Marc Thiessen: Why isn't Biden talking about Ukraine winning?
'Special Report' All-Star panel discusses the president's mixed messaging on a number of Ukraine issues.
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on March 29, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
BAIER: Peace talks continue between the Ukrainians and the Russians seeing some level of progress. But the Russians promised to draw down or to slow down in Kyiv and a couple of other cities in the north has people skeptical. Here is how Reuters writes it, "U.S. official warns any Russian movement not a withdrawal. Any movement of Russian forces around Kyiv would constitute a redeployment, not a withdrawal, U.S. officials say Tuesday after Russia promised to scale down military operations near the Ukrainian capital. They are shifting gears. No one can mistake that for Russia ending the conflict."
Let's bring in our panel, Harold Ford Jr., former Tennessee Congressman, co-host of THE FIVE, Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the "Cook Political Report," and "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen. Marc, do you see prospect, do you see prospect, optimism in these talks between the Ukrainians and the Russians?
MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Oh, I don't see prospects for peace immediately, no. I think the Russians are pulling back not because they are trying to give the talks a chance to succeed. They are pulling back because they're losing, because the Ukrainians are winning.
Keep in mind, their strategy was to march on Kyiv, decapitate the regime, and install a puppet regime in its place. And they have utterly failed to do that. The problem is our strategy has not caught up with that reality. Everybody has been talking about the nine words in the Biden speech in Warsaw. I'm more concerned about the four words that were missing, "Ukraine wins" and "Russia loses." To this day, five weeks into the war, Joe Biden has never actually said that our objective is to help Ukraine prevail over the Russians. He said our goal is to punish Russia. Our goal is to help Ukraine defend itself. But he never says that our goal is to defeat them.
And the problem is now the Ukrainians have done such a good job that victory is actually a prospect, and we should have a strategy of arming them in order to achieve that victory rather than forcing them to partition their country with Russia in some sort of failed peace talk.
BAIER: Amy, the nine words Marc references talk are obviously President Biden talk about how Vladimir Putin should not remain in power. We have been back and forth with this over the past few days. But there are other mixed messages coming out from the president on a number of fronts. Here is one of them about troops.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are talking about helping train the troops in -- that are -- the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland.
GEN. TOD WOLTERS, SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER EUROPE: I do not believe that we are in the process of currently training military forces from Ukraine in Poland. There are liaisons that are there that are being given advice, and that's different than I think you are referring to with respect to training.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: And they have had White House officials come out and trying to walk back and then de-walk back the walk back. Amy, it's been interesting to watch.
AMY WALTER, NATIONAL EDITOR, "COOK POLITICAL REPORT": Well, it's been a tight rope in part because, look, every interaction with Russia has to be met with the reality that the person that is in charge of this in Putin is not, obviously, not somebody who is going to operate in good faith and is not someone that can be trusted. I agree with Marc that this idea that they are pulling back or pulling out is met with skepticism in part because we know the history of Putin's time in power where he has said, well, it's either a ceasefire, or using the opportunity of a ceasefire to actually regroup and then retaliate.
But I think for the president, look, he is looking also at where American voters are right now. And this is what Americans are saying, is similar to this sort of back and forth here, saying, like Marc, we want to see more done to help the Ukrainians. We want to see more done to hurt Putin. At the same time, we don't want to do something that could risk us going in to war. We don't want to send American troops. We are happy to take more Ukrainian refugees. But we also don't want to find ourselves in Europe in a land war. And that is this -- as I said, this tight rope and this tension that I think is going to be here as long as the fighting continues in Ukraine.
BAIER: Yes. And as this continues, there is a kind of reanalysis about defense spending and what that means in the U.S. Here are two Republicans looking at the budget, saying what's being proposed is not good.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JAMES INHOFE, (R-OK) SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Deterrence failed in Ukraine. We must ensure it does not fail anywhere else. The cost of wars are far greater than the cost of preventing war.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R-KY) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Putin and Xi will sleep more soundly at night if the Biden administration gets its way on defense funding than if Republicans get ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: Harold, we explained earlier a budget is kind of a blueprint but it still needs to go through the process on Capitol Hill. It seems like this is an uphill battle with this one.
HAROLD FORD JR., FORMER TENNESSEE REPRESENTATIVE: Well, first, thanks for having me. Just sort of in response to Senators McConnell and the chairman there, this is an $800 billion proposal. Perhaps they should go up in the spending. But I hope they are focused, all of them are focused on spending the right things. I think the Air Force general, I think that was responding in one of the earlier clips, who said we will do a reassessment after this effort, we should assess the kind of A.I. and cyber needs that we have, the surveillance needs that we have. Perhaps we shouldn't be spending on things that are, frankly, obsolete.
I do think that marc is largely right in what he has shared in terms of this war. I think we both underestimated the Ukrainians, the Russians underestimated them and we underestimated the Ukrainian resolve. And I would rather be on our side of that miscalculation than the Russians.
Two, Vladimir Putin underestimated -- or overestimated the preparedness of his own military and really underestimated how much NATO would remain together. Have there been some flubs here and some, perhaps, things that were said that should not have been said? Of course. But I think that like it is in any war, in any war effort, I remember in 9/11 we made mistakes as we were leading up to things and even in the process of prosecuting.
But I give this administration a lot of high marks. I do think one of the considerations they have to have is after this effort, Marc is right, we should be talking about Ukraine winning, but we should also be thinking about what does it mean for countries that are going to say I want a nuclear weapon to deter the kind of invasion that the Ukrainians have had to endure with Russia? I think these are the kind of things on the mind of many of our policymakers and planners going forward, or should be at least.
BAIER: Marc, quickly, I want to put up this graphic, and this is about taxes, the share of total federal income taxes paid, top one percent, 39 percent, 10 percent, 71 percent, top 50 percent, 97 percent. A lot of people forget this tax structure as proposed. It's going to have a tough time.
THIESSEN: Oh, absolutely. This is not a tax proposal that's intended to get enacted into law. It's designed to energize his dispirited base. Joe Manchin said in December that he is not for attacks on unearned income. Kyrsten Sinema opposed the Build Back Better because of the taxes. So this is not serious legislating.
BAIER: All right, panel, thanks so much.
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