ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
PETE WILLIAMS: Hello, I'm Pete Williams.
I'm joined around the table by Susan Davis
of NPR, Nancy Youssef of The Daily Beast, Alexis Simendinger of RealClearPolitics,
and Peter Baker of the moderately clear New York Times.
(Laughter.)
In his news conference today, Peter, the president was asked about Hillary Clinton's
call for a no-fly zone over Syria.
It's something John McCain has endorsed and something the president has dismissed.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)
I also think that there's a difference between
running for president and being president.
And the decisions that are being made and the discussions that I'm having with the Joint
Chiefs become much more specific and require, I think, a different kind of judgement.
And that's what I'll continue to apply as long as I'm here.
And if and when she's president, then she'll make those judgements.
And she's been there enough that she knows that, you know, these are tough calls.
I think Hillary Clinton would be the first to say that when you're sitting in the seat
that I'm sitting in in the Situation Room, things look a little bit different, because
she's been right there next to me.
PETE WILLIAMS: So, Peter, might you call this in The New York Times a gentle rebuke?
PETER BAKER: (Laughs.)
It was a bit of a zing.
He might have tried to couch it so it didn't sound like it, but it was.
He's saying, she's politicking.
It doesn't count.
It's not real.
And what's, of course, true is that she was before this before she was politicking.
She was making advocacy for policies like this while she was secretary of state, while
she was sitting next to him in the Situation Room.
She's not doing it, entirely at least, because she's trying to campaign.
But he's got himself wrapped up around the axle about this criticism of his policy being
too passive, not sort of enough.
Before he even mentioned Hillary - was asked about Hillary he said, you know, these
critics, they have these half-baked ideas and they just lead to mumbo-jumbo.
And he was asked, well, what about Hillary Clinton, is that a half-baked idea?
And he said, well, you know, he tried to sort of say, no, but it doesn't really count
because she's a candidate.
PETE WILLIAMS: Well, what was she thinking when she advocated this?
Is she trying to distance herself from the policy?
PETER BAKER: Well, I think she is a little bit, yeah.
And again, it's not just campaigning, although obviously that's part of it.
It's because she did genuinely advocate these ideas while she was in office.
She tried to push for a harder - for a more robust training and arming of Syrian rebels
from the beginning.
So she can legitimately say, I have a different point of
view about this than the president.
And she has to distinguish herself in some ways from him as she's putting herself out
there as a presidential candidate.
And this is one place where she can do that.
PETE WILLIAMS: Thank you, Peter.
Alexis, one of the original members of
President Obama's Cabinet stepped down today, the Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
What kind of a legacy does he leave?
ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: You know, Arne Duncan as education secretary is very close to
President Obama.
And they go back 20 years, back to Chicago.
One of the things that the president admired and brought Arne Duncan to the Education
Department to do was to try to be a reformer, to break some china, to press for the kinds
of things that they shared as ideas.
So one of the things that probably will be part of his legacy is that he did clash with
nearly every entity that had an interest in education, whether it was the unions or
for-profit education, or the idea of testing, you know, Congress.
And yet, he still is going to leave the Education Department probably with a lot of
admirers from both parties who've said that he was always honest with them and
up front and truly believed in what he was trying to advocate for.
They admire his dedication and think that probably the legacy of education is not -
change is not going to be seen any time real soon.
And in fact, the president talked about this as a long-term effort on the part of this
administration that will go into the next administration.
So it's not like he got instant rewards, but he certainly made waves in every arena that
he tried to tackle in education.
PETE WILLIAMS: So we're talking about education.
Here's your question for extra credit.
Who are the other original members of Obama's Cabinet?
ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Tom Vilsack, the Ag secretary from Iowa, is the remaining.
And it would have come to my mind eventually, but I just want you to know that in the
State Dining Room today the education staffers were all sitting in the room and ahead of
me, right in front of me, they were talking about Tom Vilsack and how he was going to be
sort of like the lonely Maytag repairman, left alone in the Cabinet as the survivor.
(Laughter.)
PETE WILLIAMS: You still get the credit though.
ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Thank you.
PETE WILLIAMS: Sue, this week we had a bipartisan group of members of Congress come
forward with a bill for changing the sentencing policy in the criminal justice system,
something that the previous attorney general, Eric Holder, pushed for.
