GWEN IFILL: The candidates descend on Iowa and on each other.
Why no one is ceding the stage to Donald Trump.
Plus, from Cuba to Iran, celebration gives way to complexity.
We explain how tonight on Washington Week
IOWA VOTER: (From video.)
If they're going to move on in the process they have to
answer the questions that they get in Iowa.
GWEN IFILL: Candidates on the upswing.
CARLY FIORINA: (From video.)
We have to challenge the status quo of Washington,
something that the political class really hasn't been willing to do for a long time.
OHIO GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH (R): (From video.)
Now, I happen to be a Republican, but the
Republican Party is my vehicle and not my master.
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): (From video.)
This campaign is sending a message to the
billionaire class: Yes, we have the guts to take you on.
GWEN IFILL: Others struggle to be heard.
LOUISIANA GOVERNOR BOBBY JINDAL (R): (From video.)
Look, I know one way to ensure that
I get more media coverage is to continue to talk about Donald Trump.
GWEN IFILL: While frontrunners stake their claims.
FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR JEB BUSH (R): (From video.)
Who can seriously argue that
America and our friends are safer today than in 2009, when the president and Secretary
Clinton, the storied team of rivals, took office?
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
While what Donald Trump said
about Megyn Kelly is outrageous, what the rest of the Republicans are saying about all
women is also outrageous.
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
I cherish women.
And I will be great on women's health issues, believe me.
GWEN IFILL: Plus, the White House tries to nail down its foreign policy victories,
counting votes for the Iran deal.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)
I'm not going to anticipate failure now, because
I think we have the better argument.
GWEN IFILL: And raising the flag, literally, in Cuba.
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: (From video.)
This is truly a memorable occasion, a day
for pushing aside old barriers and exploring new possibilities.
GWEN IFILL: But the details are indeed devilish.
Covering the week, John Harwood, chief Washington correspondent for CNBC; Karen Tumulty,
national political correspondent for The Washington Post; and Michael Crowley, senior
foreign affairs correspondent for POLITICO.
ANNOUNCER: Award winning reporting and analysis.
Covering history as it happens.
Live from our nation's capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill.
Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.
GWEN IFILL: Good evening.
So where to begin?
With the helicopter rides Donald Trump will be offering at the Iowa State Fair?
With
the deep-fried Snickers bar Jeb Bush reportedly ate there today?
With Hillary Clinton's
attempt to rise above the latest questions about her private email server?
Or with John
Kasich, who managed to take credit for balancing the federal budget and take a shot at
the Clintons all in one comment?
OHIO GOVERNOR JOHN KASICH (R): (From video.)
Bill Clinton takes credit for the
balanced budget.
Bill Clinton's the kind of guy that when there's a mob coming to get him, he runs in
front of them and claims it's a parade.
GWEN IFILL: The truth is, if there's one thing we can take from these dog days of an
August campaign, is that we have a long way to go before anything settles down.
Here's a sample: Rand Paul going after Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton going after
everyone else.
SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): (From video.)
So we have now people up there who say such
profound things as: You're stupid.
You're fired.
You're a pig.
You look terrible.
You only have half a brain.
And then when you respond with an argument,
it's like you're stupid.
(Laughter.)
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
They brag about slashing
women's health care funding.
They say they would force women who've been raped to carry their rapist's child.
And we don't hear any of them supporting raising the minimum wage, paid leave for new
parents, access to quality childcare, equal pay for women, or anything else that will
help to, you know, give women a chance to get ahead.
GWEN IFILL: The polls are up and down.
Most of the field is scrambling for money
and attention.
And the rest of us are left looking for clues.
So who had the biggest ups and who had the biggest downs this week?
Start with you, Karen.
KAREN TUMULTY: Well, it depends on where you're looking.
Donald Trump pulled out ahead in some polls in Iowa, which was very, very bad news for
Scott Walker who'd been sitting on top of those polls.
But I think the more intriguing story, other than the continuing Donald Trump hurricane,
are some of the people who did pretty well in that first debate who are now sort of
beginning to see an opening, beginning to get a little bit of oxygen.
