The politics of President Trump and Nancy Pelosi's feud
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," May 23, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALIF., HOUSE SPEAKER: There's no question, the White House is just crying out for impeachment. That's why he flipped yesterday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: I don't think anybody wants to be impeached. And I just don't know what she's going to do with USMCA.
Whether or not Pelosi understands it or whether -- I don't think she's capable right now if understanding it. I think she's got a lot of problems.
PELOSI: Another temper tantrum, I pray for the president of the United States. I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}TRUMP: A very nasty type statement, but I will say this. She said I walked into the room right next door yesterday and walked in and started screaming and yelling. Just the opposite.
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BRET BAIER, HOST: The president responding to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as this back-and-forth from Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill continues. The House Speaker tweeting after that appearance by the president today, "When the "extremely stable genius" starts acting more presidential, I will be happy to work with him on infrastructure, trade, and other issues." Earlier the president had tweeted "The Democrats have become known as the do- nothing party! When the Democrats refinish for the fifth time their fake work on their very disappointing Mueller finding, they will have real time to get the real work of people done. Move quickly!"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With that, let's bring in our panel, start there. Byron York is chief political correspondent of the "Washington Examiner," Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for "Reuters," and Matthew Continetti, editor in chief of the "Washington Free Beacon."
Jeff, you were in the room as the president pushed back on Pelosi. What is your sense on whether this really is a stopping point between their interaction?
JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: I think it is, and one reason I think that is, up until now the president has actually tried to be very respectful of Nancy Pelosi. He has not given her, or hadn't given her a nickname, hadn't been supercritical of her in public or on Twitter. And today she said she lost it and suggested that she wasn't capable of understanding a trade deal. So I think that that represents a shift for him and a shift for that relationship.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: Here is the Speaker on impeachment and also Senator Graham's reaction.
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PELOSI: You want to believe that there's all this unease in our caucus. That simply isn't the truth. We have respect for the diversity of opinion in our caucus. And I say to the caucus, our diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power. The House Democratic Caucus is not on a path to impeachment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: I don't buy that. She's either delusional or misrepresenting where her caucus really is. Speaker Pelosi is trying to hide what I think is obvious, that the Democratic Party is hellbent on impeaching President Trump no matter what the evidence is and no matter what he does.
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BAIER: Byron?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BRYON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I think a lot of the back-and-forth between them actually is theater. I think that they are playing for their bases. The Democratic base wants to see Nancy Pelosi stand up to President Trump, and the Republican base wants to see President Trump stand up to Nancy Pelosi.
But I do think that there are forces that could be driving them toward impeachment. The Democrats seem to have settled on this idea that the president is involved in a cover-up, they have subpoenas out there. If this goes on and goes to court, somebody is going to have to give. If you look back to the Nixon case in 1974, indictments of Watergate conspirators, the prosecutors said to Nixon turn over the tapes. He said no, executive privilege. It went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said the privilege has to yield to the needs of this inquiry. And I think there are going to be Democrats who said if we are going to be serious about this, we have to happen impeachment inquiry.
BAIER: Occasionally we get to look back at our late colleague Charles Krauthammer and some of the things he said, one of them in 2017 looking ahead to this very issue.
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CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: You've got a political establishment, mostly Democratic, but there are some Republicans who would like to see him taken out of office. I think that would be a catastrophic mistake. It would cause a rupture in the country where people would say when we people, the ones who have been abandoned, elect somebody we like, our guy gets taken out? I thought we had a stable democracy. If you think a man is unfit, you vote against him, but you don't remove him from office.
That's why I think we are really headed into very choppy and dangerous Constitutional waters.
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BAIER: There you go.
MATTHEW CONTINETTI, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "WASHINGTON FREE BEACON": As usual, Charles was absolutely correct. Pelosi's big problem here is the polls, and the polls continue to show that the public opposes impeachment. In fact, a recent study on Real Clear Politics today showed that the public interest in impeachment is dropping off at the very time that the Democrats on Capitol Hill are ramping up their calls to impeach President Trump. This is an unpopular objective among the wide variety of Americans, and Pelosi knows that. And so her big problem, once these court cases are resolved, is she's going to have to make a decision, whether she goes with her caucus or she goes with her gut, which is telling her that impeachment would be a terrible mistake.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: Let's turn to the farmer relief the president announced in the Roosevelt Room earlier.
