President Trump takes heat for attacks on John McCain

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President Trump takes heat for attacks on John McCain

Republican Senator Johnny Isakson calls the president's comments deplorable; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Star panel.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," March 20, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHNNY ISAKSON, R-GA: It's deplorable what he said. That's what I called it from the floor of the Senate seven months ago. It will be deplorable seven months from now if he says it again, and I will continue to speak out.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: John McCain received a fake and phony dossier. Did you hear about the dossier? It was paid for by crooked Hillary Clinton, right?

(BOOS)

TRUMP: And John McCain got it, he got it. And what he do? He didn't call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy.

I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this, I didn't get a thank you, that's OK.

Not my kind of guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: President Trump today, we were going to start with U.S. manufacturing jobs in the Midwest, and we will get to that, but the president in prepared remarks in a speech today brought up and doubled down on comments he made over the weekend about the late Senator John McCain seven months after his passing, prompting a response, as you heard there, and more of one, from Republican Senator John Isakson from Georgia, who is a Trump policy supporter, also a friend of the late Senator John McCain.

Having just returned from Hanoi, Vietnam, I spent some time in the Hanoi Hilton where John McCain spent five years as a prisoner of war. I went into those cells. I saw the places where he was held. Senator McCain, will stipulate on this show right now, spent his life serving the U.S. and was an American hero, period, the end.

We'll start there with this panel. Let's bring in our panel, Donna Brazile, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen, and Susan Ferrechio, chief congressional correspondent for "The Washington Examiner." OK, Susan, the president, it has gotten under his skin, and he is going back to it. He explained it a little bit more in the prepared remarks today. What about this?

SUSAN FERRECHIO, CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": It's a big backstory there. He and McCain have not liked each other for a long time. McCain was an early critic of Trump when he was running for president, and Trump always would swing back at McCain, and the whole thing escalated.

And of course, there's the Steele dossier that Trump believes is behind the Mueller reports that he thinks is hobbling his presidency. Now, McCain did go retrieve through David Kramer, his aide, the dossier, brought it back to America, gave it to James Comey. And David Kramer, his aide, shopped it around to the press. And that's how it got leaked out to the press. It's not verified, it's salacious. The president is very angry at McCain over this. The reason he started tweeting about this over the weekend, which is where all this started, and then the press asked about it today during the pool spray, it came up over the weekend because of a deposition that was unveiled where we learned more details about how McCain was involved in the dossier, and that clearly got under Trump's skin. And he is not over it yet, clearly.

BAIER: Clearly. They built that into that speech, Donna. Somebody is advising that, right? What is the thought process?

DONNA BRAZILE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I don't know. Since 2015, the president has just been on this tirade against John McCain. When I was little girl growing up in Louisiana, I don't know about you, Bret, but my parents said you don't talk ill of the dead, because the Bible says the living will die at some point.

John McCain leaves a legacy, a legacy of service. He leaves a legacy of sacrifice. More importantly, Donald Trump used this location at a military construction site, a union site, but he goes there and criticized the one guy in the United States Senate who fought for these types of tanks. So it's an odd thing to do.

And as I said last night on Twitter, because I get to Twitter myself, I said to Cindy McCain and Meghan and the family, I said, you know what, ignore this. You're better than this, we are better than this. John McCain should be honored for his service, but the criticism, that's beneath the office of the president.

BAIER: Meghan McCain address that today on "The View."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGHAN MCCAIN, DAUGHTER OF JOHN MCCAIN: I think if I had told my dad seven months after you're dead you're going to be dominating the news and all over Twitter, he would think it was hilarious that our president was so jealous of him that he was dominating the news cycle in death as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Our colleague Brit Hume tweeted out, speaking of Twitter, "Why the president of the United States gets involved in petty disputes with someone most Americans have never heard of it is beyond me." This is talking about Conway, Kellyanne Conway's husband, George. "The same goes for his continuing feud with the late John McCain. Why bother?" Marc?

MARC THIESSEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: So I get why Donald Trump doesn't like John McCain, and he has some legitimate grievances against John McCain, but he isn't hurting John McCain. John McCain is dead. He's hurting himself. He presumably went to Ohio today because he had a message to deliver about the manufacturing boom in this country that he has unleashed.

BAIER: Which is a good message.

THIESSEN: And it's a great story. You said at the outset of this segment we were going to talk about that.