We are seeing John Kasich suddenly moving some in New Hampshire.
Carly Fiorina is - got - I don't know if you can call it that big of a bump when you're
just talking about a few percentage points - GWEN IFILL: From 4 percent to 7 percent.
KAREN TUMULTY: But it may be enough to get her on that stage, get her on the grownup
stage for the next debate.
Ben Carson, another one who I think people are just taking a second look at.
And at this stage in the process, that's what you want to happen.
GWEN IFILL: That counts for a lot.
John, who did you see go up and down?
JOHN HARWOOD: Well, I think - I think we're at the end of the beginning of the first
phase of the campaign.
And this is the point, having had the first debate, having weathered the Trump surge and
seeing that it's more persistent than many people had expected, everybody's tires are
starting to get some traction on the road.
And I do - I agree with Karen.
Carly Fiorina, John Kasich are the two most obvious people who have moved up in the
ranks of serious contenders.
There was a poll that was favorable for Marco Rubio in Iowa.
Showed him in third place.
Another one showed him way down.
So I think it's a little bit
difficult.
The polls are of varying qualities and different methodologies.
But I think the - you had some strong performances in the debate.
And those people are beginning to realize how they have to engage with each other, and
have to engage with Trump.
KAREN TUMULTY: Oh, and by the way, there was some very tangible bad news out of the
Rick Perry camp earlier, which is that he announced he was no longer paying his campaign
staff.
GWEN IFILL: His super PAC is paying them, but that's never a good sign.
KAREN TUMULTY: It is not.
And if he can't get on the grownup stage for the next
debate, it's really beginning to be hard to imagine how he can even continue, even
with a super PAC backing - JOHN HARWOOD: Forgot one loser.
It appears that Jim Gilmore will not be invited to the CNN debate.
GWEN IFILL: At all, because he's not even at 1 percent.
JOHN HARWOOD: That's right.
GWEN IFILL: But let's be clear about what we say - what we mean when we say the grownup
stage.
We're talking about the candidates who score above 10 percent in the polls.
That's the same rule that's going to - KAREN TUMULTY: The top 10 candidates.
GWEN IFILL: The top 10 candidates.
That's still going to apply in the CNN.
Those are still going to be the rules, OK.
JOHN HARWOOD: And you still will have the opportunity - remember, we had the kids table
debate in Cleveland, and that became a forum for Carly Fiorina, by dominating, to
generate some traction for herself.
GWEN IFILL: Right.
JOHN HARWOOD: That opportunity will still be there at that second debate for somebody
else, if they can seize it.
GWEN IFILL: OK, we haven't talked about the big front runners, the people who were
definitely the ups, or who at least in the past have been seen.
Let's start with Hillary Clinton, who today, Karen, gets some more bad news - yesterday
gets more bad news, the day before more bad news about this email controversy that never
seems to go away.
How much - can we measure how much it's hurting her?
It certainly isn't helping.
KAREN TUMULTY: Well, the big news this week was that her attorney, David Kendall, had
turned over to the FBI - you never want to hear the FBI mentioned when you are running
for president - had turned over a thumb drive that had had copies of all of her emails on
them.
A few weeks ago, they were insisting they were not going to do that.
What this says is that this investigation that began and may continue to be contained to
the question of is all the sensitive material that may have been in those emails
accounted for and under government control?
But right now, what's making the Clinton people and the Clinton allies nervous is they
don't know whether this is going to go into the larger and more troublesome question of
whether Hillary Clinton herself, or people who worked for her, were not as careful as
they should have been in handling sensitive information.
And there
is potentially a crime in there if that can be shown that this was done intentionally.
GWEN IFILL: In their defense, what the Clinton people seem to be doing is establishing
as much distance between the candidate herself and any controversial behavior, and also
making it as confusing as possible because maybe voters look at it and say, like
Whitewater, I just can't keep track, but it makes me feel funny.
JOHN HARWOOD: The Clintons' argument is that the classified information that may have
appeared in her email, her private server email, was either information that has
subsequently been determined to be classified - GWEN IFILL: It was not at the time.
