Zelenskyy is 'modern-day Churchill': Thiessen
'Special Report' All-Star Panel reacts to Zelenskyy's plea before Congress and debates American interests in defending Ukraine.
This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," March 16, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't need them just to lose more slowly. We need them to win.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More missiles, more armaments, they need everything.
REP. GREGORY MEEKS, (D-NY) HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: This is about the time for unity and listening to the plea of President Zelenskyy.
REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, (R-TX) HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: The video we saw was very reminiscent of Nazi Germany. I never thought I would see this happen in my lifetime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BAIER: With that, let's bring in our panel, FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Kimberley Strassel, a member of the editorial board at "The Wall Street Journal," and "Washington Post" columnist Marc Thiessen. Brit, your thoughts on the president's address and reaction to it?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I'll say this for President Zelenskyy, his soldiers are doing a pretty good job on the battlefield, but he and his government are absolutely killing it on the information and propaganda front. And today was just the most exquisite example of it. Here you had the entire U.S. Congress and a nationwide television audience watching him make this appeal, and then coupling it with this very emotionally stirring video of what is going on over there. And this is powerful stuff. And you could hear it in the voices of the soundbites you just played beforehand how strong the reaction was.
The danger, of course, is that we make an emotional response to this. And I think that's something that needs to be thought about. Before we go any further than we have gone, we need a hardheaded look at just what are the U.S. national security interests in Ukraine? That's a question that I don't hear asked very often, but it needs to be. Maybe it is inside counsels of the Biden administration. But the world is sympathetic to this country.
BAIER: Right.
HUME: But it probably needs to be more than just a technicality that it's not a member of NATO.
BAIER: Kimberley, that is the question, years from now whether we'll look back and say we did not act to save these people on the ground as they were being slaughtered fast enough, or enough with the U.S. help, or too we look back years from now and say we were drawn in emotionally by this moment and we acted too fast, too much?
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": I think that was certainly Zelenskyy's argument today was that we haven't moved fast enough. And I think that that is the view of many people in Congress who continue to grow their pressure on the administration to finally do something and do something more, because, look, it was great that the president acknowledged and sent another $800 million in aid today, but it's more of the same.
And the fundamental of Zelenskyy's address is that that is not enough. What we need is different. We need these medium range surface-to-air missile systems. We need to be able to protect our skies. Of course, he asked forever a no-fly zone. People have largely not continued to change their mind on that. That's not going to happen. But he offered alternatives. And his argument was you have to give me more if you want to give me a shot at actually winning this thing.
BAIER: "Washington Examiner," Marc, says the Kremlin is suggesting a Swedish style neutrality presented as compromise in negotiations. The compromise would mean that Ukraine have its army but maintain a level of neutrality like Sweden by not attaching itself to any military alliances, including NATO," which, by the way, Sweden now wants to join NATO, Marc.
(LAUGHTER)
MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": I think just as I were trust President Zelenskyy to decide what is in his country's best interest, I also would trust him to decide what kind of weapons his country needs. President Biden keeps saying he doesn't need the MiG fighters. They are not that effective. The stingers are much more effective. Well then, if they're more effective, then why are they less provocative? It doesn't make any sense. So I think we should be listening to President Zelenskyy about what he says.
And I'll tell you, the most interesting and overlooked words in his speech today were members of Congress, please take the lead. He understands where the momentum in Washington for helping Ukraine is. At every step of the way Biden has been dragged into doing more. He was opposed to the oil ban until Congress started pushing legislation on the oil ban. He was opposed to removing Russia's most favored nation trading status until Congress started moving. He was opposed to a lot of the weapons that are in the package that he signed into law today until Congress moved. So I think Congress is going to have to take the lead and push the Biden administration to do more for President Zelenskyy.
BAIER: Marc, just quickly, as a former speechwriter, you look at Zelenskyy, to Brit's point, about how he has addressed these world bodies, Parliament, the House of Commons, the Canadian parliament, Congress today, using personalized, in each instance, efforts to draw these folks in. He talked about 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, he used the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. He said I have a dream, I have a need, when he was making a pitch for weapons. He talked about Churchill and Shakespeare with the House of Commons. What about this from a speechwriting perspective?
THIESSEN: He's brilliant. He is the modern-day Churchill in both in terms of his courage and his tenacity and also in his eloquence. And imagine the effectiveness Churchill would have had if he had Zoom, if he could have gone across the world and made his appeals on and spoken to three parliaments in a week. This is a guy who is taking Churchillian eloquence and combining it with 21st century technology to rally the world in the cause of freedom.
BAIER: Brit, is the Biden administration not being that eloquent with what it is doing, or is it saying too much about what it is doing?
HUME: No, the problem I have with the president is, compared to Zelenskyy, neither he, Biden, nor anybody else in the west looks like that much of a leader because Zelenskyy has painted a picture of what a hero is supposed to look like. A lot of it is theatrics, I get that, but there he is still in Kyiv with the bombs raining down. So you can't deny him that.
But I would say that about our discussion here tonight, Bret. We still have to address the question of how much of a national security interest do we really have in what happens in Ukraine? Obviously, we are sympathetic. We are seeing they are being attacked by a bullying larger power. We're all rooting for them. But how much risk are we willing to take on in furtherance of that when nobody can really identify a major national security interest that we have there.
BAIER: Yes. And that's the balance.
THIESSEN: I can.
BAIER: Go ahead, Marc. Really quickly.
STRASSEL: I can.
(LAUGHTER)
THIESSEN: Just number one, if we don't defend Ukraine, then Taiwan is next. The lesson people can gobble up other countries is going to spread across the world. Nuclear nonproliferation is over. Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. It was the third largest nuclear power in the world. They gave it up in exchange for security guarantees, and now if we don't defend them, it will be over.
BAIER: All right, Kimberley. And by the way, not just Taiwan, Poland other portions of the former eastern European block, because let's be clear, Putin will not be happy until he has reestablished the old Soviet Union. That is why he's making these first moves.
HUME: But Kimberley, we are all in to defend NATO. That policy is set in stone and it's a treaty obligation.
STRASSEL: Hopefully.
BAIER: That's right. There it is, the balance. Panel, as always, thank you.
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