Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 2/9/24

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It has been a hugely consequential week in Washington.

Donald Trump cements his status as the de facto leader of the Republican Party after his Senate allies tank the bipartisan border deal.

And the Trump campaign catches a lucky break as a Justice Department report raises questions about Joe Biden's memory and age, next.

Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK.

The week began with a lot of people asking if Republicans on the Hill are in fact the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

So many important issues, funding for Ukraine, border security, aid to Israel and Taiwan are caught up in the vortex of dysfunctional Capitol Hill politics.

The week ended with President Joe Biden angry and bitter about a report that raises new questions about his age and memory.

There's a lot to get to, and joining me tonight in conversation are James Bennet, a senior editor at The Economist and author of its Lexington column, John Dickerson is the chief political analyst for CBS News and the anchor of CBS News Primetime with John Dickerson, Josh Gerstein is Politico's senior legal affairs reporter, and Amna Nawaz is the co-anchor of PBS NewsHour.

Very exciting to have television professionals with me tonight, by the way, so exciting.

Amna, thank you for joining us.

AMNA NAWAZ, Co-Anchor, PBS NewsHour: Thank you for having me.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's been a long day for you already.

I'll come to you in a second, but, John, let me start with you and just ask you if you can kind of give us a -- synthesize, if you will, everything that happened on the Hill this week.

You have 12 seconds.

Synthesize everything that happened on the Hill.

And is it fair to say that Donald Trump is actually in charge now of all Republican politics?

JOHN DICKERSON, Chief Political Analyst, CBS News: Yes, I don't -- did you say now in that sentence.

Because it has been for a while.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, I guess, but it seems like that it will be -- JOHN DICKERSON: It's been his party for a while and we can get back to that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

JOHN DICKERSON: I can't do everything that happened in Congress, but if the old joke goes that if pro is the opposite of con, then progress is the opposite of Congress.

That was certainly in play this week on two defeats, one in the House, one in the Senate.

In the House, they tried to impeach the Homeland Security secretary.

That failed.

The more interesting one to me, though, is this bipartisan border security and foreign aid funding bill in the Senate, because, as you mentioned, Donald Trump said, I don't want that bill to pass because if you fix the border, that takes an issue away from me that I can use as a cudgel against Joe Biden because the economy is getting better.

S&P hit a record today, so there's less that Trump can talk about on the on the economy.

So, he wants to talk about the border.

And he said that and a number of senators who, in the old in the old days, the Senate was made up of people like Rob Portman from Ohio who is not there, Lamar Alexander, who could work with Mitch McConnell and get to yes on a bipartisan bill.

Senator Lankford worked very hard, the Republican on this bill for Mitch McConnell, at Mitch McConnell's behest.

And in the end, his Republican colleagues totally cut his legs under him.

And he said when they asked him, do you feel like a bus ran over you?

He said yes and then backed up over me.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Wait, since you brought up Senator Lanlford, I want to play you this short comment from him about the current atmosphere on the Hill.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): I had a popular commentator that told me flat out, if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.

By the way, they have been faithful to their promise.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, Amna, let me ask you this.

Are we witnessing the -- let's make up a word here, the Houseification of the Senate -- I didn't make up that word, I heard it, but it's a good one.

Are we witnessing that or is this a very, very Trump-specific phenomenon that would go away if Trump weren't in the picture?

AMNA NAWAZ: I mean, I think you can't remove Trump from the picture.

And the Houseification is part of that, because the Senate is no longer this cooling saucer for the hot tea that's boiling in the house, right?

It used to be the place where the adults ruled and that kind of conversation could be had.

What you saw happen just in this last week, as John laid out, was those same forces from outside, President Trump stepping into a bill that, let's not forget, Republicans have been clamoring for, for years, rightly so.

And also, yes, it's a very conservative bill.

Previous immigration bills have had some kind of concessions for progressives and then something for conservatives.

This was basically everything for conservatives.

They've been asking for this for a while.

Everyone agrees, things at the border need some kind of reform, and this would actually help in some way.

Lankford engages in negotiations for four months.

And then as soon as Mr. Trump enters the fray and says, we're not going to pass this, even Senate Republicans back away.