JOHN HARWOOD: Or that was not marked as classified, even if some of the information
was.
And so that she was, unwittingly perhaps, exchanging information with aides who
were on their State dot-gov accounts, that may be problematic.
And so the FBI is trying to figure out, did Russia and China hack her system?
There's no evidence that that happened, but some people wonder about it.
Just how vulnerable was that system?
Whatever happens as a result of the investigation we know that her favorability has been
hurt.
She's underwater in the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll.
She was minus 11 points, 30 - I forget the exact numbers, but it was double digit on the
negative side.
But I do note historically, Bill Clinton was in double digit negative
territory before his 1992 convention, and turned it around.
KAREN TUMULTY: And one thing that we maybe ought to stipulate here, at least our
reporting at The Washington Post indicates that the most questionable material that
investigators have come across is not primarily - it's nothing she was sending.
It's things that people were sending to her or forwarding to her, in many cases things
she didn't even respond to.
JOHN HARWOOD: And in one case that was - the AP wrote about, the information that was
in a top secret category, it was based on a news article.
It was about a drone program that was technically classified, but had been written about
many times.
GWEN IFILL: Right.
Didn't help for John Kerry to say this week he suspects his own email is being - been
read by Russia and China.
Thanks a lot for the help, Secretary Kerry.
So let's talk about another leading person in the race, obviously, Donald Trump.
Every week we say: This is the thing that's going to stop the rise of Donald Trump, or
at least is going to precipitate his fall.
And he doesn't seem to fall.
He doesn't rise, to be honest, he stays right about there.
But right about there when there's 21 people in the race, is pretty much - pretty good.
So where is he now?
KAREN TUMULTY: He is - it looks like he is now the leading contender in Iowa.
And he is going to be there.
And interestingly enough, it's not - two things can win the Iowa caucuses for you.
It requires both of them.
It requires a lot of enthusiasm.
It requires a lot of organization.
And Donald Trump does appear to be looking at the second half of that equation, too.
He's got volunteers on the ground, apparently everywhere.
And again, this is a suggestion that maybe this is more of a campaign than we thought it
was.
GWEN IFILL: Than we had been thinking.
Well, what about Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire?
He seems to be surging.
And of course, he's from a neighboring state, which the Clinton people were quick to
point out.
But those crowds we saw on the West Coast are not an aberration.
JOHN HARWOOD: No.
And it's extraordinary the crowds that he's drawing.
The performance in that poll, can't speak to the reliability of the poll, but it's a
very robust result for him.
It did have Joe Biden in the poll itself getting 12 percent - points of the vote.
But, look, Bernie Sanders is at this moment in the campaign speaking to the aspiration
of Democrats for a much more robust government role in smoothing out income inequality
and dealing with other inequities in the society.
And he's triggering a response.
I think in the case of Bernie Sanders, as in the case of Donald Trump, voters have a
different filter when it comes to actually voting and beginning the process of selecting
a president.
They've got to look at those candidates and say, can I see that person behind the desk
in the Oval Office?
And I think when that test is applied, Donald Trump fades, and Bernie Sanders is not
likely to defeat Hillary Clinton.
GWEN IFILL: And let's talk about Jeb Bush.
And I
want to bring you in - hi there, Michael; I didn't see you over there, very quietly watching.
Jeb Bush gave a big foreign policy speech this week, in which he talked about Iraq and
about how the failure of the Obama administration, including Hillary Clinton, had been
getting out of Iraq too soon.
Why is he picking that fight?
MICHAEL CROWLEY: Well, partly because the public's attention is so focused on ISIS.
You kind of have to have something to say about ISIS.
And he's really forced to confront Iraq in some way because there's just no sidestepping
this.
You know, and there is, you know, an intellectually honest argument to be made
that says the Obama administration should have tried harder to reach some sort of
agreement with the Iraqi government - the administration says it wasn't possible, but a
lot of people who follow Iraq closely say that's debatable - to have left some kind of
troop presence in the country to make sure that it didn't fall apart.
His argument was Iraq was somewhat stable, but it was fragile at that time.
One problem with that argument, among others, is that Hillary Clinton was among the
people who was trying to say to the president, don't pull out.
