ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
GWEN IFILL: Hello, I'm Gwen Ifill.
I'm joined around the table by Angie Drobnic Holan of PolitiFact, David Sanger of The
New York Times, Reid Wilson of Morning Consult, and Jeanne Cummings of The Wall Street
Journal.
First I want to talk to you, David, about what we know about the incredible
response which has been mounted as a result of Friday's attacks in Paris.
DAVID SANGER: Well, it looks now that, at least as we speak right now, the attacks seem
to be over.
And of course, that can be a false calm.
What counterterrorism people always worry about is that there's a wave and then another
wave.
And for that reason, they've actually militarized this in the response.
The army - French Army is moving in.
That didn't happen during the Charlie Hebdo time.
GWEN IFILL: Closing the borders.
DAVID SANGER: Closing the borders.
So this has - the response itself has more of a national emergency military response
sensibility about it than the previous terror attacks in Europe, if you think back to
London in 2005 and others.
GWEN IFILL: It also feels that, when we've gone through these attacks before, including
9/11, it took a while before terrorism was established.
People said it feels like it's terrorism, we're waiting for a claim of responsibility.
People knew instantly in this case.
DAVID SANGER: Yeah, they did, and they did because we've unfortunately seen this movie
many times before.
The AK-47s that were being used in this, the favorite weapon of
these extremists.
The style of the attacks.
So I think the question here isn't whether it's terrorism.
The question is, was this
centrally coordinated terrorism that came out of al-Qaida, ISIS, some other group?
Or
was this a group of disaffected extremists living within France?
GWEN IFILL: OK. That will continue to unfold.
So now we're going to talk about the politics that gets missed.
First, the money.
The Wall Street Journal today writes about what's happened to the big money Democrats.
Turns out they're not automatically lining up behind Hillary Clinton.
Jeanne, really?
How does - JEANNE CUMMINGS: We were shocked.
GWEN IFILL: How does she miss that?
JEANNE CUMMINGS: I mean, especially since she knows their names, for heaven's sakes.
Eighty percent of the donors who maxed out to Obama have not given a penny to Hillary,
Bernie or O'Malley.
They're just on the sidelines.
And in the interviews that we did, some of them said they don't like her; you know, she
just does not motivate them in the same way.
Many of them said, in the age of the super PAC, they're just demoralized.
And you know, contributions to candidates are limited, so they feel like their $2,700 is
just throwing money away - which, of course, the candidate would think otherwise.
And still others are, you know, sort of fence-sitting because they're just not ready to
get in yet.
So some of them will probably come to her, but it is remarkable.
These are donors that are listed publicly on FEC reports.
Her campaign knows who they are.
I'm sure they've been in touch.
And that that many of them - there were 4,000 of them.
Only 850 have given checks.
GWEN IFILL: That signals questions to come, yeah.
JEANNE CUMMINGS: And here was the other - one last big surprise: Clinton gets the most
money from them, then Sanders, then Jeb Bush, then O'Malley.
GWEN IFILL: Who?
(Laughter.)
JEANNE CUMMINGS: Jeb Bush.
I know, but it's interesting.
GWEN IFILL: I mean O'Malley.
I was telling a bad joke, yeah.
I know.
It is interesting, and that's part of his problem, actually.
Reid, you wrote a story this week which was interesting, and it's also a challenge for
the Democrats, which was how to take advantage of these voting rights challenges we've
seen around the country.
REID WILSON: So since 2009, when President Obama took office, Democrats have lost 816
legislative seats around the country.
That's one - that's more than one in every 10 state legislative seats in the country.
After Republicans swept to power in 2010, and then again in 2014 there was another wave,
they passed a number of laws that changed the way voting happens, whether it's voter
identification laws or changing early voting or absentee habits or things like that.
And that impacts voters.
It impacts on the margin who's going to show up to vote.
And therefore, in some of these very close states, it's going to impact who's going to
win.
Democrats have really figured out that they have to pay attention to these state
races now.
They have to pay attention to state legislative races, secretary of
states, attorneys general all across the country.
And in doing so they're trying to offer their own legislation or ballot initiatives that
would change voting laws again.
In California, Governor Jerry Brown last month signed what's called an auto-registration
bill, which means that anybody who is eligible - any citizen who is eligible to be on the
voter rolls will be on the voter rolls.
With his signature alone, he registered more voters than any other single action in
American history; 6.6 million new people will be on California voter rolls right after he
signed - once this thing is fully implemented.
GWEN IFILL: That is a great story.
Let's go out and report it.
I like that.
That's interesting.
REID WILSON: There you go.
Especially because you get to go to California.
GWEN IFILL: Exactly.
Well - (laughs) - I had a plan.
(Laughter.)
Angie, I want to ask you, after all your - the interesting thing about PolitiFact is you
just don't say people are liar, liar, pants on fire, you occasionally call them out for
saying the truth.
So, looking back on this debate, who was telling the truth?
ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN: (Laughs.)
Well, you know, it's not a great season for trues.
We did find one.
Ted Cruz said that the tax code was longer than the Bible.
He didn't mean it - GWEN IFILL: More words.
ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN: More words.
He didn't mean it as a compliment.
And so we checked.
The tax code, 4 million words; the Bible, 800,000 words.
So he got a true.
GWEN IFILL: I heard him say that and I wasn't certain what that meant, but
it's a true fact.
ANGIE DROBNIC HOLAN: We fact-check the things that we think an average person would
hear and say, hmm, I wonder if that's true or not.
And that one caught our attention, so we went for it.
GWEN IFILL: OK. Well, thanks a lot.
Thanks for watching as well.
While you're online, check out my blog this week about, as it happens, truth, lies and
transparency.
That's at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.
And we'll see you next time on the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