BAIER: And we are.

THIESSEN: And we are. But he changed the subject. And he did it by showing a total lack of decency. And so what he's doing is, one, he's stepping on his own story. And two, there are millions of people in this country who are benefiting from the Trump economy, who have jobs and opportunity and better lives because of this. And they like Trump's policies but they don't like him because of things like this. So the reason he's in the low 40s in his approval instead of above 50 is because persuadable voters look at this and they say I don't want to support a guy who goes after a dead war hero.

BAIER: Minus this, or minus some of these tweets, minus some of this counterpunching, would his approval be above 50?

FERRECHIO: I think you make a really great point. It's the rhetoric that turns off the people who are either on the edge, they like what he does policy-wise but they hate him personally, and that makes him look at other candidates, and they go, I'll just vote for a Democrat, or I won't show up and vote. And that is his problem, really. They don't understand why he doesn't like McCain, because the backstory is complicated. He tried to explain it a little bit today.

BAIER: You explained it well there.

FERRECHIO: It's hard to explain, and it goes back years. And McCain started it. And he is a hero obviously, everyone loved him.

BAIER: I stipulated that at the beginning.

FERRECHIO: So the two of them escalated it. And that's what in the backstory is so complicated. The public doesn't get it. They just see him attacking a war hero and they are like, here he goes again. And it's not good.

BAIER: To Twitter, just before we started the show. "Great News form Ford. They are investing $1 billion in Flat Rock, Michigan for auto production on top of $1 billion investment last month in a facility outside of Chicago. Companies are pouring back into the United States -- they want to be where the action is."

U.S. manufacturing jobs during the Trump administration, Donna, are up significantly. Manufacturing jobs are up, and there is an optimism that he talked about that, again, largely got squelched by the John McCain comments newsworthy-wise, but this is a story to tell from the Trump administration.

BRAZILE: Look, I still believe he's building on the success of Barack Obama, OK?

BAIER: All right, but those numbers start 117.

BRAZILE: But remember where we started back in 2009 after the great recession of 2008. He's building. But this president has now just stepped on his message. He has to worry about his tax policies. What's driving some of these jobs overseas? What's creating the conditions in places like Lordstown where G.M. is thinking about closing its plant. The union leader has been reaching out to the president, not the president of the union, the union leader, the local leader has been saying Mr. President, help us, help us. He campaigned on a promise to save American jobs. They now need him to save American jobs in Lordstown, Ohio.

BAIER: There is a positive economic feeling, though. If you look at the numbers and you hear some of these states. And frankly, that hope was why he won some of these states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Marc, last word on this.

THIESSEN: He's delivering for the forgotten Americans who put him in office. Look, manufacturing jobs have been rising for 18 straight months, 490,000 manufacturing jobs created under Donald Trump since he came to office. Obama said those jobs were never coming back. They are growing at the fastest pace in 24 years. And the unemployment rate for people without a high school education reached the lowest point in history, and their salaries are going up by six percent, which is outpacing the rest of the economy. That is a great story. I wish that he would talk about that and not step on his story so more Americans would know about it.

BAIER: We got to see it here. We just had to cover it all.

(LAUGHTER)

THIESSEN: Next up, the 2020 roundup, as one campaign unionize is, others try to catch at least some of the Beto press coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: By the way, we are going to make it easier for workers to join in unions, not harder.

(APPLAUSE)

FAIZ SHAKIR, SANDERS 2020 CAMPAIGN MANAGER: I don't believe we took any of these actions out of belief that it would win votes. We did it because we thought it was important to live our values.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need for employees to have more power.

BETO O'ROURKE, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If those who work on this campaign and who comprise what I hope will be the largest grassroots effort this nation has ever seen want to unionize, I support that.

JULIAN CASTRO, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If the time comes, when the time comes that our staff says they're going to do that, I support that. We have a strong policy against sexual harassment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Unionizing campaign staff, Bernie Sanders has done it, other campaigns are saying they may do it. Meantime, Beto O'Rourke is going to every county in New Hampshire. We're back with the panel. Donna, you were on campaigns. What happens if they go on strike?

BRAZILE: That would be a bad thing. I am supportive of unionized workers. I am a member of two unions, SEIU and SAG-AFTRA. I believe in the right to organize and collective bargaining. As you well know, some of us who have been on campaign, you work long hours and you get no benefits. You work long hours, and at the end of the day, if your candidate loses, you lose. So this is a great idea and I hope the campaigns adopt it.

