From Special Report with Bret Baier | Wednesday, May 2, 2012
On the departure of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng from the American embassy in Beijing:
When a dissident in a dictatorship who’s harassed and beaten and courageous and under illegal house arrest seeks asylum in a U.S. embassy, you have to guarantee his security after that…. You don’t send him out or have him leave. And from what we are hearing, [Chen left] somewhat under duress, at least according to Chen’s lawyer….
We hear from the State Department that there were guarantees or assurances from the government of China to Chen himself. That is useless. Chen against that dictatorship? One man against the government? He is completely defenseless. The guarantees you want are guarantees from the government of China to the government of the United States, the strongest nation on earth. Those guarantees would mean something. Apparently that’s not what we have.
So, here he is, he’s taken to the hospital — apparently we took him there — then all of our people disappeared and he’s now left with the [Chinese] authorities…. I don’t think that’s how you dispose of an issue like this — even if you have a high level banquet between our secretary of state and their people on the same night….
I think it’s shameful….
If anything happens to him, it will be such a huge embarrassment to the United States and a dereliction of a duty that we have assumed for a generation that I think we’re going to have do something to stay in contact with him. But I think the way it’s been handled is really unfortunate. And he is now out of our control and in their control — and we have no way of knowing what’s going to happen to him.
On Newt Gingrich’s press conference announcing the suspension of his presidential campaign and whether he’ll have a role at the convention:
I don’t even think he’s going to get a 1:00 a.m. speaking slot. He’s going to get his speaking slot that will be heard in Guam….
Romney doesn’t need to offer him anything. Unlike Santorum, who has something of a constituency, or a Ron Paul who has a serious constituency — small but really dedicated — with whom [Romney] is going to have to deal, he doesn’t have to offer Newt anything. And I don’t think he will.
On Mitt Romney’s recent comparisons of President Obama to Jimmy Carter:
Jimmy Carter is the Republican Herbert Hoover. The Democrats flogged Hoover for 30 years. We’ve got… a few years left to go after Carter.