And let's not forget that decision to link Ukraine and the border bill was a House idea, it was House Republicans idea to do that, thinking they'd get more concessions on immigration.

Republicans were in closed door meetings as late December and saying, we have to be able to do this, Ukraine has to be able to go through, and if Ukraine is a big enough deal, you've got to give on immigration.

When Democrats did that, Trump said I don't want it and they backed away.

He's in control.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: James, let me ask you that.

I mean, it's never been -- I don't think it's ever been this naked before.

I mean, it used to be that you would not come out and say, don't do something that you think is good for America because it's going to hurt my election chances.

I mean, people would operate politically in that way in some ways.

But now it's just kind of all out there?

Am I wrong in saying that there's a change?

JAMES BENNET, Senior Editor, The Economist: Yes, I mean I think in so much in so many respects Donald Trump has expanded people's imagination of what you can do in politics, everybody can stop people from doing in politics.

I mean, you take a half step back from what happened this week and it's kind of shocking.

I mean, we live in a very big, pluralistic democracy and our politics is supposed to be the mechanism by which we mediate our differences and Congress is supposed to be the body that does that and converts it into sensible policy.

And instead what we're seeing happen is it's becoming a machine for exaggerating differences and preventing anything from happening.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Given that, Josh, Mike Johnson, the speaker, the latest in a series of Republican speakers and would-be speakers, terrible week, obviously, lost across different fronts.

Is the clock ticking on him, or is he simply going to carry out Donald Trump's bidding until November?

JOSH GERSTEIN, Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, Politico: Well, he is going to carry out Trump's bidding.

I think there's no question about that.

And the clock could tick on him at any second, right, given the very narrow margin that the Republicans have in the House and the ability of any Republican to try to get him out.

I do think, given the trauma that Republicans went through very recently in getting to Johnson as the speaker, it's not something that most of them would want to revisit.

The other thing that I think is going on here, strangely, I think may have something to do with the economy, the fact that the economy is doing pretty well and the numbers are coming in pretty strong.

And it could be the case that some Americans do feel better about the economy by the summer or the fall doesn't leave Trump with a whole lot of issues in his quiver that might be terribly successful with moderates.

And maybe immigration is one where they still think his campaign can have traction.

And I think that could account for various things that are going on here, including his rather open threats to senators not to go forward with that bill.

JOHN DICKERSON: Can I jump in on this idea of houseification?

Because what we mean by that for those out there who haven't been familiar with this term is we -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's a home design term.

JOHN DICKERSON: The Senate is behaving like the House, which means they are more sensitive to the twists and turns of politics than they used to be.

It used to be that because you're a senator, you had six years, you could take a longer term view.

You represented the whole state, which meant you had Republicans and Democrats and independents.

But what's happened now in the modern Republican Party is you have people from states where it's a much more homogeneous group.

So, you have -- and also you have primaries in which the most ideological people in your party are possibly going to bounce you if you don't toe the party line.

Elections are more national now.

So, no matter what state you live in, you have to have the right position on one, two or three issues.

Border is really number one.

And so there are these structural forces that have created the politics that we have today.

And let me give you just a couple of them.

In the last 28 Congresses, 19 of them have been divided government.

So, that's 70 percent.

That should create, if we worked in the system that you described, James, that should create a system in which people are trying to make -- get to yes.

The problem is all the other forces in politics are moving the other direction.

The most liberal Republican is still more conservative than the most conservative Democrat.

So, there's no overlap there.

You also have a situation where -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: When did that end?

JOHN DICKERSON: A couple of years ago, three years -- no, probably a little bit more than a couple years.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But it's a very recent phenomenon.

JOHN DICKERSON: It was a period where there was huge overlapping.

And one other thing I would just add is the change of party control of the houses, it's changed sixth time in the house since 1980 party control.

In the Senate, party control has changed eight times since 1980.

What does that do?

It creates structural incentives that I don't want to give the other team a victory, because I want to run against the other team and say they're no good, give us control of this body.

