Are Trump's COVID pandemic briefings providing a political boost to the president?

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Are Trump's COVID pandemic briefings providing a political boost to the president?

Reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars: Fox News contributors Charles Lane, opinion writer for the Washington Post, and Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," August 4, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS: Let's bring in our panel: Charles Lane, opinion writer for The Washington Post, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, and Bill McGurn, columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Bill, do these briefings work for President Trump?

OK, Mollie, how about you?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, THE FEDERALIST: I think it's very important that President Trump come out and talk about some of the successes that this administration has had taking on coronavirus. The media are very good at hyping and overhyping everything bad, and they are not presenting a balanced approach, so it's left to President Trump to talk about the successes that the administration has had.

I also thought it was very important that he explains that difference between established mail-in ballots programs like the one in Florida and the ones that are just being thrown together very quickly in other states. He's expressed a lot of concern about election security, and by explaining the difference between having it worked out over many years versus just thrown together, I think it was said in such a way that even people in the media should be able to understand it.

EMANUEL: Chuck, your thoughts and these briefings?

CHARLES LANE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I guess it was better for him than that interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios, and I sort of read some of the things he was doing as an attempt to clean up on that. But he still stumbles over this question of whether the United States is at the bottom of the list in terms of deaths per capita. That's just not true. And the sooner he admits that, I think the better off he'll be.

EMANUEL: So Mollie, these are shorter than, obviously, we saw early on in the pandemic briefing. Is, in this case, shorter better?

HEMINGWAY: I think as long as he's providing information that is very important for the American people, it's key, and having shorter can work for that. A lot of states are struggling. They're getting a lot of information about how everything should be shut down, people shouldn't go back to work, kids should be banned from school, sports should be shut down. I think it's a lot of science free or science lite decision-making, and so it's very important that people who do have a bully pulpit can get out there and explain that, yes, this is a bad virus, but there's no reason to shut down the entire country over it, and that life should continue in a safe and healthy manner.

EMANUEL: All right, and final thoughts from you, Chuck. Do you expect the doctors to make a comeback at these briefings?

LANE: I wouldn't know, as Dr. Birx seems to be, at least momentarily, on the outs there. I guess he said something nice about her after that. Maybe we'll just have to wait and see on that one.

EMANUEL: All right, panel, thanks very much. Our apologies to Bill. We had some technical difficulties.

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