Leslie Marshall: Many students never learned about Tulsa Massacre in school
'Special Report' All-Star panel on importance of Biden visiting Tulsa on the 100th anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre
This is a rush transcript of "Special Report with Bret Baier," June 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre.
We memorialize what happened here in Tulsa so it can't be erased. We know here in this hallowed place we simply can't bury pain and trauma forever.
And at some point, there will be a reckoning, an inflection point, like we're facing right now as a nation. What many people hadn't seen before or simply refused to see cannot be ignored any longer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: Let's bring in our panel, Bill Bennett, former Education Secretary, host of "The Bill Bennett Show," it's a podcast, and Leslie Marshall, Democratic strategist, Juan Williams is a FOX News political analyst, and Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina, who by the way, is launching his new show on FOX this weekend, "Sunday Night in America"
debuts 7:00 p.m. eastern June 6th on the FOX News Channel. It's great to have all of you with us tonight.
Juan, I want to start with you. This is the 100th anniversary of a very painful, brutal event that a lot of people around America have only said in recent years that they have even had an awareness of what happened in Tulsa. How important for the president to be there marking this anniversary, but also rolling out some policy changes, too.
JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it was a signal event to have the president of the United States in Tulsa today for this 100th anniversary, and to speak so clearly about how important it is that we all know what happened, because, as you may be familiar with, Shannon, so much of this history was literally erased not only from police books but from front pages, from state archives. It was intentionally blotted out.
I think a lot times people feel that recounting this history might lead to blame or shame, but it's important, I think, going forward, for us to understand in terms of our history, American history, what an important story this tells. And President Biden, I think, picked up on this today, saying, you look at the system of racism in the country, that we've gone through lynchings and other atrocities, and here you can see that down to this very day you have differences in terms of housing, in terms of entrepreneurship opportunities, who gets supported, who gets capital, in terms of insurance rates. He laid it out in such a way that I thought it was empathetic but also instructional about how we can heal as a country, how we're brothers and sisters and we can go forward. We don't need to blanket over or ignore or erase our history.
BREAM: Bill, it seems to be one of the strongest arguments for keeping our history intact, because some of it is ugly. Some of it we have to learn from and turn from and grow from. It seems that it is the argument for making sure that all these things on the history books stay there because they are part of our story, good and bad.
BILL BENNETT, FORMER EDUCATION SECRETARY: Yes, absolutely. Tell the whole story, truth, whether it's good or bad, warts and all. And that's how we do it. That's how I try to do it in my history books.
But there was an opportunity missed here today. One of the conclusions that came out, at least what I heard, is that this means the enormous role for government. There may be some things government can do, though I think giving money away, government money away by race may raise some serious constitutional problems.
But that aside, let's remember that these entrepreneurs, these businessmen, lawyers, doctors, investors, these black entrepreneurs and professionals living in Greenwood there in Tulsa 100 years ago, did this on their own.
They didn't do it with the government. They did it because they had a strong culture, a culture of home and church and family and personal responsibility, and that needs to be brought into this equation, too.
If we're to see the kind of results that President Biden wants, between the black community and the white community in America, things are to be called on in that community as well, such as responsibility for most of the crime in those communities. The killing of black men in those communities is not done by police officers. The ratio is 40 to one. It's done by other citizens.
And remember, maybe most important, the success sequence, which has been established over and over again for success in America -- finish high school, get a job, do not have children before you get married. So I think there is a burden on everybody to make things better. It's not just primarily government, and that's what Joe Biden is always talking about.
BREAM: And Trey, where do we find that balance with what Democrats and much of the left will say? There are deficits to be made up, there are debts to be repaid, versus, as Bill talks about, taking personal responsibility for the choices that you make in your life and having the ability to move forward?
TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: You know, Shannon, days like today make me so grateful that I had someone in my life, like Tim Scott, and there are others. Tim Scott was an eyewitness to the pain of racism in this country, but he is the first to note the progress that we have made. And he spends most of his time talking about the promise of this country. Yes, there was pain. Yes, there has been progress. Most of all, there is the promise of this country.
But we're going to have to decide when we reach racial fairness by doing what Dr. King says, which is judging people based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin, or government putting its finger on the scale and deciding we're going to make amends by doing thus. And I like Dr. King's way. Judge people in a color-blind society based on the content of their character. That's the promise, I think, of America.
