'Special Report' All-Star Panel on growing pressure on Biden admin to remedy issues

This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier" on October 15, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  To folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States/Mexico border, do not come. 

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE:  I'm responsible for the decisions that I make. I'm responsible for the actions of State Department. We made the right decision in ending America's longest war. 

JENNIFER GRANHOLM, ENERGY SECRETARY:  We don't own our own gas supply or oil supply. And so the market is what the market is. Presidents don't control the cost of gasoline. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why aren't school employees, public school employees, going back to work? 

MARTY WALSH, LABOR SECRETARY:  I don't have an answer for you. If I had that answer I would be given it all day today. 

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY:  Are we addressing the Twitter habits? It is not a top priority. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER:  That's just a taste of what the administration has been dealing with on a host of different fronts. As you take a look at this graphic here, you can see each one of the members of the administration, from the White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain with the "high class problems" tweets, Vice President Harris and the border crisis, Secretary of State on the Afghanistan testimony and the situation, the attorney general about the parents as domestic terrorists, the labor secretary, you just saw the labor shortage. We heard from Secretary Buttigieg, the transportation secretary on the supply chain issues, the secretary of energy on the gas prices, the secretary of Department of Homeland Security on the border disaster and the crisis there, and the secretary of education dealing with Critical Race Theory and other questions. It's a lot. 

Let's bring in our panel, Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at "The Federalist," also author of the new book "Rigged, How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized our Elections," Juan Williams is a FOX News analyst, and Morgan Ortagus, former State Department spokesperson.

When you put it in that frame Morgan, and you were in administration, and sometimes you had bad weeks or a couple of bad weeks, but each one of those is a significant issue that this administration is dealing with. 

MORGAN ORTAGUS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON:  Yes, at some point, though, you have to get out of the bubble. And this administration has not yet been able to get out of the bubble. And it really, I think, is endemic of a crisis of leadership, right? Really if you ask the American people who's in charge, right, they don't see Joe Biden as being a leader if you look at all of the polling. And they don't see the vice president either standing up and leading on the positions that she said she was going to. 

And if you look at poll after poll, like Quinnipiac, for example, just 25 percent of Americans are approving of how the president is handling the border. And then you check out at the grocery store and your groceries are a lot more expensive than they were a year ago or six months ago. So I don't think it's one thing. It's everything that you laid out at the beginning. 

And the White House and this administration needs to get themselves out of the bubble and realize it's not the commentators on other news channels that determine whether they get reelected or whether they're doing a good job. They answer to the American people. The American people are hurting. 

They're having a hard time filling up their gas tank. They're worried about inflation. They're worried about the price of groceries. And they know that there is a border situation that this administration really has no honest intention of solving anytime soon. 

BAIER:  Juan, Secretary Buttigieg earlier, I was talking about this infrastructure bill, the bipartisan one that is up there. Speaker Pelosi has not put it for a vote. Moderates would like her to. Take a listen. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER:  Why not move the infrastructure bill, that has that in it, that the House hasn't voted on? Because the other bill is still being negotiated and debated between Democrats? 

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY:  We'll for both of those bills. 

I'm the transportation secretary. I'm also a new father, and I believe that the president's overall vision of making sure that this is a country where it's affordable to raise a family, and making sure that we're supporting Americans with healthcare, and making sure that we deliver on these infrastructure needs, all of these things fit together. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER:  Juan, I went at it about three different times. They don't need Republicans to pass these things. They could put it on and take the bird in hand, take the win, take the w, and the secretary of transportation could have better bridges and ports and airports. 

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST:  True. I think it's very important here to say, Republicans aren't being supportive. They were supportive on the infrastructure bill but not on the social infrastructure bill that's pending. So you have a division among Democrats, and you have one segment of the Democrats using that bill as leverage to make sure that they get the social infrastructure that they want. 

BAIER:  Yes, but Juan, you don't need Republicans right? Reconciliation, you could pass the whole thing. You don't need them. 

WILLIAMS:  That's why I said right now you have divisions among the Democrats, Bret. And what they want to do is use one part, the part that's already sitting there, passed by a bipartisan group in the Senate, as leverage to ensure that they get that social safety net or social infrastructure part passed. 

I just wanted to add quickly, though, that I think a lot of this kind of carping at the Biden administration ignores -- this week we had such good news, the lowest number of unemployment claims since the pandemic began. 

GDP at six percent. I think that's the highest in like 40 years. The stock market right now, it's at near record high, it's hit records 50 times already this year. I think the American people are aware of supply chain backups, but they're also aware of the pandemic, and a lot of that's global. It's not caused by anything that we as Americans or Joe Biden is doing.

BAIER:  There are some good signs that you mentioned there, but the unemployment number, there's a lot of people out of the work force on that one. 

Gallup, Mollie, the question was, government, is it doing too much? 

Preferences for government activity, doing too much or should do more, and you look at these numbers. Doing too much is now leading exponentially from year over year. And at the same time, Democrats are pushing these trillion dollars bills up on the Hill. 

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, "THE FEDERALIST":  I think one of the big disconnects is people know that the federal government is wanting to do a lot of things, and what they're doing is failing at a lot of things. You look at all of these issues that you brought up at the beginning, whether it's the debacle of the incompetence of how we existed Afghanistan, a completely open border as a result of the policies of the Biden administration. And then when you want to have a frank and open talk about what everybody in the country realizes is a suffering economy, you have a transportation secretary who sits there and tries to say that, actually, the economy is doing quite well, whereas normal Americans know that that's not the case and that the federal government, ostensibly in charge of some of these things, is doing a bad job of managing supply chains or other issues that are leading to empty shelves, skyrocketing prices. 

And they don't seem to be taking it seriously. And the less they take it seriously, and it's not just Biden but all of these cabinet officials, the less they take it seriously, the more anxiety it gives average Americans because they realize they're not taking it seriously. 

BAIER:  We're going to have to drop Winners and Losers because just a few second ago President Biden was walking into the residence and he was asked about the investigation into January 6th up on Capitol Hill, and he said that the Justice Department should prosecute those who refuse to testify. 

And, again, there are a number of people who have already signaled that, like Steve Bannon not testifying. He's saying, the president, that they should be prosecuted by the DOJ. 

Panel, thanks so much. Had to cut it a little short. Have a great weekend. 

When we come back, "Notable Quotables."

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