All of those structural incentives create the politics we have now and then, as James said, Donald Trump just supercharged all of that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Amna, let me ask you about one of the -- I mean, obviously one of the most serious consequences of this houseification or this politicization of everything, and let me start by showing you a tweet from the prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, who wrote earlier this week.

Dear Republican senators of America, Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today.

Shame on you.

I mean, what he's noticing is a new prime minister of Poland, obviously very, very geared, as Poland is a frontline state, very, very geared to aiding Ukraine, which is running low, and among other things, just basic ammunition.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He's basically saying, you know, you are abdicating your responsibility that you, America, took on in 1945 to help democracies sustain themselves against autocracy.

Talk about the consequences of this, not just for Ukraine, but across the board.

AMNA NAWAZ: I'm so glad you showed that, because what a tweet.

You have a foreign leader scolding one of our two major parties for their failure to act and saying, shame on you.

And shame is the key word here, because I just think there is no bar for shame anymore.

As you said, it is naked political ambition that's out there right now.

We are not going to move forward on a bill that we know would benefit the system at the southern border that has been badly in need of repair for over decades now.

We are not going to move forward on a bill that we know will provide critical assistance to Ukraine as they try to fight off a Russian offensive.

And that is now out there.

This is not reading between the lines in any way.

But I do think it also points out the other key fact here, which is that the world is watching.

This came from the leader of another western nation.

Every nation right now is looking to see what happens in the United States, whether the U.S. can manage to actually work through congressional gridlock, pass anything, make anything happen, what happens in the next election.

Will America even remain the same sort of level of leader after this election?

I think that remains to be seen.

The consequences really could not be greater.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I mean, what does happen if the Republican -- the average Republican representative elected official becomes essentially isolationist?

Is that -- I mean, are they as isolationist as they seem, or are they simply trying to please Mar-a-Lago at this point?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, I think it's fair to say that Mr. Trump is more of an isolationist.

I think it's fair to say Mr. Trump does not see America's role on the world stage in the same way that even many Republicans do, certainly not Democrats.

There's a handful, I'm sure, James, you heard this, there's a handful of Republicans who see national security issues in a very different way, but they are now the minority in both the House and the Senate.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Are they the minority?

JAMES BENNET: I think they are the minority now, since I agree with Amna.

But I think this battle is still being fought within the Republican Party and the isolationist wing, the kind of sort isolationist wing, because there's some issues.

I think aid to Israel, for example, is one where there's broad agreement within the party, is ascendant in the loudest voices.

And I think the ones who want to remain engaged in the world and support aid to Ukraine are trying to find a way to do it kind of without getting swatted down by Donald Trump and navigate the politics of this crazy election year.

And we did see the Senate move to consideration a bill that would fund aid to Ukraine and Israel.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

We also saw Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene say that she would move to oust Speaker Johnson if he moves on that bill.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, right.

Marjorie Taylor Greene might be one of the most powerful people in Washington, which is something, if you said that a couple of years ago, would cause people to be - look at you in disbelief.

JOHN DICKERSON: And that's also partially Speaker Johnson's fault, because if he wanted to throw things on the floor and say, we'll get Republicans and Democrats, he could get majorities for things, but he would get into a lot of trouble with his own party.

So, he can't really -- he can't do that.

But he's letting himself be captive of his own party.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Let me pivot to some of Donald Trump's excitement earlier this week in court.

Josh Gerstein, you were in the Supreme Court listening to the arguments.

I'm not asking you for a prediction where the Supreme Court is going to go, but where is the Supreme Court going to go?

JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, fortunately, this is one where it was pretty clear to everyone who was up there by the end of the argument.

Reporters were jotting down notes and people were jotting down numbers like 8-1, 9-0.

Those were the things people were writing.

So, it was a little bit of a surprise.

I think many people thought this was about the 14th Amendment issue out of Colorado and whether Trump could be struck from the ballot in some states, maybe he would have to be struck, maybe he couldn't be actually sworn in as president if he really is ineligible for being an insurrectionist due to the events of January 6th.

Most people thought the court, especially the 6-3 conservative court, where a third of the court are Trump appointees, was likely to rule in his favor.