Leave a robust troop force.
Have trainers and advisers and special forces who can kind of zap al-Qaida types who pop
up.
So that's one problem with the argument.
I think the bigger problem is that, you know, having said that I think he does have to
address it, it's just a really hard subject for him to come out on top on because even if
he's making an argument that you would have some expert opinion that says is valid, that
Iraq was kind of stable and we could have stayed there, there are so many potholes - like
when he says mission was accomplished by 2009.
It just sounds kind of ridiculous.
It
just - there's a quality of - GWEN IFILL: Well, it stirs up bad memories, you would think,
for his family and for his supporters.
MICHAEL CROWLEY: You just don't want someone named Bush talking about Iraq.
KAREN TUMULTY: And in fact, he did the - what they call the soap box at the Iowa State
Fair today.
And those were a lot of the questions and comments he was getting from fairgoers was,
you know, what about your brother?
What about the Iraq War?
So it's really hard for him to get past his name - his last name on any discussion of
Iraq.
JOHN HARWOOD: Well, and the question of who broke it in the first place?
GWEN IFILL: Well, and the question of - I mean, he's been doing this for a while.
Why isn't the answer in the box by now?
Why hasn't he come up with the answer that puts this to rest?
MICHAEL CROWLEY: Because I think it's really hard to come up with that answer when you
don't want to insult your brother, and you - GWEN IFILL: Your father.
MICHAEL CROWLEY: And you're just trying to thread too many needles.
And the solution he comes up with is kind of ridiculous, which is the sort of mistakes
were made passive construct.
And then he starts talking about 2009.
Well, not everything was perfect before then, but what I want to talk about now is what
Obama did.
And that's just not - it's not going to wash.
GWEN IFILL: It's hard.
We really love "mistakes were made."
That's our favorite formulation in Washington.
We're going to talk about - in the webcast after the program - a little bit about the
trial balloons we saw go up and down this week, which was also fun.
Thank you both.
While the people who would be president jockeyed for a position, the current
administration did its own jockeying on Iran.
It was nose counting, how much support can the president gather to allow him to win the
day on his delicately negotiated nuclear agreement?
And on Cuba, will the new and historic opening to the isolated island nation stick?
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: (From video.)
There have been too many
days of sacrifice and sorrow, too many decades of suspicion and fear.
That is why I am heartened by the many on both sides of the straits, who whether because
of family ties or a simple desire to replace anger with something more productive, have
endorsed this search for a better path.
GWEN IFILL: And here's a taste of the pushback from Florida Senator, presidential
candidate, and Cuban-American Marco Rubio.
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): (From video.)
President Obama has rewarded
the Castro regime for its repressive tactics and its persistent, patient opposition
to American interests.
He has unilaterally given up on a half century worth of policies towards the Castro
regime that was agreed upon by presidents of both parties.
GWEN IFILL: So, Michael, how is the administration dealing with these two balancing
acts?
Both of them require congressional help.
MICHAEL CROWLEY: Yeah.
Well, you know, step back for a minute and think about Obama's presidency in the last
several years, where you've had a Republican Congress that just won't do anything that he
wants them to do.
Foreign policy, however, is a venue where he can take some initiative and get some
things done, up to a point, without the Congress.
But the Congress never goes away.
So on Cuba, for instance, you know, the economic embargo remains in place.
It would require congressional authorization or a congressional vote to lift it.
So what we have now is a normalization of diplomatic relations, a relaxation of some
travel and trade regulations.
But you know, fundamentally, the relationship is still kind of on ice on some level.
And that's not going to change under a Republican Congress.
But, you know, as is the case with Iran - which we'll talk about in a second - the
president's theory is: We're not getting anywhere by not dealing with them or talking to
them.
Turning a cold shoulder is not accomplishing anything.
And even if the regime does a lot of things that we don't like - they're repressive,
they're anti-democratic - actually, it's better if we start a line of dialogue and we
start to melt the ice a little bit, and that will take on a life of its own that will
have larger benefits down the road.
So with Iran, it's different because he's not normalizing diplomatic relations or
anything like that.
