News on Youtube Aug 26 2018

ROBERT COSTA: Hello. I'm Robert Costa. And this is the Washington Week Extra, where we

pick up online where we left off on our broadcast.

Joining me around the table, Abby Phillip of CNN, Molly Ball of TIME Magazine, Dan Balz

of The Washington Post, and Paula Reid of CBS News. It was a rough week for Republicans.

Representative Duncan Hunter of California and his wife were indicted for using more than

$250,000 of campaign money to pad his family's lifestyle.

The charges include using the money to pay for their children's private school tuition,

trips, and even included airfare for the family's pet rabbit.

The Hunters attributed these charges to charity or campaign events, but of course

campaign funds cannot be used for personal expenses.

Hunter has called the charges against him politically motivated and without merit, and

pleaded not guilty to all of them, but he did resign from his committee positions this

week in the House. On Thursday Hunter said this.

REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA): (From video.) This is the new Department of

Justice. This is the Democrats' arm of law enforcement. That's what happening right now,

and it's happening with Trump and it's happening with me, and we're going to fight

through it and win, and then the people get to vote in November. So we'll see.

ROBERT COSTA: Up until Friday, Hunter had said he would not drop out of his race this

fall. Another indictment for a House Republican, Paula. I mean, we saw Chris Collins of

New York, now Duncan Hunter of California, DOJ keeping a close eye on these lawmakers.

PAULA REID: Yes, this is what they do. And to be clear, there is no new Justice Department.

Jeff Sessions is still running the Justice Department, and this was a U.S.

attorney in Jeff Sessions' Justice Department. This is not Democrats doing this to him.

And, you know, this is the bread-and-butter kind of work, the corruption-type stuff that

the Justice Department focuses on, and this is not something that if you try to push

through that a jury is very sympathetic about. You know, most people don't fly their

pet rabbit anywhere or get to go on trips to Hawaii. So this is the kind of thing that's

deadly serious and this is not a political conspiracy. I read this indictment.

The charges are clearly supported by a significant amount of evidence, so it remains to

be seen whether or not he wants to plea to make this go away or if he wants to fight it.

You know, politicians who try to fight this stuff, doesn't go well with juries.

ROBERT COSTA: Dan, maybe I'm wrong in my read of this, but when you think back to 2006,

House Republicans struggled with this corruption argument against them.

They lost the House to the Democrats in a wave. You would think these kind of indictments

for House Republicans these days would maybe play into a similar narrative. But maybe it's

because of Trump being overwhelming in the national discussion; it doesn't seem like the

House Republicans are getting called out day in, day out on these kind of developments.

DAN BALZ: Well, that is partly for the reason you say, which is that the president so

dominates everything that people kind of get lost in a lot of the other things.

But if you put what happened this week with Chris Collins and then with the various

ethics issues involving members of the Trump administration, there is a compelling case

that the notion of "draining the swamp," quote/unquote, has not happened under President

Trump, and Democrats may be able to make an argument about that in the context of we need

a check on this administration and the one way to do that is to put one of the houses of

Congress in the hands of the Democrats. I think that's the way they try to go at it.

MOLLY BALL: And, in fact, you do hear the Democrats using the exact same talking point

that they used in 2006, when Nancy Pelosi was there then and she's there now, and it's

the culture of corruption, trying to fairly or not implicate all Republicans in the sins

of a few. And I think, you know, it works because it is partly about Trump.

If you are a Republican member of Congress, you spend your days hiding from reporters who

want to ask you about Trump. That's your whole life.

And you might have some beautiful bill that you've proposed that does something for

bunnies or something - (laughter) - and all anyone wants to talk about is Trump, so

they're tired of that. And this does add to that, right?

It's just more questions about where do you stand on this latest outrage the

administration has committed, and now that your fellow Republicans also are committing.

So I think - I think Republicans really have been on the spot for all of this, again,

fairly or not, and that's going to continue.

