This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," May 28, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We do apply the laws of
the United States. We'll continue to apply the laws of the United States.
And we will do so to maximum effect for the benefit of the American public,
as Congress intended.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The more than a billion dollars will be spent by
the state of Texas where we are going to escalate the war I guess those
coming across our border, because President Biden and his administration
are not getting the job done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: So our lead store from a building illusion along the southern
border. With new video coming out today, really one of the biggest days
were apprehensions their 700 by mid-day, believing that it's more than
1,000 that they've seen just today. And among those, you have two convicted
child sex offenders of 18th Street Gang member, it's an everyday situation
along the border.

Meantime, in our latest polls, you see an uptick in the favorability of
building U.S.-Mexico border wall now from December of 2019. And then on the
job approval, as we mentioned at the top of the show, when it comes to
foreign policy, and immigration, border security and immigration, these are
the items in President Biden's job performance, where he is underwater,
upside down, his overall approval ratings above 50%. But these are the
draws the Achilles heels.

Let's bring in our panel, Bill McGurn columnist for The Wall Street
Journal, Charles Lane, opinion writer for The Washington Post, and Jonah
Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch.

Jonah, you don't see a ton of coverage about the border, other than us and
a few other places, but not a lot. And it seems like it's just increasing.

JONAH GOLDBERG, THE DISPATCH: Yes, look, it is definitely a persistent
problem that is not going away, simply because most of the media and the
Biden administration isn't talking about it. And at some point, you're
going to hit a critical mass where it's going to be unavoidable for the
Biden administration to deal with the problem, because if the problem
persists, at some point, it's going to become too obvious to ignore.

And I think one of the problems the Biden administration has gotten itself
in is that it's too eager to stick to the narratives that, you know, that
they came into office with rather than like bending policy and their
rhetoric to fit the reality on the ground.

BAIER: You know, Chuck, Vice President Harris obviously has said that the
President put her in charge of finding the roots of causes of the problem
at first it was to deal with the border situation specifically, that was
kind of redefined for the medium. She's visited a number of states, none of
them happen to be Border States.

CHARLES LANE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, we'll see what happens. I guess I
don't agree with Jonah in the sense that, you know, typically in the summer
when the temperature spike, the flow of migrants slows down. So just
looking at it in a narrow political sense, I assume the Biden
administration figures that they can get to July, without too much more
blowback, they'll be fine.

But as for the root causes, the root causes are the same as they have been
for the last 30 odd years, which is that life in Central America is
substantially poor and more violent than life in the United States. People
want to leave Central America and try their luck for a better life in the
United States. And we should finally, rationally manage our laws to
facilitate that with the -- in the most humane, and least costly and most
beneficial way for our country.

And one way I've written about that, I think would be a very good idea
would be to extend the legal immigration opportunities for guest workers
from Central America, not just Mexico, so that they can come here to do
seasonal labor, which is what many of them end up doing and then return to
their homes. And then all the other enforcement we do would be on a
stronger, more legitimate footing.

BAIER: Bill?

BILL MCGURN, WALL STREE JOURNAL: Yes, I mean, look, I agree, there are a
lot of different policy solutions, but you can't have a policy solution
when you have an administration that denies there's a problem. Look, as far
as I can see, the Biden approach is See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and dump it
on Kamala who has wisely steered clear of going to the border, why would
you go when they're not doing anything to fix the problem? So what I can
see is, the limited effort is to try to build spaces to accommodate people,
which is a zero sum game, they just can't do it fast enough.

I think they should -- they need to admit they made some mistakes. I mean,
we had these agreements with Central American countries. And I also I
agree, Chuck, this sense, the real solution for all of this is Congress,
and to come to some kind of deal. And that means given take on both sides
to have it. Because what we have now is not a rational system. It's not
designed to facilitate an orderly process. It invites cats (ph). And it's
just one aspect of a lot of our immigration system that's corrupted.

I'll say one last thing about guest workers. I actually agree with Chuck,
but I think it'd be better to open more opportunities for guest workers.
But that's anathema to a lot of people, because they're not really voters.
A lot of people would want to come here work, feed their families and go
home. And I don't see why don't -- why we don't make more opportunities for
that.

