'Special Report' All-Star Panel on Virginia gubernatorial race

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Virginia governor's race about what's happening in Washington: Strassel

'Special Report' All-Star panel break down Biden's economic agenda and Virginia's gubernatorial race

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report" on November 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Usually I vote for Republicans, but I couldn't do it this time.

BAIER: So the linkage to Trump really stuck with you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes, it did. I thought he wasn't a very nice man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a small business owner, so wanting to make sure that Virginia gets back to being active and small business friendly and keep our economy moving.

BAIER: Can I ask you how you voted?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You certainly can. I voted Republican. Yes.

BAIER: And so do you think that there is a tide changing here? Do you feel something heading that way?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do. I think that people are tired. I think that people are wanting things to get back to normal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe we will pass my Build Back Better plan, and I believe we will pass the infrastructure bill. Maybe it won't work, but I believe we will see by the end of next week at home that it's passed.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, (D-WV): The political games have to stop. For the sake of the country, I urge the House to vote and pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for reconciliation bill.

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL, (D-WA) CHAIR, PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS: We are ready to get this transformational change to people. I would just urge everybody to keep tempers down.

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BAIER: Well, it doesn't seem like it's moving that fast. We don't know if it's going to come together this week. It doesn't appear that way with what Senator Joe Manchin said today as these two bills are up on Capitol Hill.

Meantime, asked about those bills in an ABC poll, here's how people responded. If they become law, would it help people like you, 25 percent, hurt people like you, 32 percent. That's just over the past couple of days.

We'll start there with our panel. Let's bring them in, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, Leslie Marshall, Democratic strategist, and Kimberley Strassel, a member of the editorial board at "The Wall Street Journal."

Kimberley, let me start with you. It's not surprising that Joe Manchin comes out and says I want to see the specifics. I want to see what the impact is going to be. And I'm not just going to pass something without knowing what's in it. He has kind of been saying that all along. But where does this go?

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": He did actually make some news today, Bret, because if you drill down into what he said, a lot of attention to these buzz words about shell games and gimmicks. But he got more specific in that. He said look, if you have all these programs and you only have them run a couple of years and you claim that they are going to end when they don't, the bill is actually like twice the amount of $1.75. And I said $1.75. Well, if you extrapolate that, it means stuff is going to have to come out of this bill, like big programs.

He also expressed some concern about the climate provisions. He is not close to a yes, and major modifications are going to have to happen from what they have talked about in the House. Yet, still, the question is how much will progressives swallow of that, and when will they say no themselves?

BAIER: Yes. And progressives seem to be saying, OK, we'll trust the president and the administration, and let's move forward, Leslie. I'm not sure it's going to hold, but we will see.

LESLIE MARSHALL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, actually, Kimberley and I don't rarely agree, but today would be one day where progressives have to make a decision. I'm a democrat. I have said it before. These should not have been married, these two pieces of legislation. And I feeling as a moderate centrist that the progressive caucus is holding us hostage.

And I think that all Democrats, whether it's a Manchin, a Sinema, or a Sanders have to decide do they want to have a lost gubernatorial election tomorrow in Virginia? Do they want to lose more seats in the House and Senate and lose majority in both the House and Senate and perhaps in the White House in 2024? We have to work together.

And big programs have already gone to the wayside, one of which Senator Sanders will not let go of, because you have 15 Democrats that are very vulnerable in their districts that are promised lower drug prices. That's something Manchin doesn't like, and Sanders seems to require, and he definitely heads the progressive caucus.

BAIER: Marc, the president is facing pretty bad poll numbers in recent days. You look at this NBC poll, his approval stands at 42 percent approval, disapprove 54 percent. On the internals of that poll, there's all kinds of questions where Republicans are really up. If the Marist poll, election confidence, better chance of winning 2024, Biden at 36 percent, someone else at 44 percent.

Here's the president talking about polls this weekend.

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JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The polls are going to go up and down and up and down. Look at every other president. It's the same thing that's happened. But that's not why I ran. I didn't run to determine how well I'm going to do in the polls.

I said that I would make sure that we were in a position where we dealt with climate change, where we moved in a direction that significantly improved the prospects of American workers being able to have good jobs and good pay. And further that, I would make sure that we dealt with the crisis that was caused by COVID. We have done all of those.

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BAIER: Polls do go up and down, Marc, but they have been going down, and even Terry McAuliffe here in Virginia has acknowledged that that is a significant headwind.

MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Going down like a rock. He's right that approval rating go up and down. But it's very hard to recover when only 37 percent of the American people say that you are competent. When people make a decision that you are incompetent, it is very hard to recover from that. And that is the most devastating number in that poll, 50 percent of the American people think he is incompetent.

And just the Joe Manchin press conference today is evidence of that incompetence. And Joe Manchin isn't just another stakeholder in this debate. He's got a veto. Let's be straight about it. If he doesn't agree to it, it's not going to get passed. So why would you release a framework that you haven't cleared with Joe Manchin yet, and have this whole debacle unfold over the last week? You need to sit down with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, figure out what they're willing to accept, what they are willing to not accept, craft that as a framework, and say to the other Democrats this is it. If you want the Build Back Better, this is what it is, and you're going to have to live with it, and get their votes locked in before you start releasing it.

BAIER: The White House even after that press conference said no, we will have Senator Manchin's approval eventually. They need to talk to Senator Manchin, perhaps, about that.

One last poll heading into Election Day, Kimberley, this is the RCP poll, Youngkin and McAuliffe, Real Clear Politics, Youngkin up 1.7 heading into Election Day. That is a significant turnaround from where this race was at the beginning.

STRASSEL: Yes, and you know, just to continue this theme, it has to be related to the White House. Obviously, McAuliffe has made some mistakes on education. But this is about what's going on in D.C. And you have to wonder how things would look different, Bret, if Biden had taking the win on that infrastructure bill at the beginning of September, said I'm a bipartisan president, and moved on. I think things might look better both in terms of those polling numbers and in terms of that Virginia race.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

STRASSEL: Despite wild predictions of the imminent demise of Roe v. Wade, a majority of Supreme Court justices look skeptically on what is in fact a pretty technically and legally complex Texas abortion law.

BAIER: Leslie?

MARSHALL: Despite headlines that Democrats are infighting and can't get it together, the progressive caucus and the centrist moderate Democrats come to an agreement on both having the infrastructure and reconciliation bills go forward. And, yes, they will pass.

BAIER: OK. Let's see. Marc?

THIESSEN: Mine is not from tomorrow but from 2100. Glasgow climate conference wrong, climate change was not existential threat, the world did not end. We are still here.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: All right, Marc. Thank you.

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