This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," June 8, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC CANTOR, R-VIRG., HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: As far as what Anthony Weiner will or won't do, ya know it truly is up to him and his constituents as far as that is going to be. Now, I don't condone his activity and I think he should resign. I just think he should spare us.
TIM KAINE, FORMER DNC CHAIRMAN: Lying is unforgivable. Lying publicly about something like this is unforgivable, and he should resign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: A number of Democrats now coming out, including Representative Allison Schwartz, she's a top official at the Democratic Campaign Committee, congressional campaign committee. She goes out and recruits Democrats to run across the country. She said that Anthony Weiner should resign.
Just moments ago, we had a statement apparently from Congressman Weiner saying he did in fact send explicit photos of himself on the internet. There is an X-rated photo that has now surfaced. This is the photo that conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart talked about. He said it was released without his acknowledgment, not on his wishing that it get out, but it's out. And now that story gets worse. New York Times reporting that Anthony Weiner's wife Huma is in fact pregnant. Before the break, we asked you will Congressman Anthony Weiner resign? 72 percent say yes, 28 percent say no. We're back with the panel. Steve, the Democrats coming out of this, the woodwork really, every two minutes, there is another statement. Senator Patrick Leahy, others saying he should step down.
STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Right, one would think would lead him to actually resign, I mean, getting this kind of pressure. It's clear, you talk to members of Congress and they say, he's incredibly unpopular with fellow legislators. You would think that the natural conclusion to this, sort of growing call for him to resign would in fact be a resignation.
But you talk to people who know Anthony Weiner and they say his job defines him in a way that probably isn't healthy. It's everything to him. And that he would never leave it voluntarily. I think, you know, you may then be looking at something of a stalemate where he really doesn't want to go. And you continue to have these calls for him to leave.
BAIER: Mara?
MARA LIASSON, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: The Democrats are trying to do everything possible to get him to resign. The ultimate solution would be redistricting. New York --
BAIER: New York has to lose two congressional districts.
LIASSON: Two seats. And at this point he is probably first on the chopping block for having his district redrawn and him redrawn right out of it.
BAIER: And that would take some time Mara.
LIASSON: That would take some time. It would just mean that he would be in office until the 2012 election.
BAIER: But the real issue here for Democrats is what it means for their party and for leading up to the election, right?
LIASSON: Every day he is still in office -- the rule on this, and both parties have been really good about this, Eric Massa, Chris Lee, they're out within hours. Both parties have learned to be pretty ruthless about this. Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner both have not given any leeway at all to people who transgress in this way. And they are just having a hard time getting rid of him.
BAIER: So why doesn't Nancy Pelosi call for him to step down?
LIASSON: Well I think Nancy Pelosi is doing everything she can to get rid of him and I wouldn't be surprised if she does call for him to step down very soon.
BAIER: Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: This is -- the choreography of this is well known and it goes all the way back to Nixon. Nixon hung on with Watergate until it's always your own party, it's never the opposition, until the delegation of elder statesman of Republicans in the Senate went to Nixon at the White House and said, time's up. And he resigned. And remember, he was the first president in American history to resign. That was big event. And he was a president.
This happens as you've all said, it happens now with incredible rapidity. Chris Lee, the New York 26 Republican. We just had this special election as a result of his resignation. His offense on the internet was a lot, sort of, more benign than the Weiner case. Apparently he got a call from the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who said, you are out of here, ya know, out of Dodge by sundown. And the story of his resignation almost preceded the story of the scandal. So if you ask anybody on the street, nobody will be able to tell you exactly what happened. And that's how you deal with it. I thought Eric Cantor from the Republicans handled it well. One leader, one statement, a mono-statement he ought to resign, and no more.
BAIER: Steve, he has -- Congressman Weiner has problems in the statement that he gave in his confession, as well. As this drip of more revelation comes out day after day.
HAYES: No question. If anybody who thought that the press conference he gave the other day would allow him to sort of put this behind him and move on, which was obviously its intent, was wrong because what he did was continue to lie. I mean, he said in that thing "I've never coached. I didn't coach any of the women. I didn't tell them what to say." And then the very next day you wake up to transcripts of him coaching at least one of the women on what to say and on how to handle this publicly.
Ya know, he also made claims that he never did this on congressional time or on government property. I mean do we really think that the guy who would deceive his wife this way would at the same time have -- stop and say okay I'm not going to do this because it's the government computer?
BAIER: That's it for the panel, but stay tuned for an update to an international story that hasn't been in the headlines for a while.
Content and Programming Copyright 2011 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2011 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox