Will 'Sharpie-gate' help or hurt President Trump?

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Will 'Sharpie-gate' help or hurt President Trump?

Reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," September 6, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That was the original chart. It was going toward the Gulf. That was what was originally projected.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It looks like it was drawn with a sharpie.

TRUMP: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

ANNE GEARAN, WASHINGTON POST: One White House official told my colleagues there is no one else who could have marked it up that way.  There's only one suspect.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN, D-MD.: This is "Saturday Night Live" style cartoonish behavior by the president of the United States.

CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: The fight never ends. And so the president feels like he's under siege constantly, so he's never going to stop fighting.

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS: And those are the facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Sharpie-gate coming to an end because it's Friday. And we have The Washington Post saying it in fact was the president, citing multiple sources. You have NOAA out with a statement late today that says "From Wednesday, August 28th, through Monday, September 2nd, the information provided by NOAA and the National Hurricane Center to President Trump and the wider public demonstrated that tropical force winds from Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama." It goes on to say that the Birmingham National Weather Services Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.

In the meantime, you have the Trump campaign tweeting out an offer for supporters to buy a pen, saying "Buy the official Trump marker which is different than very other marker on the market because this one has the special ability to drive CNN and the rest of the fake news crazy. Keep Markers Great."

There's where we are. It's Friday. We're back with the panel. Quickly, sharpie-gate.

BRYON YORK, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: They're already making money selling plastic straws. This is the dumbest story since the last dumb story we had. The president was right for a little while, then he was wrong to push this. The press made a huge deal of it, and now the president, he may be talking about this for weeks now. I don't know. It astonishes me that he goes day after day after day showing these things.

BAIER: Chuck?

CHARLES LANE, WASHINGTON POST: I thought he was crazy to pursue this. I think Chris Christie has his fingers on it. It's just like the crowd at the inauguration. He raised a huge fuss about that even though it seemed wrong. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised in the parts of the country where he's very popular this helps him because people see him as embattled unfairly by the media.

BAIER: I talked to someone the other day who said that President Trump is the Rain Man of trolling the press. In other words, sometimes he backs into it, but then he is there and he trolls to great success.

JASON RILEY, WALL STREET JOURNAL: He's right, and we've known that for a while. We've learned nothing new here. We've learned Trump won't back down from a fight. And we've learned that there is no controversy that is too petty or stupid for the press to harp on if it paints this president in a bad light.

BAIER: We are going to take a walk down Candidate Casino. It's Friday. Candidate Casino, the Democratic primary, you have $100 in chips, you have to bet. Where is your bat?

YORK: OK, I put $35 on Elizabeth Warren. I put $30 on Kamala Harris. I am a little bit bearish on Biden, I put $25 on him. And because we are supposed to make things interesting, I put $5 on Michelle Obama, just for the heck of it. And the rest of the field, tells you how much I think they're going to win.

BAIER: A new table, a new felt, the whole thing. Go ahead, Chuck.

LANE: This is my first visit to the casino, I'm not really familiar with the house rules. But I put $40 to the frontrunner Joe Biden because I'm a conventional thinker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and so on. I split $20 between Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, and I'm hedging my bets with a moderate to be determined if Biden falters, $5.

RILEY: I have Biden leading and Warren and Sanders close behind. I think Biden is a real leader, but I think he's ahead because Warren and Sanders are splitting that progressive vote. And if one of them backs the other, Biden's lead could disappear very quickly.

BAIER: How lightning can we be? Winner and Losers, let's go.

YORK: Amy Klobuchar is the winner who despite have 0.9 percent of the vote in the Real Clear Politics average of polls made it into next week's debate. The loser, Bill de Blasio. We found out that he spent just seven hours at city hall during the entire month. He declared for the president. The question for New Yorkers is, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

BAIER: That was a little rolling thunder. More lightning.

LANE: It gives me no joy to declare the Taliban my winner of the week because they are about to get away with murder literally and negotiate a very favorable deal for U.S. troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.

My loser, no surprise I think, Boris Johnson. He may win this fight for Brexit and the prime ministership in the end, but he lost a series of embarrassing votes in Parliament this week, and his own brother quit his party.

RILEY: My winners are the millions of protestors in Hong Kong who just won't back down. My loser is the CNN town hall on climate change which was not only too long, Bret, but was really more about trying to scare people than it was about trying to enlighten them on what's really a complex issue. That was a real disservice to their viewers.

BAIER: It was not lightning. But you were, Jason, so you're my winner.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: Thank you, panel.

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