What was really a surprise was we saw a number of liberal justices, two of the three liberal justices, seem to come down on Trump's side and suggesting that this was not legally appropriate to knock him off the ballot.

Mainly the reason they gave was that they think that there needs to be some kind of established procedure by Congress to disqualify people as insurrectionists, which Congress did actually after the Civil War.

It had a procedure, it had a law on the books and there was a way you could do it.

There were later a couple of different instances.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Wasn't impeachment for post-insurrection, post January 6th, wasn't that the process to decide whether this man should run or not?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I mean, at the presidential level, that could be one of the processes.

But there were ways to disqualify a lot of people.

There were concerns that Southern Confederate supporters or members of the army or the leadership were going to try to infiltrate the federal government.

And so this was all on the books for a period of time, but it kind of fell into disrepair.

And nobody's really sure if that mechanism still exists.

The Colorado Supreme Court decided that their election laws in Colorado were a way to do this.

And it sounds like a large majority of the Supreme Court is going to disagree with them.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tell us very quickly about the immunity issues.

JOSH GERSTEIN: So, we had a ruling out of the D.C.

Circuit.

This has to do with the Trump case charging him criminally for events related to January 6th, where the D.C.

Circuit said he did not have presidential immunity.

He was president, obviously, on January 6th, and he claims that some of the things he did, including his famous speech on The Ellipse, which sounded to many people like a political or campaign-related speech, was actually part of his official duties, a bipartisan or Republican -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I was there.

It seemed like a campaign event.

JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, you know, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: One of the crazier campaign events I've ever gone to.

JOSH GERSTEIN: So, he -- that went to the D.C.

Circuit.

We had a three-judge panel, two Democratic appointees, one Republican, ruled against Trump, say there is no presidential immunity for former presidents in terms of criminal prosecution.

And we're now at a point where, by Monday, we expect Trump's lawyers to go to the Supreme Court.

So, it's really a season of Trump at the Supreme Court.

There are arguably three or four cases that are going to be in front of them in one way or another over the next few months.

And this one will arrive on their desks probably on Monday.

And they're going to be asked, essentially, whether his trial can go forward in the next few weeks or months, or whether they should put it on hold, possibly take up the issue, which could result in a stall of several months, which might mean that trial does not take place before the election.

JAMES BENNET: I'm just wondering if I could ask Josh for a different prediction.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

JAMES BENNET: What are the odds at this point do you think that any of these cases gets resolved before the election?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I still think there's a decent chance that he will get subjected to one of these trials because the way the calendar works and there are -- it will shock people to know there are -- some of these prosecutors have political motives or backgrounds as well and I just think the natural friction and the natural flow of this, this would be -- JAMES BENNET: Which one would come first if you had a bet right now?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I still think this January 6 trial has a chance of going first.

I don't think that it would happen in March.

I think it might happen in something like May.

It sounds like the classified documents case down in Florida is bogging down by the day, so I don't expect that one.

It's also possible this case up in New York about the hush money payments could suddenly end up at the top of the stack.

It's actually supposed to go to trial next month but we're waiting on some big rulings from the judge there that are scheduled to come down next week.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Let me -- let's pivot to the age issue now.

And there's -- James looks so happy about that.

It is kind of -- there's an interesting thing.

There's the obvious question, and then there's the question about the question, and then there's the context.

So, there're three questions.

The first question is, is Joe Biden too old to be president, right?

That's the one that came up in earnest in the last couple of days.

The second is, is it right for the press to talk about this issue as an issue all the time?

And that we're seeing that in our profession, people sort of going at each other over whether this is even a relevant topic.

And the third issue is, how did it come to pass that the presumptive Republican nominee facing 91 felon accounts adjudicated in a civil court as a rapist and on and on and on, is running against a president who walks really slowly and we are focused so much on Joe Biden's qualifications as opposed to Donald Trump's call -- I'm not saying -- JOHN DICKERSON: Who's we?

Who's we?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, we, it's me.

No, no, no, I mean, I think there's a lot of -- there's a meta question in here, John, and you have to answer it now, because you provoked me.

Is it a legitimate issue to talk about his age?