BREAM: And your good friend, Senator Scott, is working together with folks from across the aisle as Senator Cory Booker and Congresswoman Karen Bass, they are trying to hammer out something on police reform. They say those conversations are continuing. It is a complex issue, and they are working on trying to find common ground. But he also is part of a new RNC ad that says this White House is focusing on things that divide Americans instead of bringing them together. Here's a bit of that ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TIM SCOTT, (R-SC): A president who promised to bring us together should not be pushing agendas that tear us apart.
We are not adversaries. We are family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: What about that, and the focus on coming together versus division?
LESLIE MARSHALL, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: First of all, if we're talking about the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, the House did pass it along bipartisan lines, and Senator Scott is pushing from the right to work with the left in the Senate. We know that there is definitely a pause and a delay there with regard to that.
But it's interesting you brought up Senator Tim Scott because he said America is not racist. And actually, President Biden agrees with him.
Here's what the president said, quote, "I don't think America is racist.
But I think the overhang from all of the Jim Crow and, before that, slavery had a cost. We know of the cost in Tulsa." And a lot of people didn't. A lot of people not just in Oklahoma but in other states in this country, their children didn't learn about it 30 plus or even less years ago because it wasn't in the schoolbooks.
It may not be pretty. Warts and all, Bill said, and I would agree with that, but we need to know history. And we need to know that our history has been violent and has been racist. And it doesn't mean that we're bad people. It doesn't mean that our nation is racist. But we can't just say because we elected an African-American, a biracial man, a black man as president, and a woman of color as vice president, on the ticket with Joe Biden, that that is gone, because it clearly isn't.
And I know, I can sit here and say that as a white woman. Juan can certainly speak on this panel to that more so. And even Senator Tim Scott.
But there is definitely still pain in this country. We have seen, whether it's George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, or whether it's individuals who just don't feel that they get the fair opportunity with the same supplies in their school districts, the same opportunity to go to school because of money and the income gap, especially with the inequality and disparity in income in our nation, the opportunity with jobs, or, quite frankly, still the divide along the lines of color. And it's not just along black and white, but often along a rainbow of colors and white. And that needs to change.
BREAM: And I would suspect former Secretary Bill Bennett would say, OK, let's have a conversation about school choice and charter schools. That is not this conversation, but maybe we'll have that one soon.
Panel, stick around. Up next, latest on the pandemic, and Dr. Fauci's new book deal.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: China could provide evidence that would be exculpatory here. They could provide the blood samples from those who worked in the lab in Wuhan. They have refused to do that. They could provide the source strains, some of the original strains. They've refused to do that. Now we have new evidence that lab workers became infected right at the time this virus was believed to be first introduced.
REP. JAMES COMER, (R-KY): At the very least we're going to find out that China was not transparent. We're going to find out that China covered up what they knew. I don't know how you put a price tag on what this has cost our economy, but it's cost our economy trillions and trillions of dollars.
And China is going to have to be held accountable from a monetary standpoint.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BREAM: We're back with our panel now. Trey, I want start with you as a former prosecutor. Are we going to get those answers? Is it possible for us to get our hands on them and find out exactly what happened with the origins of COVID?
GOWDY: Shannon, you're a much better lawyer than I am, but nothing gets better with time in the justice system. Absolutely nothing. I think the heartbreaking part about this is how it reflects the culture that we live in, our friends are never wrong and our enemies are never right. Tom Cotton and John Ratcliffe and others were saying, hey, we should take a look at the origins of this virus, but because they're Republicans, they were panned by the media. I thought that's what science was, look at everything until it is discounted. Now we've come full circle, and it appears that Cotton and John weren't quite as dumb as the media told us they were.
BREAM: And the media has now, we're seeing a number of them, they are going back and they're actually editing headlines that they had written a year ago so that if you went and Googled them now it doesn't look like they're as dismissive. But clearly they were. And Leslie, we're continuing to hear, last week we heard this, it was through the weekend and some of the Sunday shows as well, a number of folks in the mainstream media pointing at the Trump administration saying it's your fault we didn't take it seriously, instead of we didn't investigate it.
