'Special Report' All-Star Panel on Russian sanctions

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US to impose more sanctions on Russia

'Special Report' panel discusses what other sanctions NATO may impose on Russia.

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on March 23, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

BAIER: President Biden is speaking to NATO leaders tomorrow in Brussels, arrived there tonight. Meantime, the extent of those sanctions catching the Russians off guard, at least according to Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister. "Financial Times" writes it this way, "When they froze the central bank reserves, nobody who was predicted what sanctions the west would pass could have pictured that. It's just thievery," Sergey Lavrov told students at Moscow State Institute of International Relations," saying it just happened quickly.

Let's bring in our panel, FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Katie Pavlich, news editor at Townhall.com, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. Jeff, you are at the White House there. There was a lot of talk about deliverables in this NATO meeting and what could get across the finish line. Any more developments on that front?

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "REUTERS": So the clip that you played from Jake Sullivan was really the key one. He says that the president is going to announce new sanctions with European leaders and efforts to tighten existing sanctions. Those new sanctions will probably include other oligarchs that have not already been targeted, also perhaps members of the Russian parliament, the lower house, the Duma. One thing that I think we will all be watching, President Biden wants to go over there and show a sense of unity that the United States has been very happy about between the White House, between the U.S., and between Europe.

But there is at least one piece where they don't seem 100 percent on the same page, and that is on energy. So we'll see if they come up with something on that. Jake also said that there would be some kind of an agreement announced, a joint resolution or something like that, regarding energy supplies. But Europe is a much different position than the United States with regard to Russian oil and gas. They rely on Russia for 40 percent of their gas. So it's a lot harder for them to come out and say we are going to embargo this.

BAIER: Interestingly, the Ukrainian president, Brit, did urge one oligarch not to be sanctioned. That's Abramovich. "While several high profile businessmen have spoken out against the war, Mr. Abramovich is the only oligarch to publicly say he is trying to push Moscow to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict." Whether that has to do with it's really happening or he wants to keep his boat, I'm not sure, Brit. But what do you make of this NATO meeting?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's important for the president to go, to be the leader, as American presidents have been. I think that something is happening now that he needs to be mindful of, and that is this. We are now hearing a lot of talk that Ukraine might actually win this war, that is to say drive Russia out of its country. I think before this moment, the sense had been that if the Ukrainians fought well and ably and with assistance from the west they may be able to reach a situation where the Russian would negotiate a ceasefire or they might get some pieces of Ukraine, but the war would be over, the suffering would end and the killing would end, and Ukrainians could start to come from those eastern European countries now under such stress from the arrival of all of those migrants. War-winning, which we all would route for, of course, as the polling shows Americans are, that raises the stakes, I think, and raises a question for NATO.

BAIER: Katie, Jeff mentioned energy and the differences there in the NATO countries. "Axios" had an interesting story Jamie Dimon pushing the administration on energy, calling for essentially a Marshall plan. "Dimon's call," JP Morgan, obviously, "for the federal government to assume a more aggressive posture on energy and climate is a clear signal the business community is looking to Washington for leadership, big bold ideas on how to achieve energy security." He's calling for more liquefied natural gas facilities in Europe, reduced reliance on Russian imports, and investments in new technology like hydrogen and carbon capture." It doesn't seem like that is hitting a chord with the Biden administration, at least not yet, on the oil and gas side.

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, and it's not necessarily hitting a chord in the Russian economy either when a lot of these sanctions don't necessarily target the oil and gas industry of Russia. But the Biden administration actually has options to still be dedicated to their climate change while also ramping up domestic production of natural gas.

You'll remember that the United States of America, even when they came out of the Paris Climate Accord under President Trump, was able to cut emissions in half through this natural gas revolution because it is a clean way of producing energy. And so the administration has the ability to dive in with these oil companies who they have demonized to get the ball rolling, not only just domestic production for Americans who are seeing their prices go sky high, but also on the national security front and the capability of exporting that energy to partners who are not necessarily aggressive towards the United States but who are allies in this fight against Russia in backing Ukraine.

But they do have this issue of their climate change agenda which has been running the show from the White House in terms of what their policies are of energy production at home by limiting leasing, by going after the oil and gas companies and propping up this idea that natural gas can't be part of the broader conversation about how to get to cleaner alternative energy.

BAIER: Brit, 64th Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, first female secretary of state, died today, according to her family. Your thoughts of her life and legacy, what she leaves behind?

HUME: A very accomplished woman, a very strong person. And she belonged to a long line of American foreign policy officials and experts who believed that American foreign policy consisted of diplomacy backed by the threat of force. And she famously in a meeting during her tenure as secretary of state said to Colin Powell, General Colin Powell, what is the good of having all this great military if we can't use it? That was a tradition that was carried on for a long timing.

She was there before 9/11, and that means before Afghanistan, before Iraq, and before the doubts that have so strongly set in about the use of American military force were present. But that's what she was for, and I don't think she ever changed her mind about it. She was quite a person.

BAIER: Yes, and Jeff, quickly, one of those picture there was meeting with Kim Jong-il in North Korea, the first American diplomat to meet him in person. She lives a big legacy behind.

MASON: She was. And she was a trailblazer for women in addition to the diplomatic efforts that she undertook.

BAIER: All right, panel, thanks so much.

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