JOHN DICKERSON: Of course, it's a legitimate issue to talk about his age and to talk about Donald Trump's age.

But the really important presidential issue that came out of this report about Joe Biden's handling of classified materials to me is what does it say about the behavior of Joe Biden and Donald Trump?

They are both accused of similar things, Trump with many more classified documents and more seriously classified.

To me, the most important question from a presidential perspective is, what's the most recent behavior tell us about how they would behave in office.

And that's with respect to what happened when they found out they had these documents.

Biden's team found out they had the documents and went to the National Archives and said, oops, we have these, please come investigate.

They participated willingly in the investigation and Joe Biden sat down for five hours.

By contrast, former President Trump didn't tell anybody he had these materials he wasn't supposed to have.

When they came asking with a subpoena, according to the indictment, he went through a series of acts directing people to hide the material, gave some material, didn't give other material, then went through an effort to hide it again.

Why is this important?

It goes to the habits of mind in office, which is a constant tension between doing things for yourself and doing things by the standards and norms of the office of the presidency.

So, this goes to mindset about how they would behave with four years in office.

That, I think, is the most important question.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Amna, let me ask about the prosecutor here, the investigation, Mr. Hur.

Was he out of bounds in describing in very colloquial terms how he viewed Biden's age and memory?

AMNA NAWAZ: The White House would say, yes, right?

The White House says it was gratuitous for that kind of information to be included.

You saw the president's response last night, which was just about as fiery and emotional as he gets, in particular when the special counsel questioned his memory over the death of his son, Beau.

But, you know, we just had this discussion on NewsHour as well, and I'll quote David Brooks here, who basically said the special counsel's job is to think about how a jury would look at this kind of thing.

And it was framed in that kind of presentation, which was a jury would see him in the following ways.

On the age question, I will say this, which is, yes, it's absolutely fair for journalists to be asking these questions.

He's the oldest sitting president in United States' history.

We are here to ask questions on behalf of the public that we serve.

And you saw Mr. Biden last night basically say, journalists are asking these questions.

That's why we're talking about it.

There's probably a real question there about whether people want to know, and so journalists are talking about it, or journalists are talking about it, and that's why people want to know, but the numbers show that there is not an insignificant number of people who are concerned.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

James, obviously it's a legitimate issue, like any other issue.

But is this a redux of Hillary and her emails?

JAMES BENNET: I mean, the White House was certainly making the argument after the special prosecutor.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Do they have a point?

JAMES BENNET: Yes, I think the -- I've deferred to Josh on legal questions like this.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We all do.

JAMES BENNET: But I found some of the language in the report a little bit gratuitous.

I mean, it seemed to me to go unnecessarily far and a little bit that they were trying to smuggle some of the details in.

If you look at specific details, like saying, was I still vice president in 2013, you could get confused about, technically, did my vice presidency end in 2012 or 2013?

You could read that a couple of different ways.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Josh, in the minute that we have left, and since you are obviously the lawyer here at the table -- JOSH GERSTEIN: I'm not a lawyer.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're a lawyer on T.V.

You're a lawyer on T.V.

So, tell us, was this out of bounds?

JOSH GERSTEIN: I would say there was a degree of sleight of hand here that James is kind of alluding to.

You know, this report at the top says this is a confidential report for the attorney general.

And in a literal sense, that was true, a technical sense, because it's supposed to confidential report.

The problem is the attorney general had already publicly declared that he was going to make this public.

So, when they were writing this and putting these phrases in there about, you know, a well-meaning elderly man who is very forgetful, you know, the prosecutors knew full well that this was going to be publicly related.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That was almost written for the tweet.

JOSH GERSTEIN: It really seemed like something that was being thrown in there.

Might it appear in a memo under other circumstances in similar language, perhaps?

And, you know, it might have well come out anyway, even if it was not in the report.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Fascinating, a very, very eventful week.

Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now.

I want to thank our panelists for joining us and for sharing their reporting.

And for more on Trump's domination of the Republican Party, check out Mark Leibovich's latest piece at theatlantic.com.

And on Saturday's PBS News Weekend, the large role tech companies and social media will play in this year's election.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.