MARSHALL: Well, first of all, I understand quite frankly where a lot of people were questioning politicians, whether it be Tom Cotton or former President Trump, because the majority of scientists in the medical community, science community, internationally, not just here and not just Anthony Fauci, they said, you know what, COVID-19's daddy and granddaddy were both animal vector borne viruses, as most are, quite frankly, and that's what they thought. But after testing over 80,000 animals they could not find the link. And quite frankly, speaking of that link, I don't know if we'll ever find the true link to the lab because we know China is not going to let us in. They're not now, and they didn't over a year ago when we sent investigators in. So sadly, we may never know the truth, but I think it was more not believing politicians over scientists at the time.
BREAM: Bill, we don't -- it doesn't seem like we have a different universe of information, not too much than we did a year ago. As Trey said, things break down the further you are away in time from trying to get your hands on evidence. So where are we to attribute this pivot now where there are so many out there saying, OK, the lab leak theory is legit?
BENNETT: The reason for the pivot is that Donald Trump is gone, and it's astounding to me to see how much coverage an ABC journalist got for saying we just have to admit sometimes something Donald Trump said was right. Oh, my God. People are getting the vapors in the newsrooms. Something he said was right, because people wouldn't look at it fairly and they wouldn't look at it objectively.
Let me step into Trey's shoes and your shoes for a second, Shannon.
Preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt -- where do we think this came from? Scott Gottlieb nailed it. They won't allow the blood tests. They won't allow us to talk to the people who were in there. The people who were infected, they wouldn't allow their people to travel inside the country, but they let people travel outside the country. Total stonewall about allowing any evidence or investigation of the source of it.
Next they will be blaming Switzerland and New Zealand. It's ridiculous. We know exactly who is culpable here.
BREAM: So Juan, with that in mind, will this administration make China pay in any substantive way?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that's difficult for what you've heard from the other panelists, Shannon. I don't think China is going to be forthcoming. I think they have a reputation as a repressive authoritarian regime. They don't -- they threaten people who tell the truth. They don't reward them.
That's one of the advantages in the USA, we have lawsuits and whistleblowers. You don't see that in China.
And I think that when you look at this, the important part here for us as Americans is that President Biden has said, let's have a full investigation. He wants it in 90 days. That's important given that pandemics going forward are going to come.
BREAM: We've got to be prepared and we've got to figure out the origins of this one to help fight the future ones as well.
Panel, when we come back, we're going to get tomorrow's headlines from each of you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BREAM: Finally tonight, a pithy look at tomorrow's headlines, as we have four folks sharing tonight. Bill, we'll start with you.
BENNETT: OK, headline, White House, Biden and Harris still baffled why thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands of people of color want to come to a society that is so riven, has had such a terrible history, and still practices racism in many places. Why did they keep coming? Hint, greatest country in the world.
BREAM: Juan, you're up next.
WILLIAMS: Piers Morgan refuses to apologize to tennis star Naomi Osaka.
Piers Morgan the journalist called her a spoiled brat for saying that she didn't want to answer questions from reporters. Of course, she says that she is suffering from depression and anxiety, but Piers Morgan took after her, and he has doubled down. I think that's going to be in the headlines tomorrow, Shannon.
BREAM: He does speak his mind. Trey?
GOWDY: Athletes like Naomi Osaka get fined for avoiding the media while politicians get promoted for avoiding the media.
BREAM: Although you know there are those select few who you cannot get between them and a camera. Not here in D.C. All right, Leslie, close us out.
MARSHALL: OK, headline, Google search goes through the roof as Trump supporters spend so much time looking up "presidential reinstatement."
BREAM: OK. Leslie, very cryptic there. A little wink as well. OK, thank you, panel.
Tomorrow on SPECIAL REPORT, a high school gym teacher sues for reinstatement after suspension for sharing his religious beliefs at a school board meeting.
Thank you for watching SPECIAL REPORT. I'm Shannon Bream in Washington.
Please join me for FOX NEWS AT NIGHT at midnight eastern. We're going to be monitoring the results of that special Congressional election in New Mexico we told you about earlier. But for now, it's time for FOX NEWS PRIMETIME hosted by Ben Domenech. It starts right now.
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