's unwillingness to talk about it, Ron Klain's Twitter account does get a lot of scrutiny. People do follow it. People try to understand the signals he's sending when he likes a tweet and when he retweets something.

I think in this case what Republicans have jumped on is this idea that these are high class problems dominantly affecting upper-class, when, as you say, if you look at inflation and the effects, it's widely across the U.S. economy.

BAIER: Yes, people are feeling it, Bill.

BILL MCGURN, COLUMNIST, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes. Look, inflation has always been called the cruelest tax because it's a tax of everyone, and it's particularly hard on working people. It wipes away their wage gains, and so forth. And so that's what people are feeling. And that's with the White House is responding to. They know people can see this. They can feel it, they can feel the inflation in a bag of groceries, and they can also see the empty shelves. And so they're not going to -- in the past they've been told this is temporary, this isn't real. It doesn't look that way now.

BAIER: Yes, Mara, the transitory thing, a lot of people are saying this does not look transitory at all.

MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Well, it certainly is lasting longer than a lot of people in the administration thought it would. Does it go away next year? We simple he don't know.

I can tell you it's pretty inartful to call it a high class problem. And you know who wouldn't have called it a high-class problem? Joe Biden himself. And anything that makes it harder for middle-class people to afford the stuff they need is a problem. Not a high class one, a problem.

And the problem for the Biden in the administration is that everything in the economy is now on them. And that's why the president is moving -- trying to do something what the supply chain backlogs, and hoping that inflation will be transitory, meaning it will fix itself as soon as possible.

BAIER: Is a problem, Mara, and you are over at the White House sometimes, and is it a problem when he gives these speeches, the president does, and then turns around and walks out as reporters are yelling at him, and there isn't this Q&A that we usually see?

LIASSON: Well, this is a tough one because journalists always want the president to answer more questions. Whether it's a political --

BAIER: Any.

LIASSON: Pardon?

BAIER: Any.

LIASSON: Yes, he has answered some, but we feel in the White House press corps that he's not answering enough. Is that a problem for the general public, a political problem for the president? I don't know. But there's no doubt that compared to some of his predecessors, he is less available. But he does talk on the way to the helicopter. He occasionally has answered questions after events like today. Not this one. But very, very, very few formal interactions with the press.

BAIER: Meantime they are making this push, Steve, for the infrastructure, trying to get this thing across the finish line, but there's a lot of -- we are hearing frustration about the negotiations. Take a listen to this push.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We need to think big and bold. That's why I'm pushing for it once in a generation investment in our infrastructure and our people in my infrastructure bill and my Build Back Better Act.

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: There's even more demand than the supply chain can support. I know I keep repeating it, but it's why we've got to invest our infrastructure as a country.

REP. DAN MEUSER, (R-PA): When you pump the economy with huge levels of stimulus dollars, you ultimately get too many dollars chasing too few goods, and goods that aren't made in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Steve?

HAYES: Yes, I think part of the problem is what you were talking about just a moment ago, that the Biden the administration seems to be sort of shrugging off this idea of inflation or labeling it is transitory, and at the same time arguing again and again and again that we need to throw trillions of dollars at those problems and others on infrastructure. You're seeing an increased skepticism among the American people for bigger government, for more government spending. That I think flows some from the enthusiasm for government to step in and in the coronavirus pandemic, and that's waning now. But it's also because of proposals like this, and the White House isn't making much problem turning public opinion in its favor.

BAIER: All right, panel, thanks so much.

When we come back, another look at a crucial time in America's history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Well, it's history week here. Please join me on FOX Nation for a special documentary. It's called "To Rescue the Republic, President Grant and a Nation in Crisis." It's based on my new book which was released earlier this week. Here is a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: In 1874, Democrats are sensing it's time to take back control politically. And in that midterm, there are major allegations of suppression across the board.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Put yourself in the place of somebody in the blackbelt in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. If you have a fair election, you are going to be drowned because, in fact, there are a lot more African American citizens than there are white citizens. So the answer if you are a white segregationist was don't let them vote.

BAIER: And so, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the start of the Civil War.

FRANK SCATURRO, GRANT MONUMENT ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: In 1874, the Republicans suffer a route at the hands of the Democratic Party. The financial downturn, that was something that led to a great deal of discontent. Now, the unpopularity of Reconstruction and Grant's interventions in the south certainly didn't help.

BAIER: As the economy worsened, even some black voters and candidates grew dissatisfied with Grant. Case in point, the new Mississippi Senator Blanche K Bruce. Having survived the Democratic wave, he told a fellow Republican he wouldn't kowtow to Grant. Go ahead and lick your master's boots, but don't call on me to do it. Bruce was only the second black ever elected senator. It would take 92 years before another African American, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, would win a seat in the upper chamber.

With Democrats about to take control of the nation's purse strings, the lame duck Congress quickly passed a new Civil Rights Act. It gave Grant one last Reconstruction victory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Our special is now available any time streaming on FOX Nation. The book "To Rescue the Republic, Ulysses S. Grant, The Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876," is available right now whatever you buy books.

Tomorrow on SPECIAL REPORT we will talk with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the supply chain crisis.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the SPECIAL REPORT, fair, balanced, and still unafraid. I will be back in D.C. tomorrow. "FOX NEWS PRIMETIME" hosted by Jesse Watters starts early because I want to give him as much time as he can possibly have. Jesse?

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