ABBY PHILLIP: But what is also potentially problematic for Republicans is what Duncan

Hunter is doing, which is taking Trump's argument against the DOJ and using it as a

blanket explanation for some pretty apparent grift, and that's not just a Duncan Hunter

phenomenon. I think we've seen down ballot a lot of Republican lawmakers under siege

for various, you know, alleged illegalities are using Trump language - you know, Trump

tone, Trump arguments - to try to defend themselves, and I think that's what also makes

it about the president. It's that they are really just adopting his whole ethos around

dealing with his own legal problems. And not every problem is the same.

I think some voters will see through certain things. As Paula pointed out, it's

pretty clear that flying around your pet rabbit with campaign money is not appropriate.

ROBERT COSTA: You think, Dan, back to corruption in political history, right?

This seems like the characters are somewhat unique, to say the least.

You have Chris Collins of New York trading stock tips, getting called out for insider

trading, alleged insider trading. And then you've got Duncan Hunter of California,

when his wife is somewhat blamed for this, he kind of goes along with the blame on

his own wife on television this week. What a scene.

DAN BALZ: Well, it is, although in a sense it's not that new. I mean, there has been

public corruption throughout history. And, you know, as Paula said, you know, U.S.

attorneys for many, many years have pushed this. I mean, Chris Christie, when he was

the U.S. attorney, put a lot of people in jail for various kinds of things.

Misuse of campaign funds is not - you know, Duncan Hunter isn't the first person to have

been charged with that. Insider trading.

I mean, these are things that human beings do, and some of them happen to be elected

officials, and when they get caught they get - they get more attention and more bright

light shined on them than if an ordinary person has that done.

PAULA REID: And I don't think voters forget when you sort of throw your wife under the

bus as part of your defense. I mean, Governor McDonnell, that was part of his defense,

right? Oh, it was my wife, she did it. That didn't sit well with people.

When you talked - they really didn't like that. That was a reflection of not so

much criminality, but character. So he's got to be careful with that.

ROBERT COSTA: You wonder how long he stays on the ballot.

MOLLY BALL: Well, and to - and to Paula's point, juries aren't necessarily sympathetic

to this argument, and we've seen with Trump's political argument as well.

It doesn't really work for people who aren't Donald Trump, right?

You get Republicans going out there in, say, the Virginia gubernatorial election trying

to say, yeah, my political message also is about MS-13 and Confederate statutes and crime

and immigration; it didn't work for them the way it worked for Trump.

So it may be also that this argument about the legal system, the argument that the

Justice Department it out to get me and it's all a conspiracy and there's a rigged witch

hunt, that also may be a particular type of magic that only works for Trump and doesn't

work for all of his acolytes.

ROBERT COSTA: President Trump made a surprise announcement on Twitter on Friday that he

is asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel his fourth trip to North Korea.

The president said he didn't think the North Koreans were making enough progress on their

nuclear agreement with the U.S., and said China was partially responsible for this, and

attributed that to the administration's trade battle with China that's been ongoing.

But the president's not ruling out upcoming talks. He tweeted: "Secretary Pompeo looks

forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading

relationship with China is resolved." "I would like to send my warmest regards and

respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!" the president tweeted.

Trump has hailed the June Singapore summit with the North Korean leader as a huge success

and said the country no longer posed a nuclear threat to the world, but the agreement was

vague and would be hard to verify.

The International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report this week that said North Korea

was continuing its weapons activities, nuclear weapons activities, and it has been unable

to conduct the inspections that it wants to. Who's conducting foreign policy in this

administration? Reports that State Department was shocked by how this all played out on Friday.

ABBY PHILLIP: They were. They were planning to go on this meeting.

I mean, Pompeo had actually just announced it publicly, State Department officials were

working behind the scenes to, you know, brief their allies in Europe and elsewhere about

their objectives for the meeting, and then suddenly it's called off.

But it's called off because there has been a longstanding situation with North Korea in

which there has been no progress, and the president has denied that publicly but

privately it's been a source of frustration. And I think everyone looking at the

situation has been talking about that. The administration has been denying it.

Now I think they're acknowledging it because they have really no choice.

He may very well be right about the fact that China's not helping him out here, but at

the same time that's because he chose to wage a singlehanded war against China on trade

at a time when he's also trying to get China to help him with North Korea.

