Impact of President Trump's controversial rhetoric on 2020 election

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Impact of President Trump's controversial rhetoric on 2020 election

House votes on resolution condemning Trump comments; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," July 16, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: It's up to them. They can do what they want. They can leave, they can stay, but they should love our country. And they should work for the good of our country.

REP. ALEXANDRA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: He tells us that I should go back to the great borough of the Bronx and make it better. And that's what I'm here to do.

MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: They blame America for so much of the trouble in the world. That's deeply troubling.

REP. ILHAN OMAR, D-MINN.: He's called on us to go back and fight corruption and fight these countries that have worse leaders and inept leaders. Well, we are living in one. He is that president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: Some of the back-and-forth as you look alive at the House floor. This is the vote on the condemnation of the president's tweets. So far 173 to 148, four Republicans voting yay. This, as you can see, is remaining open right now as it goes up, 182 to 148. This will likely pass along party lines. Again, four Republicans joining, one independent joining. We'll see where this goes before the end of the show.

Let's bring in our panel. Steve Hilton is the host of "The Next Revolution" here on Fox News Channel, Katie Pavlich, news editor at Townhall.com, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for "Reuters."

Steve, your take on this back-and-forth and how it falls, where the fallout is after this, now we are on, what, day two, day three of covering this?

STEVE HILTON, HOST, "THE NEXT REVOLUTION": I think for most people watching, Bret, it is a really depressing episode. The political class just really being very self-indulgent, somewhat decadent, and getting involved in this kind of virtue signaling, your racist, no, your racist, resolutions about nothing practical that affects anyone's life in the real world.

But since we are having a conversation, I think it is important for everyone who's got a platform to condemn racist speech and hateful speech, but we've got to be consistent about it, not just what we saw on Sunday, and I think it was those things, but also what we've seen from some of these members of Congress. Anti-Semitism for me is part of hateful speech and racism. And it's not just that. It's the language about -- this for me is the most offensive part and I think for a lot of Americans is what's going on at the border, describing those people at the border who are trying to protect the country and help people and manage a chaotic situation as Nazis and talking about is as concentration camps, that is also hateful. And that needs to be condemned just as forcefully.

BAIER: It's 198-159 currently. Let's take a look at the two tweets about the president's tweets that he tweeted today, if that made sense. "Those tweets not racist. I don't have a racist bone in my body. The so-called vote to be taken is Democrat con game. Republicans should not show weakness and fall into their trap. This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements, and lies told by the Democrat congresswoman who I truly believe, based on their actions, hate our country. Get a list of the horrible things they have said. Omar is pulling at eight percent, Cortez at 21 percent. Nancy Pelosi tried to push them away but now they are forever wedded to the Democrat Party. See you in 2020."

Jeff, he does see, as he is forecasting here, a political benefit to this battle as he heads into 2020.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: For sure. I think is encapsulated in the fact that the end of that week was "See you in 2020." He sees a benefit to ginning up the base, which he has done with this kind of rhetoric before. He sees a benefit to creating a discussion in the Democratic Party of the progressives versus the moderates. And I think he probably also enjoys the constant news attention to it. No news -- what's the saying, no news is bad news. This fits into that category for him as well.

BAIER: Today, also, Katie, the House speaker gave a floor speech, and then was confronted by a Republican member, Representative Collins, about what she said. There was a vote about what she said. Take a listen.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., HOUSE SPEAKER: Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president's racist tweets. To do anything less would be a shocking rejection of our values and a shameful abdication of our oath of office to protect the American people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just going to give the gentle Speaker of the House if she would like to rephrase that comment.

PELOSI: I have cleared my remarks with the Parliamentarian before I read them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I made a point of order that the Parliamentarian request they be taken down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The ayes are 190, the nos are 232. The motion is not adopted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: And that was a vote to strike her remarks because of a lack of decorum that the Parliamentarian eventually said was in fact the case.

KATIE PAVLICH, NEWS EDITOR, TOWNHALL.COM: Because she violated a rule from 1984 that you cannot call any president, not just President Trump, a racist on the floor. So if we are going to adopt this resolution that has gotten a lot of attention over the past couple of days, it was announced yesterday, you probably should know the rules to make sure that it goes smoothly.

The question is for Nancy Pelosi, is she better off now than she was last Friday? Last week she was the one being accused of racism by the very four people who are continuing their attacks on President Trump, and yet she was trying to push impeachment away. They had their press conference yesterday. They brought up impeachment again. So not only is she now having to -- she's embraced them, but she's now going to have to curtail the calls for impeachment as a number of Democrats get on board and say, see, now we have no excuse not to impeach the president.

For Donald Trump, he is willing to have this debate in this conversation out on the campaign trail to the American people at a time when ICE facilities, Mexican flags are being hoisted up as American flags are being torn down. You see time after time patriotism being attacked in this country, the sign of Americanism being attacked. And he's willing to talk about those things and bring up a long record of people like AOC saying America is garbage and that capitalism is irredeemable. He's willing to talk about those things.

MASON: I guess my question is, does that make it OK for the president of the lawmakers to go back to the places from which they came? That seems to be the stem of the criticism about these are racist tweets.

BAIER: The Republicans have weighed in, eight of them in the Senate, 24 of them in the House have come out condemning the president's remarks, also commenting on the Democrats remarks. Here's the Senate Majority Leader and other Republicans as well today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY., SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: The president is not a racist. And I think the tone of all of this is not good for the country. But it's coming from all different ideological points of view.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, R-CALIF.,  HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: I believe this is about ideology. This is about socialism versus freedom.

