'Special Report' All-Star Panel on surge in attacks on law enforcement

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Biden DOJ has failed to address 'soft on crime' policies: Pavlich

'Special Report' All-Star panel discusses the surge in attacks against law enforcement.

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on February 1, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GILLIAN TURNER, GUEST HOST: Let's bring in our all-star panel. Guy Benson is political editor at Townhall.com and host of "The Guy Benson Show" on FOX News Radio, Katie Pavlich is news editor at Townhall.com, and Juan Williams is a FOX News analyst.

I want to just update you guys to let you know that we are learning tonight from multiple sources now, multiple outlets reporting that two police officers in Richmond were killed on the scene of that shooting earlier today at Bridgewater college. Our hearts go out to the families and the communities there.

Katie, you heard from the bereaved in that soundbite we just played off the top here, Officer Rivera's widow at his eulogy last week and then again today remarks from law enforcement in Houston. It sounds an awful lot like law enforcement is starting to push back against politicians.

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think law enforcement has been warning about this for a very long time, and the widow of Officer Rivera has to be extremely frustrated considering her -- the alleged shooter who killed her husband is already out on the streets and not on bond. And so that is a perfect example of the failure of these new rules and laws that have been put into place by progressive D.A.s in cities like New York, San Francisco, L.A., and communities across the country.

And the bottom line is that there is a deep-seated ideology on the left that believes that a lot of this criminal behavior is justified because they think the system is systemically racist or that it's unfair to certain communities, and, therefore, criminals deserve some kind of break in order to reform, tear down the system, and implement something that they believe in.

But when it comes to what's happening in Washington, D.C., the Biden administration does have a role to play here. The White House has been asked multiple times about these soft on crime policies. Jen Psaki was caught over the weekend laughing about this issue, saying she doesn't even know what that quite means. But the Department of Justice can play a role in federal charges. Some of the reporting that I have done on this very issue, criminals are not necessarily always afraid of what the local D.A. may charge or what local criminal penalties may bring. But they are afraid of federal charges. And the Biden administration has failed so far to implement something like Operation Legend like the Trump DOJ did to really go after the criminals who were pulling the trigger and getting out right after they do so.

TURNER: Juan, Press Secretary Jen Psaki keeps insisting it is Republicans who are responsible for the push to defund police departments nationwide. She reiterated that claim again yesterday. Last week "The Washington Post" gave her three Pinocchio rating on that claim. I want to pull that up for you. "The Washington Post" says "She brought up the same $1.9 trillion package, the American Rescue Plan, at a briefing June 23rd and said, quote, "That was voted into law by Democrats a couple of months ago. Some might say that the other party was for defunding the police. I will let others say that but that's a piece." What do you say to that?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think we have politics at play here. Obviously, Republicans did vote against the bill, and the bill was one that would have put a lot of money in the hands of police, and so Democrats say that is an anti-police bill. Of course, Republicans say that Democrats are for defunding the police.

But the politics of it, Gillian, tonight you hear about these officers who were killed on the campus in Virginia, you hear about the officer who lost his life at the traffic stop in Houston, we know about the officers who were killed in the domestic violence incident in New York, and I've got to tell you, I think all of us on the panel tonight just grieve and have a sense of loss for their lives as public servants, as people who were doing their job.

And my point, from my political perspective is, in all these incidents, Houston, Virginia, New York, in every case, what the real issue to my mind, and I think most police officers agree, is that the criminals have easy access to guns. And we need to deal with that issue, and we have not dealt with that issue.

We -- some of these shootings, we had a shooting outside of Washington recently where it was a ghost gun. Two kids having a fight. One kid has a ghost gun. There is even more availability of guns. And some people say oh, it's liberals and it's liberal policies and it's big cities. Of the -- I think the 10 states with the highest murder rate last year, eight of them were states that voted for trump. Most in the south. They don't have big cities.

So what we need to do is talk honestly with each other about the fact that guns are out of control in this country. New York, Atlanta, Minneapolis, just all elected Democratic mayors who are tough on crime, tough on guns. They do want reforms, but they are anticrime.

TURNER: President Biden will be going to New York to meet with Mayor Adams on Thursday to push gun control legislation there. Guy, I want to make sure, though, we get COVID in tonight. Some major breaking news, Johns Hopkins University has released a new study. This reporting comes from "The Washington Times," it finds "The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2 percent. We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality." The paper goes on to note that lockdowns did, however, have, quote, "devastating effects on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills." Are you shocked or surprised?

GUY BENSON, POLITICAL EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: Not particularly, because I think we are going to be for the next few months and probably the next few years, we are going to be learning about our response collectively to this pandemic and some of the disastrous decisions that were made, not necessarily in the very early days when we knew very little about the virus, how it was transmitted, and we were trying to get our arms around it, but in the months beyond that where schools, for example, in many parts of this country, in bluer areas in particular, were closed for more than a year.

We had data that that was harmful, and yet, the harm continued. We have data that masking children in schools makes no appreciable difference, and yet it continues in a lot of places in this country in the face of science. And it seems like the mistakes that have been made, in some cases, are still being made, and this type of study that you reference, it's not the first, it won't be the last. And I think we will have one indictment after another about the restrictions and the decisions made by many leaders, some of the same leaders who made mistakes in the past who are now insisting that we listen to them today and not listen to the leaders who actually got a lot of big things right last year, for example.

And I think that is a source of great frustration to a lot of Americans, and a source of the instability that we face as a society and a credibility crisis that, frankly, has been earned by a lot of the people in charge.

TURNER: Very quick lightning round. I want to get each of you back in here for a yes or no answer. I know you hate these. But Pfizer is gearing up to get emergency authorization, at least emergency authorization to vaccinate babies as young as six months old going up to five years old. Juan, would you line up to get your grandbaby vaccinated?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

TURNER: Katie, what about the babies in your life?

PAVLICH: Well, considering that the FDA didn't go through the proper trials to make sure that this got a safe and effective rating, the answer is absolutely not.

TURNER: Guy?

BENSON: My inclination would be to say yes, but I would absolutely talk to my doctor before I did it.

TURNER: All right, panel, I have got to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us tonight.

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