'Special Report' All-Star Panel on supply chain crisis

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Supply chain crisis likely to impact Christmas

National correspondent William La Jeunesse has the latest from Long Beach, California on 'Special Report'

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report" on October 13, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We feel like we are at a place where the economy is about to start growing much more quickly.

JANET YELLEN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We expect somewhat higher inflation over the next several months for a variety of essentially technical reasons, but that's a transitory thing.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's nobody suggesting there is unchecked inflation on the way, no serious economist.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This is still foreseen as a transitory impact on prices.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Should Americans expect that this will get worse before it gets better?

PSAKI: I'm not going to mick a prediction of that from here. We know there are number of issues that impact the supply chain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, it is getting worse. The supply chain is getting worse, and inflation is getting worse. Consumer price index, if you take a look at it, all items up 5.3 percent, food, 3.7 percent, energy 25 percent. You can feel it at the gas pump, at the grocery store. What does it mean big picture?

Let's bring in our panel, Ben Domenech, publisher of "The Federalist," Juan Williams, a FOX News analyst, and Kimberley Strassel, a member of the editorial board at "The Wall Street Journal," Kimberley, let me start with you. The administration is -- the president comes out and says he's dealing with supply chain, Jen Psaki says they've been dealing with it for months, although we just heard about this task force and the efforts. Your thoughts on where they are and what they're trying to do?

KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, they can have all the task force they want, but if they don't deal with the underlying problems here they're not going to get very far. And what you've seen is this double whammy of government regulations like lockdowns that pushed a lot of people out of sectors, for instance, truck drivers. Now vaccine mandates that are actually causing people to walk away from jobs. This is why you're seeing not as many people in these crucial workforces.

But also, government continuing to pay people not to work. And it turns out the end of those federal enhanced unemployment benefits are not the only thing that is sending cash into households. You've got these child tax credit monthly payments, you've got extended and expanded welfare, you've got rental assistance, the list goes on, both at the federal and state level. Until the government takes care of those underlying issues, they're not going to be able to solve the supply chain problem.

BAIER: Juan?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: I think we got good news today on this front, Bret, because what the president said was he's going to have 24-hour operation of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. That sends a very urgent message to the people in the supply chain business, beginning with the truckers that Kimberley mentioned, but also the rail lines, the freight, air people. And you see the big companies picking up on that, Walmart and others, saying we are going to do a better job of getting all the supplies on the shelves. So this is all good news.

I think when you have an economy that was asleep, basically so many people staying at home out of work, not buying things due to the pandemic, and then you suddenly see that economy try to get to 100 miles per hour, of course you're going to have stumbles. And one of those stumbles is you have an inconsistency in terms of demand and supply, and that feeds into the inflation issue that you are touching on. But all indications are, as you heard from all those folks, including people on Wall Street, that this is transitory. The markets are responding by saying, you know what, no sudden rise in interest rates right now, which would be normal if they thought it was going to be a real problem down the line.

BAIER: Well, the Federal Reserve is definitely helping the administration in that pitch, but it is interesting at this moment to be talking about trillions of dollars of new spending. If you look at the president's critics, look at the debt clock and they look at the deficit and they see the debt going up roughly $4 billion a day, $28 trillion, Ben, at this point, we glaze over at these numbers. And understanding that neither party has really done anything about it, to be fair, but I wanted to put up this graphic about just giving a perspective, and that is if you count one second being at a rate of one number per second, counting to 1 million would take 12 days, counting to 1 billion would take 31 years, counting to 1 trillion would take 31,688 years. I think we lose perspective of what a trillion is when we are talking about 3.5 trillion, 1 trillion, all of these numbers. That just gives you a little bit of perspective, Ben.

BEN DOMENECH, PUBLISHER, "THE FEDERALIST": And I don't think that the American people are all that enthused about what they believe they're going to be getting for this amount of money. Certainly, in the short-term they do not have faith that this is going to turn the economy around.

And to Juan's point, it doesn't really matter if you keep the ports open 24 hours a day. If you don't have enough people to unload the ships, enough people to drive the trucks, which is the big problem that people are actually facing here of getting folks back to work who need to be back to work in order for our economy to run the way that we'd like it to.