And it's unusual, isn't it, to see this kind of a bipartisan coalition on what used to
be a very controversial issue of criminal sentencing?
SUSAN DAVIS: It is, absolutely.
It's one of those issues that has sort of bent the philosophical curve, where even the
most liberal and most conservative wings of the party in some elements are getting behind
sentencing reform.
What this bill would do is essentially change mandatory minimum laws for non-violent
crimes - a lot of drug crimes, people that are serving that are not - no indicator that
they would be a danger to society when they get out.
It would change - it would ban solitary confinement for juveniles.
And it would end the three strikes law, the for-life permanent - mandatory lifetime
sentences, it would reduce that to 25 years.
PETE WILLIAMS: For the federal
government only, right?
SUSAN DAVIS: For the federal government only.
PETE WILLIAMS: States like California could still do it.
SUSAN DAVIS: Yes.
And it's an odd coalition of senators that are behind it.
You have Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, one of two African-American senators.
Mike Lee from Utah, representing one of the most conservative states.
And outside groups, like the Koch brothers, who are endorsing this effort.
And it's a substantive piece of legislation.
If Congress can get this done it would not only be a significant win for Obama in his
final time in office, because the president also really wants this, but it would be a
remarkable bipartisan achievement for a Congress that has otherwise been fairly divided,
particularly on issues as being seen as tough on crime.
PETE WILLIAMS: And so do you think it will pass?
SUSAN DAVIS: It has a good chance.
It is - particularly because of the odd bedfellows that are behind it, in the Senate at
least.
I think that there's less appetite in the House.
The House conservatives tend to be less interested in the issue.
I think it's going to take a significant amount of effort.
PETE WILLIAMS: But perhaps less opposed - you know, not as opposed as they might be if
they were hot for it.
SUSAN DAVIS: Yeah, and there's just not as much of an effort to get the bill done in
the House, so I think it's going to take a little bit of muscle on their part to get some
enthusiasm over there.
It probably won't really come to pass till next year, if at all.
But it's certainly a possibility.
PETE WILLIAMS: All right, fine, thank you.
And, Nancy, you broke a story this week about an intelligence analyst being concerned
that their conclusions about how things were going with ISIS were being distorted, and
now there's a Defense Department investigation.
Tell us about that.
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, CENTCOM, Central Command, which is in charge of the wars in Iraq
and Syria, has hundreds of analysts there, and roughly 50 signed onto this compliant
saying that they felt that their reports were altered in such a way to give a more
favorable view of how the wars were going in the last year against the Islamic State.
And so this was brought to the Pentagon independent general's office -
PETE WILLIAMS: Independent counsel.
NANCY YOUSSEF: Excuse me, yes.
And has now led to an investigation.
And so it was related in a way to some of the events that we've seen this week, in that
it really reinforced a perception out there that this is an administration, or at least a
military that isn't clear on its strategy, that you have people internally saying we
cannot give honest assessments coming forward in such an aggressive way, putting the
reputation of analysts at CENTCOM on the line to say: We need to be honest about what
the U.S. efforts are doing, what the Islamic State's doing, what the impact of
the strikes that the U.S.-led coalition is conducting.
PETE WILLIAMS: On the other hand, who would think that the operation against ISIS was
going well?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, that's a fair point, but the funny thing is remember early on it
wasn't as clear.
And one of the things that they talk about is that when reports
were positive, they faced very few questions.
When they were
negative, they got a lot more critical assessment.
And so it kind of becomes degree.
And remember, this is a very nuanced war where that difference in understanding can
really lead to big impact in terms of how the war is being conducted.
PETE WILLIAMS: All right.
Thank you all very much.
Thanks, everyone.
Stay online and let us know what you're thinking about this campaign.
Upload your videos and share your opinions at #16for2016.
That's at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.
And while you're there, also check out, from our vault - that vault feature,
looking back on our broadcast just before the second Obama administration, when
talk of new gun legislation was actually a priority for the president's second
term, with some very analytical thoughts from our own Peter Baker.
I'm Pete Williams.
Gwen will be back next week for another edition of the
Washington Week Webcast Extra.