BAIER: I mean, this sounds good, Jonah, all of it sounds good. But it also
sounds comprehensive. And when you put that word in front of anything on
Capitol Hill, it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere.

GOLDBERG: Yes, no, I think Bill is exactly right. You know, when people ask
me what my preferred immigration policy is, my standard response is to have
one. But instead, what we have is a bipartisan consensus to tolerate
incoherence and chaos, which fuels further cynicism and distrust on both
sides. Democrats have an agenda about immigration that has a lot to do with
padding voter rolls. Republicans are a hot mess on all sorts of different
ways about all of this. I'm with these guys. I think guest worker programs
do not scare me. I think rationalizing labor markets as labor markets makes
a lot of sense. But no one has the incentive structure in Congress to
address any of this, whether you call it comprehensively or something else
in a sane and rational matter.

BAIER: Yes, we would always seem to be one election away from solving this
big issue. Panel standby, thanks.

Up next, the Friday lightning round the Biden budget vaccine passports,
plus winners and losers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN DEESE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: All of the President's
plant will be fully offset and actually reduce the deficit over the long
term. Because he's pairing very high value investments with tax reforms
that would increase revenue.

REP. BYRON DONALD (R-FL): When you put on this amount of spending in an
economy like we have right now, you're only going to get stagflation,
interest rates are going to have to go up. And so that means our budget
deficits are going to explode. This is reckless. This is not leadership.
This is not the thing that many of these voters who voted for Joe Biden
were actually looking for.

And so, it's incumbent upon Congress to come up with our own budget that
actually makes sense for the American people, not this lunacy coming out of
the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Well, the Biden budget, getting some attention $6 trillion with a
tea. This as we have been looking at the Americans looking at the U.S.
economy that's bouncing back. Optimistic 51% in our latest poll about the
U.S. economy. And you can see where that stands. But the question about the
Biden administrations increasing government spending specifically, when
asked about that too much 47%. And that number, again, about right 33%.

I'm back with the panel. Bill, your thoughts on this budget and where we
are?

MCGURN: Well, I'm generally a person that thinks there's too much of the
government. But you know, the proportions of what Joe Biden are doing in
peacetime are just extraordinary. We have an editorial that just went up at
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__wsj.com&d=DwICAg&c=cnx1hdOQtepEQkpermZGwQ&r=tgDLkJy54PfJyWJwul3dKe54qGxqO7b7d5vjo7RcZds&m=YbNy72ndRks1yxk-EUkJYYp_vbi_8q7Jxg-mlIRd4mo&s=Q3qxCON1IIQiCVshGWdHEnDr4fvkdmR30QYunQpkEjA&e= . But this is an extraordinary development. And when you have number
that high, having skepticism, we haven't paid the full price, in the sense
of its effects, which could be inflation, slowing the economy and so forth.

I think he's treading in dangerous areas on this for a simple reason. I
don't think it's going to work. Does anyone think the government's ability
to get things done like create this Nirvana with their green union jobs,
left and right, you know, no more gasoline and so forth, and no cost to
anyone? Does it anyone really believe that's going to come apart? We
couldn't even get the shovel ready projects the last time around. So the
answer is to greatly an exponentially increase the spending, I don't see
it.

BAIER: Chuck, we should point out that a budget is just a blueprint. It's
not law, and it kind of sends signals where they want to go. It all depends
on what passes Capitol Hill. And we don't know what that's going to be.

LANE: Every year a presidential budget gets announced, and we have
political flap over it. And every year, something else comes out of
Congress, that's totally different. That's going to happen again. Don't
forget that all this big headline number in this plan includes a bunch of
stuff he's already announced, the American Rescue Plan, the American
Families Plan. And that's exactly what they're arguing over on the Hill.
And it's very uncertain. Exactly how much of that will be enacted into law
and how soon and so on and so forth.

I do believe, though, that the President has so clearly laid down a marker
in favor of this large expansion of the government and mind you President
Trump wasn't exactly a deficit cutter himself, that he will, you know, if
indeed, he runs for reelection, that will be one of the major sort of
signature changes in his term that he will be held accountable for whether
it, you know, works out or whether it doesn't.

