This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," January 14, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't know if we're closer to the deal. This should be the easiest deal that I've ever seen. We are talking about border security. Who could be against it?

SEN. TIM KAINE, D-VA.: What we don't want to do is waste taxpayer money on a vanity project that's ineffective.

SEN. MARK WARNER, D-VA.: Border security ought to be driven by the experts, not by the political whims of a campaign promise where Trump said the wall was going to be built and was going to be paid form by Mexico.

TRUMP: It is common sense. What we are talking about is common sense.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: That is where we are. We'll start with the partial government shutdown, day 24, longest ever in U.S. history. The president tweeting out today, "I've been waiting all weekend. Democrats must get to work now. Border must be secured. Nancy and crying Chuck can end the shutdown in 15 minutes. At this point it has become their, and the Democrats, fault."

At home, a lot of people polled don't think that way, at least according to ABC/Washington Post poll. Trump and Republicans responsible for the shutdown, 53 percent, Democrats, 29 percent. There you see both equally at 13 percent.

That is where we will start with the panel. Let's bring the men: Chris Stirewalt, politics editor here at Fox News; Mo Elleithee, executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics; and Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist.

OK, Mo, you heard Tim Kaine and Mark Warner putting the onus on not spending taxpayer money for something that doesn't work on the border. Could Democrats get to a place that says here's this lump of money to the border patrol, you decide what to do with it as far as security?

MO ELLEITHEE, GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS: I think Democrats have been pretty clear so far that they are not going going to play with these federal workers at the negotiating trick. They want the government opened and then they will talk about it. The Democrats have been clear that they want a holistic approach to border security, a holistic approach to immigration reform, but they don't want to leave these federal workers in the lurch. And so far at least in the PR wars, the American people are siding with them on this.

BAIER: Ben?

BEN DOMENECH, THE FEDERALIST: I think this question about who is to blame for the shutdown is the wrong question to be asking. It's the question that D.C. is asking. You listen to that comment from Tim Kaine about the money. This is not about the money. This is about sending a message a message in this case by the president to his base that, yes, I am after two years of not dealing with this promise, the biggest promise that I made going to deal with this, and the message from Democratic leadership to their base that they're going to show up in Washington and have their first act be to bend over to this president on his signature issue.

I think the president needs to lean more into the argument about what the Democrats position really is, which is that they believe this wall is immoral because they now believe that borders are immoral, or at least a significant portion of their base does. Put them into that position and lean into that argument more, because I think this internal conversation wisdom question about who is blame for the shutdown, he is not going to win that.

BAIER: To this point, Nancy Pelosi obviously use that ward, "immoral." You've seen now Beto O'Rourke saying that it's racist, that the wall itself, comes from a racist place. That seems like a pushback point, especially for those border state residents.

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICAL EDITOR: Especially with the Democrats junketeering to the beach in Puerto Rico. It would seem like it is a tailor-made moment, readymade for a coherent Republican response here. But we do not get a coherent Republican response. And I think to Ben's point, there are great avenues that Republicans could be following to keep the pressure on Democrats, but they do not. We hear the same thing over and over again. There is a crisis of the border. There is a crisis of the border. Everybody agrees, but we're still talking about the same thing. Democrats at $1.6 billion, Republicans are at $5.7 billion, and no one has budged in either direction. The Republicans haven't come down and the Democrats haven't gone up, and here we sit.

BAIER: Here's Lindsey Graham over the weekend, the president's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: If the legislative path is closed come, and every day that goes by it seems to be more closed rather than more open, then the only thing left for the president is the emergency declaration, and I suggested to him before you pull that trigger, see if you can have a short term CR to see if we can get there.

TRUMP: I did reject it, yes. I'm not interested. I want to get it solved. I don't want to just delay it. I want to get it solved.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BAIER: So what is the path? Is there a point, how do we get from here to there? Does anybody know?

ELLEITHEE: I don't think anybody knows yet. But I think at some point this is going to be untenable. This is already the longest shutdown in American history. You've got people who are now getting zero on their paystubs. People aren't able to pay their rent.

And it is not just the federal workers. It's on the contractors. We're seeing these lines at airports. If that starts to become institutionalized, there is going to be a pressure point from which I think this -- even this president will not be able to come back from.

DOMENECH: There is no incentive for his to shift off of this at this moment. It's going to take a lot more time and I think a lot more pain before you have any really willingness on the part of either side here to budge given how much this is central to their message.

BAIER: You said it doesn't matter who is to blame, but is there a point where you think it tips, and people say, hey, where is the deal?

DOMENECH: I think that there is going to be a moment when that happens, but I think we are a long way off from it.

BAIER: I want to quickly get to this Russia story. The president vigorously pushing back today on these stories about the FBI opening this investigation, saying I never worked for Russia. What about this?

STIREWALT: Can I say just how sick I am of these stories? So The New York Times story was interesting, revelatory thing. The Washington Post was an interesting, revelatory thing. It gets treated all out of boundaries on all sides. Of course the take from -- no offense to Peter Baker, but I think it was the lead of his story that when Judge Jeanine asked Donald Trump, do you work for the Russians, that he didn't give her a straight answer. I don't think that was ambiguous. I think he's been very clear that he is innocent here and he didn't do the things wrong.

I think we have so much Mueller expectation, everybody is so ready for Mueller that any fish that swims by everybody says is the great white shark. I think we have got to continue to pace ourselves and breathe a little bit here.

BAIER: Here's Jonathan Karl on ABC over this weekend about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: People who were closest to what Mueller has been doing, interacted with the Special Counsel, cautioned me that this report is almost certain to be anti-climatic, that if you look at what the FBI was investigating in that New York Times report, look with what they were investigating, Mueller did not go anywhere with that investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Mo?

ELLEITHEE: Only Bob Mueller knows what Bob Mueller has. And only Bob Mueller knows when we are all going to find out.

I think the past couple of -- the past week we've seen more than just a couple of fish. I think these have been pretty big fish. But at the end of the day we won't know until we see it. And I think we should give him all the space he needs to put together a comprehensive report.

BAIER: And there is no indication that they are not going to do that.

DOMENECH: After years of this we have no evidence that the president treasonously colluded with the Russian government to obtain his election. We do have a mountain of evidence that the FBI and the DOJ had a number of people who acted inappropriately, to start investigations that they spun up because of the president's politics, because of how he regarded Russia. Imagine if we had the FBI investigating President Obama after his comments to Medvedev about his flexibility after the coming election.

ELLEITHEE: In fairness --

DOMENECH: It is completely out of line, and it should be something that should arouse a lot more concern on the parts of the people who want us to trust these institutions, who believe these institutions need to be trusted in order for us to move forward.

ELLEITHEE: In fairness, we have seen the president's then campaign manager, evidence the he had some pretty interesting and remarkable relationships with the Russians. And we --

DOMENECH: The idea that Paul Manafort is a bad guy is not interesting at this table.

ELLEITHEE: But it's much more than him being a bad guy. The question is, is there evidence that the president's campaign colluded with the Russians? There may be evidence right there. All I'm saying is we won't know everything until the full report is done, and the efforts by some to silence it, saying it has taken too long -- let him have as much time as he needs.

BAIER: But my point is the administration is not saying that. They're not silencing it. They're letting it go. Bill Barr, who is up tomorrow, says let it go. And he's the A.G. nominee.

OK, we say a lot of that at the same time.

(LAUGHTER)

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