It's a foreign policy strategy that is not entirely coherent, and now we're seeing the

consequences of that.

MOLLY BALL: Yeah, I mean, I think it actually reveals in a way the failure of two

separate policy initiatives, right?

On the one hand it is - it is, as Abby said, a tacit acknowledgement that the North Korea

deal wasn't really a deal at all and there hasn't been very much progress there.

It is also a tacit acknowledgement that this trade war with China is having a lot of

unpredictable effects, and one of the effects - although I suppose it could have been

predicted, and was by a lot of people - but one of the effects is when you're waging a

trade war on someone, they don't want to be your friend in other ways and help you with

other things you're trying to do.

There's no way to get a deal with North Korea without the assistance of Beijing.

And so - you know, he also did call off the North Korea summit like five minutes before

he actually went to the North Korea summit - (laughter) - so this may all be a false alarm.

ROBERT COSTA: And the president just can't pull back on trade, even if it would help him

with North Korea. He continues to plow forward. Why is that?

DAN BALZ: It's pat of his DNA. I mean, if there's - I mean, we've talked about this before.

If there is one issue where he has been consistent over a long period of time, it is on trade.

He has a view of the world about trade and the United States that is entirely negative,

that is postured on a belief that we have been taken advantage of by everybody, but

particularly by the Chinese, and he's determined to do something about that.

The problem is what he's determined to do is kind of, you know, blow things up without a

clear strategy of how to get to a conclusion. For whatever reason, he may have

thought he could - he and the Chinese could compartmentalize North Korea here,

cooperation; trade here, combat. But it has not worked out that way.

And, as we know, for whatever he had to say about the meeting in Singapore with the North

Korean leader, there was nothing concrete that came out of that that would lead you to

believe that there was, in fact, an enforceable agreement.

So they've been dealing with kind of a mirage on that and it's been left to Secretary

Pompeo to try to put flesh on those bones, and that's been very, very difficult.

ABBY PHILLIP: And the last time Pompeo went to North Korea he was embarrassed very

publicly. He was expecting to meet with Chairman Kim and didn't. They were late to meetings.

I mean, they clearly made it so that it was an uncomfortable meeting for him the last

time around. There was a risk of a repeat performance this time around. So I think

the administration has been back on their heels on this issue for quite some time now.

ROBERT COSTA: When you walk around the West Wing and you walk up to the Press Office

area, there are these pictures - big blowup pictures - of Chairman Kim and President

Trump. And in some ways it appears behind the scenes the administration already got what

it wanted, which was that picture, even if the details are still being worked out.

PAULA REID: Well, that picture may not age very well. I mean, I think one of the

things - one of the reasons you see that is because that is something that he believed

was a foreign policy accomplishment. To him, he thought this was an achievement. I know

for a time it certainly took the attention off of all of his legal and political problems here

at home. But it will be interesting to see if that picture is still hanging up in six months.

ROBERT COSTA: Have you seen it over there?

ABBY PHILLIP: Well, they rotate them pretty frequently. But -

ROBERT COSTA: Oh, really? Maybe it's rotated out. (Laughter.)

ABBY PHILLIP: I think it was also astonishing -

ROBERT COSTA: I saw it, though. I did.

ABBY PHILLIP: It was astonishing to people that this man, who is accused of mass murder

and all kinds of horrific crimes, is just literally hanging up in a place of prominence

in the West Wing.

ROBERT COSTA: Right on the way to the Oval Office.

ABBY PHILLIP: Right on the way to the Oval Office so the president can see it.

ROBERT COSTA: We'll leave it there. That's it for this edition of Washington Week Extra.

While you're online, check out our Washington Week-ly News Quiz.

I'm Robert Costa. We'll see you next time.

For more infomation >> GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter indicted for alleged misuse of campaign funds - Duration: 12:56.

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Is Donald Trump's presidency in peril? - Duration: 23:04.

ROBERT COSTA: Convictions, immunity deals, and a showdown with the attorney general.

Is the Trump presidency at a turning point? I'm Robert Costa. Welcome to Washington Week.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) He took the job and then he said I'm going to

recuse myself. I said, what kind of a man is this?