GWEN IFILL: Far from it.
Far from it.
MICHAEL CROWLEY: And the administration is very careful to say: This was a nuclear
deal just to cap Iran's nuclear program.
And if other things come of it, that's great, but that's not what the deal is about.
But really they are hoping that other things will come of it.
They are hoping that the beginning of this dialogue, showing the Iranian hardliners that
you can trust the United States, we can - you can do a deal with us and we're not going
to stab you in the back and trick you, will be useful and you will also empower reformers
who said we will lift the economic sanctions, we'll take Iran into a more modern
direction, you will empower the middle class of the country, and that will have
beneficial results.
But Congress is threatening to bring this deal down.
So what will likely happen is you will have a vote of disapproval carried easily by the
Republican majorities in both houses.
The president will veto that.
And then there will be a veto override vote, and that's where the big drama will be.
It looks as though he has a firewall in the House.
It's going to be close, but I think there's sort of what you would call cautious
optimism right now that enough House members are holding firm.
And you know, viewers will probably be familiar with the fact that New York Senator
Chuck Schumer came out against the deal.
That seemed quite dramatic, a big blow.
You really haven't seen a lot of defections since Schumer.
That was not the beginning of a cascade.
And I think there's some hope that that could have been the low point up till now and
that the deal will survive.
KAREN TUMULTY: And if this goes through, the Republican candidates are talking, you
know, a number of them, that they could undo it, that they would just go back and
reimpose sanctions and just make them tougher or whatever.
Realistically speaking, if this deal goes through, what are the chances that the next
president, whoever he or she may be, could actually undo it?
MICHAEL CROWLEY: I think it's not realistic that a Republican president will come into
office and immediately kind of pull the plug on the thing and bring it down.
There are different ways they could - there is a kind of passive-aggressive way to - you
know, as someone described it to me, malign neglect; you could kind of let the deal fall
apart.
You could increase pressure on Iran to try to provoke a confrontation.
You could try to crack down on Iran in other ways.
But once the deal has been in place for what it would be - what would it be, 18 months,
and you will likely have investment, you will have economic activity, you will have a lot
of corporate interests who do not want to get burnt, it's hard to see the scenario where
the Republican president comes in, pulls the plug and it's over.
So I think - and that's one of the great fears of the critics, is that the cake will be baked.
JOHN HARWOOD: I'd put the same question on Cuba because I think this is really
interesting.
And remember that Ronald Reagan campaigned hard against the
Panama Canal Treaty.
It passed in Jimmy Carter's administration.
When he became president, left it alone, didn't do anything.
In the debates weeks before the 1980 election, he said he wanted to junk the SALT II
treaty, which had not been ratified.
He abided by the entire treaty through its expiration.
Is anybody going to come in and say, you know what, I'm going to close that embassy in
Havana and break diplomatic relations?
Likely?
Not likely?
MICHAEL CROWLEY: I think it's not likely, particularly in the case of Cuba.
You know, I think the chances are small that things are going to get worse, Cuba is
going to become belligerent, is going to challenge us in some way.
I think -
GWEN IFILL: Even though we have heard the Castro brothers make noises about reparations
this week, right?
MICHAEL CROWLEY: Yes.
I mean, and they wanted us to close the Guantanamo military base and, you know, we've
annexed that land illegally.
So they still have their gripes.
But I think that - particularly in the case of Cuba, I think that issue will fade.
And you also have the politics of Cuba in Florida in particular, as you may know, are
changing, and so I think the political dynamic has changed.
With Iran, you know, that's a more interesting case because I think you could see
aggressive Iranian behavior in the years to come that could keep that a hot issue.
GWEN IFILL: OK. Well, thank you all very much.
And you mentioned Jimmy Carter.
We want to send our best wishes to his good health.
We have to go a little early again this week to give you a chance to support the public
television stations who support us, but the conversation continues online on the
Washington Week Webcast Extra, where we'll preview the week to come, trial balloons and
all.
You can find it later tonight and all week long at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.
Keep up with developments with me and Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour every night, and
we'll see you here next week on Washington Week.
Good night.