REP. PETE KING, R-N.Y.: The president's remarks were inappropriate. There are many legitimate criticisms you can make of those four members of Congress, but you shouldn't use terminology like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So we just learned that they do have the votes to pass this resolution in the House, Katie.

PAVLICH: Just to answer Jeff's question, of course it doesn't make it necessarily OK. And of course, the tweet was inaccurate. It was false. He shouldn't be telling Americans to go back to the countries.

But when you look at the things that someone like Ilhan Omar, who was brought into the country under the grace of the American people as a refugee, she does owe some form of gratitude instead of trying to tear down the country at all costs. And if we are going to talk about this in terms of holding everybody accountable, let's hold her accountable, let's hold AOC accountable for the horrible things that they are also saying about fellow Americans despite their skin color.

BAIER: Should we leave it there?

HILTON: I think, honestly, the whole country wishes we could leave it there and move on to something practical that might actually help improve their lives.

BAIER: I'm not sure this is it. Next up, is Google committing treason by working with China? We'll look into that as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER THIEL, FACEBOOK BOARD MEMBER: Google is working with the Chinese communist government and not with the U.S. military. I think one explanation is they figure they have to because if they don't give it to them through the front door, it will get stolen through the back door.

LARRY KUDLOW, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR: I meet with Google's CEO on a regular basis. I think they're working for America, for our military, not for China.

TRUMP: I would like to recommend to the various agencies, including perhaps our attorney general, who was with us, to maybe take a look. And we will see if there's any truth to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Google responding to this call for an investigation whether they are working with the Chinese military with a statement saying "As we have said before, we do not work with the Chinese military." But here is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs back in March with a bit of a warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOSEPH DUNFORD, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: The work that Google is doing in China is indirectly benefiting the Chinese military. Indirect maybe not a full characterization of the way it really is. It's more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So what about this? We're back with our panel. Jeff, it's kind of interesting to hear the president weigh in, saying I want to know what's going on.

MASON: It is. I was in the pool spray today for that. John Roberts actually asked him that question. And I think it's interesting that he said -- he basically directed his attorney general to look into it. And another interesting aspect of that is, in some ways it connects him, or puts him in the same area as some of the Democrats who are talking about breaking up a big tech. He's not calling for Google to be broken up, but that is a similar issue. Take a close look at this big giant technology company and their influence in China and elsewhere.

BAIER: It does seem like we're going to a tipping point on this issue, whether it's privacy and Facebook. There is a lot that is brewing here. Here is Senator Ted Cruz on Google and its political power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX: Google is a monopoly. Google may well be the most powerful company on the face of the planet, because they have a monopoly on information, on what you know and what I know. And not only that, but Google owns YouTube, which is the second most popular website on the face of the planet. And the problem is they use these monopoly powers to silence voices they don't like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: What about that, Katie?

PAVLICH: There are all kinds of questions about domestic censorship on the Chinese issue. The cyber experts that I've talked to and people who work in tech and the government say, look, when these companies become bigger than the country, there are very serious questions about whether they have an obligation in terms of patriotism to their country to work with the U.S. government on certain issues. A number of Google employees have decided they are not going to work with U.S. government, and maybe that's OK. But those are the questions.

When Google says they are not working with the Chinese military, the Chinese military is directly connected to the Chinese government. And so then you get into questions about other types of security, like are they stealing the information that the Pentagon is using to then engage in the same kind of technology in terms of the battlefield. So there are all kinds of questions that we have as we continue to go into more cyber warfare cyber issues domestically.

BAIER: Steve?

HILTON: I think we need to separate the China issue from all the others. The China issue is a really serious national security point. China has a stated aim of toppling the U.S. as the world's superpower. They are planning to do that primarily through technology applied to their military and elsewhere. And that's funded by their economy.

And whether deliberately or inadvertently Google and other tech companies, it was reported last week, that IBM, for example, is one of them, are helping China to build their surveillance state and establish their superiority in areas like AI and quantum computing. That has got to stop. That is a real threat, not just to America, but to the world. You don't want an authoritarian regime like that running the world. So that's that.

But on the domestic stuff, the antitrust conversation, there again I think we need some tough action, because if you believe in markets, if you believe in competition, even if you're worried about the censorship and so on, what you want to see is a much more competitive situation in each of these areas. That's why I agree with the cause to break these companies up.

BAIER: I think there is going to be a lot more on Capitol Hill in the coming days and weeks.

Meantime, that resolution passed 240 to 187 to condemn the president of the United States. Over/under that we'll hear from the president after the smoke?

MASON: I'm sure he will weigh in for sure.

BAIER: You're going with the over?

MASON: I'm going to go with the over.

BAIER: When we come back -- thank you panel -- a hero's medal returned home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, a major lost and found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is almost like my uncle Nick is coming home.

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BAIER: Seaman second-class Nick D'Amelio, Jr., who served in World War II, was considered lost at sea on September 6th, 1943. Last month an employee at a Goodwill store in Tucson, Arizona, found D'Amelio's Purple Heart. Investigators located D'Amelio's family, and everyone, including Republican Senator Martha McSally, was on hand to celebrate the Purple Heart's return to that family. And congratulations to that Goodwill guy.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the “Special Report.” Fair, balanced, and unafraid. "The Story" hosted by Martha, starts right now.

Hey, Martha.

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