ROBERT COSTA: The attorney general stands up to President Trump's criticism that he

never took control of the Justice Department and vows the agency will not be improperly

influenced by politics. But the feud between the once-close allies has Republicans taking sides.

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): (From video.) I think there will come a time sooner

rather than later where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the

Department of Justice.

ROBERT COSTA: And the president's former attorney Michael Cohen pleads guilty to eight

criminal counts, including campaign finance violations connected to payoffs of two women.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) By the way, he plead to two counts that aren't a

crime, which nobody understands.

ROBERT COSTA: Trump insists the convictions of Cohen and former campaign chairman Paul

Manafort have nothing to do with him.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) Where is the collusion?

You know, they're still looking for collusion. Where is the collusion?

ROBERT COSTA: We cover it all next.

ANNOUNCER: This is Washington Week. Once again, from Washington, moderator Robert Costa.

ROBERT COSTA: Good evening. What a week: two courtroom dramas featuring the president's

former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime attorney Michael Cohen, and

immunity deals with two close allies. All of it could change the course of Donald Trump's

presidency. On Tuesday a jury convicted Manafort on eight of 18 counts of tax evasion and

bank fraud. The Washington Post reported that the president has privately considered a

pardon for Manafort, but his lawyers have so far advised against it. That same day,

former Trump attorney Michael Cohen brought the legal clouds even closer to the president.

Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance laws.

Under oath, Cohen stunned the Manhattan courtroom when he said that payments to women

alleging affairs were, quote, "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate

for federal office." That statement contradicts what the president once told reporters.

REPORTER: (From video.) Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) No.

REPORTER: (From video.) Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) I don't know.

ROBERT COSTA: The president this week appeared on Fox News with his latest defense: the

payments were not campaign-related.

AINSLEY EARHARDT (Fox News): (From video.) Did you know about the payments?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) Later on I knew, later on. But you have to

understand, Ainsley, what he did - and they weren't taken out of campaign finance.

That's the big thing. That's a much bigger thing, did they come out of the campaign.

They didn't come out of the campaign. They came from me, and I tweeted about it.

ROBERT COSTA: But Mr. Trump's word will not be the final one.

Federal investigators have granted immunity to two Trump confidants familiar with the

matter: David Pecker, the CEO of AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer; and Trump

Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.

Joining me tonight, Molly Ball, national political reporter for TIME Magazine; Paula

Reid, White House and legal affairs correspondent for CBS News; Abby Phillip, White House

correspondent for CNN; and Dan Balz, chief correspondent for The Washington Post.

Dan, you wrote this week: "What took place Tuesday will ratchet up the pressure on the

president, will embolden his critics, and will no doubt inflame and rally his supporters."

Dan, in so many ways it feels like we've been here before, a crisis moment for President

Trump, candidate Trump. What makes this week different?

DAN BALZ: Two things, Bob.

First, on the Manafort conviction, what that did, though it had nothing to do with Donald

Trump, is it strengthened the hand of Bob Mueller and his investigative team.

Had that - that jury deliberated a long time, and on 10 counts they could not reach a

verdict because of one lone holdout. But those eight convictions were very, very important.

It sent a signal that this is a real investigation that has real power, so that's the

first thing. The second is with Michael Cohen, to see him make the deal that he did

and to plead to what he pleaded, and to implicate the president, brings this to the

White House in a way that it hadn't been before.

And, as we now know as a result of everything else that's happened this week, that there

is greater cooperation among people who know a lot about Donald Trump.

We don't know where it's going to end up, obviously, but if you're in Donald Trump's

position you have to feel much more pressure today than you did a few weeks ago.

ROBERT COSTA: What's your read, Molly?

TIME's got a cover this week: "In Deep" - "President Trump In Deep."