And I think when it comes to the trillions in spending, Bret, the American people -- and I think that there are a lot of people who are concerned about our fiscal status, they look at something like this and they just understand, and I do believe a lot of them understand, my children will be paying for this, my grandchildren will be paying for this either in terms of actual money or in terms of the degradation of the U.S. dollar. And that's something that is concerning to all Americans.

BAIER: Yes. I want to turn to that Virginia race because the politics of all of this obviously affect that race directly, and it's a consequential race this year. Take a listen to the democrat, Terry McAuliffe, talking about something that really doesn't factor in to the commonwealth of Virginia, the filibuster.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just to be clear, including scrapping that filibuster, you would support that?

TERRY MCAULIFFE, (D) VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Whatever it takes to get it done. I'm not a senator. There's a reason why I'm not a senator, to put up with all the foolishness that goes on up there, and people using all -- they've got to get their work done. People are counting on them to do their job. So I don't care what you call it or what mechanism you use.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He has an election coming up, and so his timeline may be a little pressed by that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Kimberley, if you're talking with a filibuster in this election, as we look at the polls there in Virginia, it is very tight, within the margin of error in the latest polls. What about that race and where it stands?

STRASSEL: Well, look, I think the important thing here -- you look at Glenn Youngkin, who is the Republican candidate, and by all circumstances, he shouldn't be tied in this race given that Virginia went for a Democratic presidential candidate in the last two elections. But Terry McAuliffe has made this entire race from the beginning about Donald Trump, betting that that alone would carry him over the finish line. And Youngkin has been running a campaign very much focused on kitchen table issues, and it's resonating, in particular, education. Youngkin has got to keep southern Virginia in his column, it's more conservative, he will, and then he's got to bring along those voters in the suburbs that so defected against Donald Trump.

And right now they are all focused on education. You've got Terry McAuliffe talking about how he doesn't think parents should have a role in this. And that's working to Youngkin's favor, who is really driving this education issue home at the moment.

BAIER: Speaking of which, our friend Marc Thiessen, Juan, writing in "The Washington Post" "Democrats have declared war on school board moms," saying "In 2022 the new swing voter will be the school board mom, suburban women who are deeply concerned with the direction of their children's education, are showing up to school board meetings across the country to make their voices heard. But instead of addressing their concerns, Democrats are likening them to terrorists, weaponizing the FBI to intimidate them. Big mistake. School board moms are furious about pandemic school closures, mask mandates, and teachers unions that put the interest of adults over the interests of kids. They're a rate that schools are indoctrinating their kids with extremist ideologies, teaching them to see everything through the prism of race, and to believe that America is systematically a racist country. They are angry about the elimination of merit-based admissions and gifted and talented programs in the name of diversity." He makes an argument in "The Washington Post," Juan, that that issue alone will be the driving issue in that Virginia race.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think Glenn Youngkin hopes it will be. He wants to push that hot button, and he wants to define it. If you look at his ads, we are here -- I'm here in Washington, D.C., so I see all these ads on TV, and that's what he's using. He's trying to use that issue really to blot out the connection to Trump. And of course what you get is McAuliffe trying to emphasize Youngkin's connection to Trump. Youngkin said he would endorse Trump in 2024. He won't say that the last election was fair and not stolen. He won't talk about January 6th. So you see a clear dividing line right --

BAIER: He does say that Biden was elected president as a legitimate president. Youngkin does say that.

DOMENECH: But Juan, Terry McAuliffe won't say that 2000 and 2004 weren't stolen. That's what happened just a week ago here in Virginia. I've been a resident of the commonwealth for 30 years, OK, and in terms of the way that Democrats have squandered this election, the fact that you would have a poll, the Monmouth poll which shows that Terry McAuliffe has only a four- point advantage on education, which is typically a 20-point issue for Democrats, he is squandering this race, and it's because he got on the wrong side of the education issue.

BAIER: Ben, let me ask you this --

WILLIAMS: I don't think so.

BAIER: Hold on one second. McAuliffe is pointing to Trump time and time again, and the former president puts out a statement today, Ben, that says were Republicans won't vote in 2022 or 2024 if they don't solve this stolen election in 2020 first. That was the statement put out today. And does that hurt Youngkin?

DOMENECH: I don't think it hurts Youngkin at all. I think Youngkin has tapped into a really underlying group of voters who do not trust Terry McAuliffe to not shut schools down again, and that's independent voters who will be, I think, on his side.

BAIER: All right, panel, I've got to run there. Thank you.


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