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TRUMP: I have directed Secretary Perdue to provide $16 billion in assistance to America's farmers and ranchers. It all comes from China. This support for farmers will be paid for by the billions of dollars our Treasury takes him. We'll be taking in, depending on what period of time we are talking, many billions of dollars.
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BAIER: So the $16 billion, if you look at the stats, adds to the $12 billion previously, this $16 billion, fourteen-and-a-half in direct payments to producers on a by county by county basis to be determined how much they are suffering from the tariffs imposed by China, $1.4 billion to purchase surplus food commodities from farmers and distribute them to schools and foodbanks, and $100 million to try to find and develop new export markets overseas. Jeff, we had the Agriculture Secretary on earlier. It's a little tangential to say China is paying for this $16 billion bailout.
MASON: An economist would tell you plainly that that's not true.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: It's kind of like Mexico is paying for the wall.
MASON: Correct. Now, is it true that the Treasury is getting a lot more money from tariffs? Yes. But where is it coming from? It's coming from companies that are being penalized by those tariffs, and those companies are American companies. That's something that even Larry Kudlow has made clear was the case. The president doesn't like to talk about that, and he has also said that companies who are suffering from tariffs should just move their production to the United States. But be that as it may as argument, the truth is that tariffs are hurting Americans, companies, and farmers in particular, and that's why they are taking this action today.
BAIER: Byron?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}YORK: I think the fact they are doing these subsidies is an indication, an admission, that yes, of course it is hurting some American farmers. There's just no doubt about that. The president has stressed, though, that the need to stand up to China is so important that the farmers understand this and support him on this. And there actually is support as well on Capitol Hill for some of this because in the case of China, not tariffs on anybody else, but on China, there is some support for this because of the egregiousness of Chinese behavior over the last decades.
BAIER: One thing raised some eyebrows in what the president said today, and that was Huawei, and the company, as has been described as a national security threat by many, including the Secretary of State.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: The decision that was made to list Huawei had an enormous national security component to it. The company is deeply tied not only to China but to the Chinese Communist Party. And that connectivity, the existence of those connections, puts American information that crosses the networks at risk.
TRUMP: Huawei is something that's very dangerous. You look at what they have done from a security standpoint, from a military standpoint, it's very dangerous. So it's possible that Huawei even would be included in some kind of a trade deal.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: Possibly in the trade deal. You talk about the national security threat and then maybe throw it in at the end to try to get the deal across the finish line?
CONTINETTI: When you spoke to the Chinese ambassador earlier this week, he called Huawei just a normal company. If that's the case and Huawei is a normal company, then the problem is worse than we thought.
BAIER: Yes. There does not seem to be a lot of optimism that this is resolving any time soon.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MASON: It does not, although I think the fact that the president said that today was a clear signal that he's trying to say to President Xi that I'm still able to negotiate. I want to help if you can come somewhere along the lines of where we're asking you to on trade. But China hasn't been, and that's the reason that they're pretty much at a standstill.
BAIER: Chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago soon?
YORK: This just shows you how different things are than just a few weeks ago. There was this idea that there were very close and they were crossing their t's and dotting their i's, and then it just blew up.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BAIER: Yes. Panel, thank you. When we come back, a really good deed by some of North Carolina's finest.
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BAIER: Finally tonight, some heroes go beyond the call of duty. A group of firefighters in Concord, North Carolina, dropped what they were doing, started mowing 78-year-old Pat Lee's lawn after they noticed her struggling in the heat. These firefighters were conducting a routine check on hydrants nearby at the time. In an hour, they mowed Lee's entire lawn, they trimmed the bushes and even stopped to have a nice chat with her. Firefighters helping out, great story.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That's it for the “Special Report,” fair, balanced, and unafraid. "The Story" hosted by Martha MacCallum starts right now.
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