President Trump rejects national mandate for facial coverings
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," July 20, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY": Will you consider a national mandate that people need to wear masks?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don't believe in that.
DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: It relies on the individual people of America doing the right thing. I'm begging you, please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say we are face covering.
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: It is bizarre that we have turned to mask-wearing into something political. How could it be that something as basic as a public health action that we have very strong evidence can help seems to attach to people's political party?
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BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Then late this afternoon the president tweeted this, "We are united in our effort to defeat the invisible China virus, and many people say it is patriotic to wear a facemask when you can't socially distance. There's nobody more patriotic then me, your favorite president." President Trump wearing the mask in that picture.
This comes as the cases, total cases, over 3.8 million in the U.S., 140,000 plus deaths. There you see the numbers globally. Hospitalizations in the U.S., you can see this chart, this is Johns Hopkins chart as the rolling average is going up, and then the deaths per 100,000, the mortality rate as of yesterday, 3.7 percent. You can see it ticking down, going up and then down. That's where we are right now as there is also some hope for a vaccine making progress.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Let's bring in our panel, Charles Hurt, opinion editor for The Washington Times, A.B. Stoddard, associate editor at Real Clear Politics, and Chris Stirewalt is politics editor here at Fox News. There's a lot of people online, Charlie, that are saying it's July and the president went with the mask tweet. Do you think that there has been political pressure, do you think something changed? What do you think?
CHARLES HURT, OPINION EDITOR, WASHINGTON TIMES: I think, clearly, the president realizes that this is an important issue. But I kind of stumble over this idea that somehow the president should issue a federal mandate requiring masks. I don't know that people would necessarily obey such a federal order. It seems to be make a whole lot more sense that governors and federal officials would be in a far better position to make such a requirement. And my goodness, President Trump tries to deal with the rioting and looting and burning police stations around the country, and he gets into trouble for that. So I don't really know -- so I guess I just sort of have a bit of a hang up on the notion that we are going to blame President Trump for people not wearing masks --
BAIER: Not the federal mandates --
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}HURT: -- because he hasn't issued a federal order.
BAIER: -- but the tweeting of the picture wearing the mask, it seemed like he's obviously more comfortable with that currently that he was previously.
HURT: Yes, but we have seen him wear a mask before, and he has made it clear that people should wear masks if they feel vulnerable or they are sick or they are in a position where it would be helpful. And if you walk around the country, I've been traveling around the last past week, and I don't see any dearth of people wearing masks. People are wearing masks. I think they are getting the message that especially if you are among a vulnerable population, that wearing a mask is a very good idea.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: We are now in the process, A.B., of the formulation of phase four, whatever that looks like, the stimulus package today in the Oval Office was talked about, specifically about a payroll tax cut. Take a listen?
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STEVEN MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We have spent an unprecedented amount of money. The good news is a lot of the $3 trillion we still have left to put in the economy and put back to work. We are focused on starting with another $1 trillion. We think that will make a big impact. And the focus, as I said, is really about kids and jobs and vaccines.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How important is the payroll tax cut?
TRUMP: I think it's very important. I think it's a very important thing. It's very good, it's a tremendous saving. And I think it's an incentive for companies to hire their workers back and to keep their workers.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: John Roberts was in the Oval Office, A.B., and he said are you all on board, and Kevin McCarthy was nodding. And apparently Senate Majority Leader McConnell was just smiling. Is there any chance that a payroll tax cut is going to get through this Congress?
A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, REAL CLEAR POLITICS: It doesn't look like there's a good chance. Republicans have been saying privately for months that they oppose the payroll tax cut and they were never interested in it. So many Americans are not on payrolls, and so you're really talking about a bunch of people whose unemployment benefits are about to end.
And also, a whole bunch of middle-class jobs are going to be lost if states and localities don't receive funds from the government in this tranche of money, jobs like firefighters and teachers and nurses. And this is just going to take a huge hit in terms of the ripple effect on the economy that all the virus have been taking. There are so many things they disagree on that maybe in the end they include the payroll tax cut if they convince the White House that they need more money for contact tracing and testing. Right now the White House is resisting Republican requests for more assets for the CDC, the Pentagon, and the State Department with regards to the coronavirus, and they're getting rebuffed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So we're a long way from a deal here, and there's many areas of disagreements. But Republicans have looked at the polls and seen where the pain is going to come in the next six weeks, and they're taking this virus seriously and are very much concerned, Bret, not only that the president went from being anti-mask to just not really pro-mask enough, and they've been messaging on this for weeks, someone like Senator McConnell. We've seen Lamar Alexander, the head of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee calling into a Sunday show. The cries for help are very loud, and I could go on. But on testing they're now acknowledging openly that the testing is a disaster. It's backed up, there are not enough of them, and we are still behind 24 countries. And before they face the voters in November, they would want to see that improve.
BAIER: Senator McConnell mentioned that in the Oval Office. Also Chris, he mentioned fighting for liability protections for businesses. That is going to be a big part for him, Chris.
CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, Mitch McConnell is the guy who gets it done in Washington, at least on the Republican side. And when it comes down to it, McConnell has made it clear. He has been unusually loquacious for the Senate majority leader in talking about what this is going to be and what it isn't going to be. It's not going to be what the president wants because the president, and probably rightly so, "Bloomberg" writes about this, other outlets are writing about it. He needs a huge infusion, he's needs a nuclear blast of cash infusion into the economy to buoy people's spirits going into the election, or otherwise it gets turned out. So he feels a special pressure.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}McConnell's pressure points are different. He has members whose constituents don't want a $2 trillion forever cut to the Social Security tax, all of the sort of seemingly indecent fiscal proposals that are being thrown around here. That doesn't help McConnell's key members get reelected. So McConnell is talking about something that is short, final, and conditioned on these curbs for lawsuits that he says if you don't get the lawsuit curbs, you're losing tons of the stimulative effect because the very institutions that you want to be bold about reopening and try are going to pull back further. So he says that's stimulus unto itself.
BAIER: Charlie, there is some internal debate, we are told, in the administration about unemployment benefits and whether the $600 additional dollars somehow get scaled back, whether it's an incentive to not fight to get back to work, whether it's the right thing. Apparently, that hasn't been worked out yet.
HURT: But I do think that the president understands that his election in November will reside almost entirely on the economy. And if the economy rebounds, then he's got a shot at winning reelection. But if the economy is in the tank, it's always the economy stupid. I think that if the economy is in the tank he's going to have a really hard time winning reelection.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: Panel, as always, thank you. We have a long way to November 3rd.
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