Planned Parenthood video strikes nerve on Capitol Hill

Reaction from the 'Special Report' All-Star panel

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," July 17, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CECILE RICHARDS, PLANNED PARENTHOOD PRESIDENT: Planned Parenthood stands behind our work to help women and families donate tissue for medical research when they wish to. It is always their decision.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD, R-OKLA.: They would careful to reach in and actually crush the head of the child to kill the child in the womb so they could preserve the rest of the organs because the kidney has value, because the liver has value, because the lungs have value, because the muscles in the legs have value. I would tell you, that child has value.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHANNON BREAM, GUEST ANCHOR: We're back with our panel for the Friday lightning round starting with the Planned Parenthood controversy. Charles, Howard Kurtz had a piece about the fact that some the outlets have ignored it or given it kind of short shrift, but others are not.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Look, it was the same with the notorious Dr. Gosnell who was dismember essentially live infants in botched abortions. Kirsten and a few others were the ones who gave attention to it, but it was almost entirely ignored otherwise. The press has a particular, the media has a particular view of abortion. They don't want to cover anything that will jeopardize the current policies, and that's why you don't hear about it.

BREAM: Kirsten, I've covered a lot of these stories. I know you have, too. I've never seen a response that we've in the last three days from Planned Parenthood, three statements in three days, including a video message from Cecile Richards. That's a different response that we've seen.

KIRSTEN POWERS, USA TODAY: I think because this is particularly damning and it's something that even pro-choice people look at and say, wait a minute. And the reason that it's so damning, setting aside whether or not they were selling anything, harvesting or selling anything, is that most people don't understand what happens in a late term abortion. And we're told there's nothing to see here, and suddenly they are talking about hearts and lungs And people are saying, wait a minute, you're talking about crushing a baby and Planned Parenthood is coming out and saying it wasn't compassionate enough the way we speak about this. Most people don't think that there's any compassionate way to do this. There's no compassionate way to talk about crushing a baby in utero.

BREAM: Tucker, we've got two House committees who have announced investigations. Senate Grassley sounds like Senate judiciary is going to do that as well. He sent letters out to the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, asking her to look into this as well. Does anything concrete come from this conversation?

TUCKER CARLSON, 'FOX & FRIENDS' CO-HOST: Oh, I don't know. I think people who oppose abortion would be spending their time more fruitfully if they just financed a series of ads that ran this tape, all of it, all two and a half hours of it.

Because the question is not whether it's illegal. Maybe it is. Lots of things are illegal. It's horrifying. It's immoral. It's wrong. And no decent person who watches this can come away with any other view.

By the way, half the Congress, the Democratic side, is funded by the abortion industry. Not a single Democrat running for president has been forced to answer to this video. Hillary Clinton received the Margaret Sanger award from Planned Parenthood last year. What does she think of this? What does she think of the video? Can she look at that and say, yes, I will continue to take money from these people? I'd like to see that.

BREAM: We did specifically reach out to her campaign and the others, and so far no response from them on that.

We want to talks about Iran as well because the nuke deal, the president continues to work on selling it. Here is a little bit on what we are hearing today as the president met with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister to talk with them about the deal.

OK. We don't have it but, you can imagine what was said. I will tell you. Secretary Kerry says "I can assure you our intelligence community is completely comfortable that 24 days is not enough time for them to be able to evade our technical means, our capacity to observe, or ability to know what is happening." Now there is a debate about whether these inspections are really, if there is any teeth to them if you get 24 days to hide stuff.
What do you make of that?

KRAUTHAMMER: He is delusional that the intelligence people don't care if instead of spot inspections anywhere, anytime, we're now going to get essentially a month's notice for Iran, and Iran can dispute any requirement. This is a complete cave-in. And even if you get a resolution coming out of the U.N. where a committee including Iran decides that you are going to have inspect, the idea that you can get snapback sanctions, that all of a sudden they are going to be automatically executed, and the administration claims it's extremely clever because it designed a mechanism where the Chinese and the Russians aren't going to have a veto, they are never going to get the re-imposition of sanctions. It is over as of the signing of this agreement.

BREAM: Kirsten, a lot of pushback, bipartisan pushback on the Hill over the fact that it looks like the administration is going to go to the U.N. first for a vote on this instead of letting Congress vote first on its potential approval. That's if any Democrats that the president is going to it need.

POWERS: I think the president's herb right now is going to be Democrats. So everybody is sort of all eyes on Chuck Schumer to see what he is going to do. I think they are trying to woo the Democrats because that's what they are really going to need, especially if they're going to need to override a veto.

But Secretary Kerry did say today it's not necessarily a month. It could be two days. It could at a moment's notice. So he says that that is being misconstrued. As for the U.N. thing, I think that it makes no difference whether it goes to the U.N. first or not. It's not going to change the fact that the Congress has to approve the deal. To me, it just seems like much to do about nothing.

BREAM: Democrats and Republicans do think it makes a difference, and they are speaking up and pushing back against the White House, Tucker?

CARLSON: I don't know if they really think it does. I can't add much to what Charles said, in particular to the brilliant column he wrote on this morning which I would definitely urge all of our viewers to read, other than to make the obvious point, which is the president made a bad deal. We shouldn't be surprised. He has never shown any evidence of deal- making ability or even the desire to make a deal even on obvious things like helping Americans being held in Iran. It's a disaster. Of course it is.

BREAM: And still there's pushback too about Major Garrett, a former colleague here at FOX News, asking that question. We also heard from Naghmeh Abedini again today, the wife of Pastor Saeed Abedini being held there in Iran. The administration says they did bring it up numerous times and it is still under discussion. So we will continue to watch that as four Americans remain missing and being held in Iran.

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