BAIER: Marc, Bernie Sanders is getting a lot of attention. He's getting a lot of support. He is raising almost as much money as Beto O'Rourke. Do you think Donna and her friends are worried sick that Bernie Sanders is going to run away with this?

THIESSEN: I think Bernie Sanders is going to be the Democratic nominee. He's got an army of people from the last campaign, most of whom think if it hadn't been for the superdelegates, no offense, he would've been the nominee and that he would've won, because it was Bernie voters in those key swing states in Middle America that tipped to Donald Trump.

BRAZILE: You forget that Hillary got 4 million more voters, and there are less than 800 superdelegates.

THIESSEN: OK, I'm not attacking superdelegates, I'm just making the point --

BRAZILE: No. I know you love us.

THIESSEN: Absolutely. But he's the guy. He's the guy who they think should have been the nominee, and he's got an army of supporters. He's raised $6 million in the first day. The interesting thing is that Beto is challenging him for the soul of the far left of the Democratic Party.

BAIER: On this day when the president made a lot of other news on other things, talking about things, he did tweet out this. "The Democrats are getting very strange. They now want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the Electoral College, and increase significantly the number of Supreme Court justices. Actually, you've got to win at the ballot box!" In addition to his pitch about fighting socialism, he's right about this. This is being talked about on the trail.

FERRECHIO: Absolutely. The Green New Deal, Medicare for all, free college, reparations, stacking the Supreme Court with more justices, all these things that were unheard of in the past election to be talked about are now all being endorsed by the candidates.

And I think, while that may translate well in the primary season, because they are basically all getting on board now because if you don't you may not be approved by the primary voting system -- it doesn't translate as well into the general election. The risk for Democrats in being too extreme in the primary season. That's the case in any general election. You have to worry about how you act and what you say during the primaries. But this stuff is so far to the left I don't know how they pivot back for the general election without just alienating so many people in the general election.

BAIER: Can you explain, Donna, the Beto phenomenon?

BRAZILE: No.

BAIER: Can you explain the press coverage? Can you explain?

BRAZILE: I couldn't explain the press coverage of Barack Obama or the press coverage of Donald Trump. The media likes these characters, these personalities. But I can tell you what Beto is bringing to the table, and you see it with Kamala and Cory and all of the other candidates. They are bringing fresh ideas. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia allow young people, 16-years-olds, to pre-register, California allows 17-year- olds, 200,000 people. These are not out of the mainstream. These are issues that the American people are talking about. So I cannot explain Beto, but I have to tell you something, Bret. With a name like yours, we have Bernie, Beto, Biden. Bret, come on in. Come on. The water is warm.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: I'll just cover it. I'll just cover it, how about it.

Marc, there's not a lot of substance in that policy that they're talking about.

THIESSEN: I was shocked when you said that Beto is bringing ideas. This is the "Seinfeld" of candidacies. If "Seinfeld" was a show about nothing, he's a campaign about nothing. "The Washington Post" literally reported that he is going around and asking voters to shape him into the presidential candidate they want him to be and help them come up with a vision. Most people run for president because they have a vision for the country. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, I don't think their ideas are very good, I think they are dangerous, but give them credit. They have been thinking for years about what they want to do if they get their hands on the levers of power in the Oval Office. Beto is asking us to shape them into a candidate because it's all about cult of personality.

BAIER: I've got to run.

FERRECHIO: What could be more populist, though, than letting the voters decide what your platform is?

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: That'll be something. Panel, thank you. Donna, good to have you.

When we come back, a good boy and a sweet shot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, sometimes we just play some cool video. A sweet welcome home for man's best friend. Nick is the owner of a golden retriever in Richmond, Virginia, and we just like this shot. He shared a video of his dog Riley jumping into his arms before he could even walk in the door, and that's just cool. Nice vertical leap.

On a separate note, congrats to former President George W. Bush who had his first hole in one today, playing Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas. He says he hopes to live to be 100 so he can shoot his age. He plays fast, so that was a fast hole in one, I guarantee you.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the “Special Report.” Fair, balanced and still unafraid. "The Story" guest-hosted by my friend, Ed Henry starts right now.

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