Trump doubles down on tough border stance

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Trump doubles down on tough border stance

President Trump defends use of tear gas on migrants at border, threatens to permanently close southern border; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," November 26, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. BEN CARDIN, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Here We look at children being subjected to teargas. That is the United States causing that. That's outrageous.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That they had to use because they were being rushed by some very tough people, and they used tear gas.  And here's the bottom line. Nobody is coming into our country unless they come in legally.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: They should be able to come in and seek asylum. That's the law.

RODNEY SCOTT, SAN DIEGO SECTOR BORDER PATROL: It they were truly asylum seekers they would've just walked up with her hands up and surrendered, and that did not take place.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Well, what is the situation on the border? What's next here? The president tweeting "Mexico should move the flag-waving migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it any way you want, but they are not coming into the USA. We will close the border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the wall!"

That's the background. We bring in the panel: Chris Stirewalt is politics editor here at Fox News; Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, and Charles Lane, opinion writer for The Washington Post. OK, Mollie, listen, the White House senior officials saying that this was very predictable. In fact, the president predicted that this would happen, this confrontation along the border after the confrontations with this caravan in Mexico and Guatemala. What about this over the weekend and where we go?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, THE FEDERALIST: It does seem like this is turning out to be an even bigger story than we thought it was going to be around the election when people were talking about it. I think a lot of people thought it was just being talked about for political gain. While we have this problem here, this is not the only caravan that will come, and we really do not have a good way of handling problems at the border. We have asylum laws that are clearly being exploited, and we don't have a political class that seems to care enough about what to do about it.

BAIER: Chris?

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICAL EDITOR: Just as Democrats are not able to see how, just to Mollie's point, validates what the president was talking about. Yes, the president was fearmongering and exploiting the caravan during the election, because that's what politicians do during elections. But the fact that they can't see how this vindicates part of it is part of their blindness on the issue. But for Republicans, their blindness is this -- it is not a good look to have teargas canisters flying and women and children running away. There has to be a better solution.

BAIER: True. To that point, senior aides at the White House say nonlethal teargas, Border Patrol said they used it, they deployed it, much like they did in 2013 under the Obama administration, and no one was injured because of the actions of the Border Patrol. That's what they say. Chuck?

CHARLES LANE, WASHINGTON POST: Look, in all of these cases, the vivid images on television obviously are just the tip of an iceberg of a much more complex reality, and I think everyone is rushing to judgment based on the images on television. If you are Ben Cardin, as he was doing there, it's the image of the family being teargassed. If you are the president, it is the images of these immigrants, some of them throwing rocks. I saw that video, too.

The truth of the matter in a way everybody has got a little bit of the truth. It's true that our asylum laws create a perverse incentive for people to come to the border thinking that they are going to be able to get across and then claim asylum and stay here for years. It's also true that there are people with legitimate asylum claims who are being turned away now because of the chaos.

And to Chris's point, in an ideal world we would have Democrats and Republicans capable of legislating something permanent, but instead both of them are busy exploiting this for political again. And it is very sad, because all these people, these thousands of people who are very poor at the border have been led to believe that they are headed towards the land of opportunity, and instead they are stuck here in this crisis.

BAIER: There's a lot of things that Congress could do legislatively on the big picture on a number of different parts of immigration policy. But even, Mollie, in a lame duck Congress, the White House is saying they could change the situation with treating Central American migrants the same as Mexican migrants, instead of having it treated differently, that you have to accept them. They handling of families at the border and how you've dealt with out of legislatively. And also raising the asylum standard beyond what the executive order does, which is port of entry, but raise the asylum standard so that it's uniform across the border.

HEMINGWAY: Yes, and it would be wonderful of them to take advantage of that opportunity now or to have it be a more bipartisan thing in the coming Congress where Democrats control the House and Republicans control the Senate.

This is clearly, like the way that the laws were set up, things are clearly different than what we thought at the time. These are people who have been offered asylum in the countries that they have traveled to on their way to the U.S. border, so the idea that this is just a group of people that are in need of asylum to flee their home country is not an accurate portrayal of what is happening since they have already declined asylum in other countries. And it is clear that something needs to be done. And the constitution does say this is to be handled by Congress, and they have completely abdicated their responsibility.

LANE: I just want to mention here that the role of Mexico going forward is going to be very pivotal. Our paper has reported that there are talks going on between the Trump administration and the incoming Mexican administration --

BAIER: I talked to someone today that said that very thing.

LANE: Right. And frankly there's a community of interest developing between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico is not happy about the irregular flow of people in large numbers through the country. You had the tape of the people in Tijuana who are not happy about the large numbers camped out, the trouble and diversion of resources that come along with that. One way to skin this cat would be to set up an asylum procedure whereby the people wait in Mexico and are given an asylum here and there, but that would require resources from the U.S. side. That would require the money and the trained personnel to process them.

BAIER: They are saying that those conversations are positive. That are in the middle, Mexico is, of transitioning from one administration to another, and that is a tough time when you are dealing with two different people leading the country.

STIREWALT: But Obrador has a window of opportunity here. He is coming in. He's very popular. He's got a mandate. He takes office on Saturday. This is a time where Mexico could really bail us out, but we, to Chuck's point, have to sweeten it. The United States has to make this very attractive for Mexico. But if we do, they could get us out of this jam.

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