Will the definition of 'fully vaxxed' change?
'Special Report' panel discuss vaccine rules and messaging
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on December 9, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What's most important for people to know out there and to understand is the reason why the president proposed these requirements, which include not just a vaccine requirement, but also a testing option, testing once a week, which we feel, and I think the American people feel is quite reasonable.
SEN. JOHN BARRASSO, (R-WY): I'm a doctor, I am pro-vaccine, but I'm anti- mandate. And that's because I believe the mandate is a massive overreach.
SEN. ROGER MARSHALL, (R-KS): The people that thus far have not gotten, have not received the vaccine are not going to do it until this White House acknowledges natural immunity.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
BAIER: There is a pushback about the vaccine mandate. The pushback is not only from Republicans but it's from Democrats. It's also from federal judges in a number of different districts around the country.
Let's bring in our panel, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, Katie Pavlich, news editor at Townhall.com, and Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. Jeff, is this White House, do you think, surprised by the pushback and how fierce it's been?
JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "REUTERS": Well, Bret, I think what they have been surprised about broadly is the lack of -- or is vaccine hesitancy. And that was the reason for the mandate in the first place.
President Biden has said before that his initial inclination was not to go with mandates, and he changed course this fall as a -- basically as a strategic decision to use a stick in addition to that carrot. Yes, now it's getting pushback for sure, and that is a ken dent in his strategy. But the overall point of that was to increase vaccination rates.
BAIER: Yes. Ari, there are a couple moves that are questionable as the administration lays out this pandemic policy, this most recent travel shut down from South African countries. And we really didn't have a sense of what Omicron was about. Now it looks less severe, maybe more contagious.
What about this?
ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think President Biden has put himself and his administration in a position of don't just stand there, make some noise. He has to do things like that even if they're not warranted because of the campaign promise he made that he wouldn't shut down the economy, he would shut down the virus. It was one of the most irresponsible promises, overpromises, unrealistic promises anybody could every make. Moderate, reasonable, experienced Joe Biden should have known better and never made such a promise, because now he's stuck. There is virtually nothing he can do that is going to work anymore.
And the mandates have become the crux of the matter, isn't it? He never should have mandated mandates. He shed he would oppose them, then he went for them. And when there is this much resistance, you have to be realistic.
You cannot shove this down the throats of the American people. If he were to try, it would be another lockdown, particularly in the transportation sector and many other industries where many people are resisting the vaccine. The government has to be realistic, and Joe Biden has not been.
BAIER: Then there is the question about what does fully vaccinated now mean, and will that change? Take a listen, Katie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT REDFIELD, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: Natural immunity from this infection is limited into a short-term maybe, four or six months. But so is vaccine- induced immunity. So based on the vaccines that we have available today, we should anticipate that you will have to be vaccinated every probably six months or so.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: Optimal protection is going to be with a third shot. Whether or not it officially gets changed in the definition, I think that's going to be considered literally on a daily basis. It's going to be a matter of when, not if.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: So there are a number of things, Katie, that have been moving targets, and that may be one of them.
KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think that's why the Biden administration is losing steam when it comes to a lot of their strategy on the pandemic, because they have never, from the beginning, been honest about this is really just a moving target. And they have only offered sticks and not very many carrots.
And when it comes to the vaccine mandates failing over and over again in court, if you look at the opinions and read the opinions from the judges, many of them, the thread that is similar in the rulings is that Congress did not authorize the executive branch, not to mention the president, to initiate and implement this kind of mandate.
So, on the communications front, the White House through the press briefings continues to say and encourage H.R. departments to implement the mandate. Yet, OSHA stopped the implementation of it and wrote right on their website, so they have stopped it as a result of these lawsuits.
And now you have Congress and Democrats voting with Republicans in the Senate because they are starting to realize the practical implications of this mandate, and it's affecting their constituents. They are getting phone calls about it. And yet the administration continues to move forward as if the courts haven't spoken, and now as if Congress hasn't spoken either.
BAIER: Jeff, is there concern about how this is affecting the economy inside the White House, and do you see that linkage between the two?
MASON: Well, I think both economically and politically, the two top priorities for President Biden's White House are fighting the pandemic and getting the economy back on track. And they are absolutely linked. Every time there's an outbreak, every time there's a new variant, as we are seeing right now with Omicron, that throws doubt over the strength of the economic recovery not only in this country but worldwide.
So absolutely they are linked, and I think the White House sees them as linked. And it's also why I use the word "politically" because it's impacting his poll numbers as well. There is no question that the fact that Americans are still concerned deeply about the COVID pandemic, that that is
-- that they are taking that out on the current occupant of the White House.
BAIER: Quickly, Ari, is this going to be something that we just come to grips with, that COVID-19 is going to be with us?
FLEISCHER: I think most Americans have come to grips with this. It's the government that hasn't. I think most Americans realize that unless you have a comorbidity, it's not a deadly illness. It's now become for many people like the flu. And if you get it, you get it, and you get over it. And I think people are living their lives.
What people don't like is being forced to wear masks, being told what to do, the threats that you can't get on an airplane potentially unless you are vaccinated. I think these are the things that are driving people crazy as the American people have settled in to have to live with COVID.
MASON: It's important to remind us in that context --
BAIER: Yes, go ahead, Jeff.
MASON: -- almost 800,000 people have died. So --
BAIER: No, that's true.
MASON: I will leave it at that.
FLEISCHER: True, but if you shut down the economy and make bad decisions, it's worse.
BAIER: A lot of people have died because of this, but as time goes on, and vaccines are up above 60 percent in the country, at what point are we going to be dealing with this for the long term?
OK, panel, thanks so much. When we come back, a brand new Christmas tree lights up FOX Square.
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