BAIER: Economic changes, unemployment rate, 6.1%. Pre pandemic, it was at
3.5%, you've got the number of employed Americans at 144 million, meaning
the economy is still missing about a point million and 2 million jobs lost
during the pandemic, Jonah, but it is recovering, it is starting to turn.

GOLDBERG: Yes, look, I think that this is all in some ways, an accident of
history. You have there are a bunch of historians who have a lot to answer
for because they all whispered in Joe Biden's ear, you can be the next FDR,
you can do a new deal. He didn't come into office with that plan. He didn't
think he was going to control the Senate. He thought he's going to have to
negotiate with Mitch McConnell. And then all of a sudden, they have this
window of opportunity.

And so, like almost every president the last 30 years before him, they're
wildly overreaching. And there is a cautionary tale here for Republicans at
the beginning of the Trump administration. There were a lot of Republicans
who said, in effect deficits don't matter. We can do national industrial
policy and all these things. And this proves that at least aspirationally
Republicans can never outbid Democrats when it comes to spending.

BAIER: All right, good point. Quickly lightning winners and losers bill.

MCGURN: My winner is Mike Pompeo. Joe Biden has been forced to admit that
Secretary Pompeo was right to do what he did in investigating China and the
Biden administration after canceling that investigation, is -- has now
revived it. The losers I'd say are Speaker Pelosi and majority -- Senate
Majority Leader Schumer, they didn't get the January 6 commission that they
wanted.

BAIER: All right, Chuck.

LANE: I can't have the mirror image of Bill. My winner of the week is Lisa
Murkowski for calling out some of her fellow Republicans in the Senate the
majority from couldn't vote for this plan for January 6 commission which
came out on a bipartisan vote from the House. And of course, my loser is
everybody who dismissed the theory that the virus might have come out of a
lab in Wuhan. And that's a lot of people. They know who they are, but they
really have some soul searching to do.

BAIER: That is a lot of people. Jonah,

GOLDBERG: OK, my winners, I won't list them all are the four Democratic
representatives who denounce the anti-Semitism on the progressive wing of
the Democratic Party, they finally spoke up, they could do more. And my
loser is John Cena, the supposed a tough guy who basically became a cow
telling lickspittle to the Chinese Communist Party.

BAIER: In Mandarin, no less. Panel, thank you so much. Have a great holiday
weekend.

When we come back, Notable Quotables.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: (INAUDIBLE) tonight, it's Friday. You know what that means? Notable
Quotables

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: the Chinese Communist Party knows what happened here.
They know who patient zero was.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Any gain of function research should not be funded
in China with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A (INAUDIBLE) at 12:00 last night. She said this is the
day that our brother is left the Earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) with some gunshots. Excuse (INAUDIBLE)
gunshots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats literally led by the liberal elite have made a
bad calculation and it's costing lives.

NEWSOM: What the hell is going on in the United States of America? The
hell's wrong with us. And when are we going to come to grips with this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like the price is wrong -- but the prices right, but now
the prices wrong because the wrong things are happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $8.2 trillion, all right. Thank you. That's it. I'm done
with (INAUDIBLE).

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Hollywood is deep in China's pocket. When was the
last time you saw a Chinese bad guy in a movie unlike say the Soviets.

MAYORKAS: Because the border is closed. And this administration administers
and enforces the laws of the United States of America.

PAUL: Our quayle more sexually promiscuous on cocaine. I think we could
have polled the audience.

MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Am I going to be in the break? I may have the
same block out of this or?

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Do bring them home and a little jar or her or
cicadas male and female I don't even know.

RAJU: Oh, my God.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAIER: Oh Manu Raju, that was tough. One week Monday on special report
veteran's advocates and VA team up on Memorial Day weekend to provide
reunions for Afghanistan vets whose units have been hit hard by suicide.

Sunday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins guest host Shannon
Bream on Fox News Sunday along with West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore
Capito. And remember, Monday. It's great to get together but it's really a
day about remembering those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our
country.

Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for this Special
Report, fair, balanced, still unafraid. Fox News Primetime hosted by
Lawrence Jones starts right now. Lawrence.

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