MOLLY BALL: Well, yeah, and I think that that's a good metaphor, the waters rising until

they perhaps get all the way up to your head, because, you know, there is this sense that

there's such a perpetual outrage, perpetual controversy from this White House that it can

seem that something blows up, it happens, and then in the rearview maybe it wasn't that

significant because a week later we're all talking about something else. In fact, those

have all been cumulative. All of these significant moments, from the appointment of the

special counsel in May of 2017, the first indictments, the Manafort indictments coming

down in October of last year, it has all led up to this. And so, in fact, each of those

was its own turning point, was its own step in this process. And it just continues to

snowball. And so the president, I think, as Dan said, has to feel like the walls are

increasingly closing in on him. It is significant that, you know, before this week

there wasn't someone going to jail. And now there is. Now there's actually two people

going to jail. So the - Manafort's still got another trial. But him being convicted

closes, in a sense, one chapter. And then Cohen, surprising everyone with this plea

deal, opens yet another. And it's rather a Pandora's box.

ROBERT COSTA: But are the walls closing in? Because those are the facts, but you

look at the president tonight in Ohio, he's not acting like it.

ABBY PHILLIP: Right. He's acting like a man who has a job to do.

But actually, interestingly for President Trump, relatively disciplined tonight in Ohio.

Not making any major headlines. And that might be actually a sign that the president

feels like he needs to be a little bit more circumspect. There is a sense of

uncertainty right now more than anything else about what this all means. What is

it that Michael Cohen provided that would have allowed the prosecutors to want

to give him a plea deal? What is it that his chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg,

had that allowed prosecutors to give him immunity? There's a lot of unanswered questions.

And I think for now the president is lashing out in certain ways, maybe on social media

in 1:00 a.m. tweets, but otherwise just trying to kind of get through his day

and not look rattled against of all what's going on.

ROBERT COSTA: What did we learn about the rally? Are the voters with him at the

rally in Ohio? Are they - were they with him in West Virginia earlier this week?

ABBY PHILLIP: Well, I think they are. I think they are. By all accounts, Trump's

voters are unmoved by this. They take his explanation for all of these things - that

what Michael Cohen pled to was not a crime, that he's being treated unfairly -

and they take that as face - at face value. Tonight he's speaking before some

Republican Party officials. And that's a room of people who are - they both love

Trump, because he can raise money, he can bring out the base, but they also are worried.

These are the very people who will be worried about what Trump means for them come

November given this culture and this environment of prosecutions, guilty pleas, and

criminal investigations.

ROBERT COSTA: And whenever I think about Ohio, I think about Ohio Governor John Kasich.

He could run against President Trump in 2020. He's certainly making noise about it,

moving toward that possibility. But, Paula, when you think about what happened on

Tuesday with Manafort and Cohen, it's not over. Manafort still has another trial.

PAULA REID: That's right. He has another trial next month in Washington, D.C.

And this one will be similar, but it will focus more specifically on his work on behalf

of pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians. He's charged with conspiracy against the U.S.,

failure to register as a foreign lobbyist. So this one will have a lot more to do

with Russia. And I think, as you noted, a lot of people saw this first trial as

a referendum on the legitimacy of the special counsel's investigation.

And this was a mixed verdict. They got their first jury convictions, but there were

10 counts where they couldn't reach a decision. And I think it's sort of a Rorschach

test. If you believe in Mueller you say, yep, this is vindication.

If you don't, if you think it's a witch hunt, you say, look, the majority of counts, they

couldn't get a consensus. We now know that was one holdout juror. So they really have

to look at what they did in Virginia and try to sort of boost their game once they

get to D.C. Because this one juror thought they were sleeping through part of it.

What was that? Why did they think that?

And they have to really bring their A game for this one.

ROBERT COSTA: What about on the Cohen side?

How big is it to have people like David Pecker get immunity and how far does that extend?

PAULA REID: Well, so it's not unusual to grant people immunity if you think that they

may have unwittingly or wittingly committed a crime but you're more interested in the

other person. Now, Cohen fully expected to be charged with several counts months ago,

long before these immunity deals were granted.

But we have to remember, Cohen didn't flip on the president.

He could potentially cooperate as part of this plea deal, but he's not required to.

And one of the reasons is that Cohen is a very problematic witness.

It would be easy to undermine him if he was your only witness against the president or

anyone in his inner circle, which is what makes these immunity deals so interesting.

What did they provide?

Did these people provide anything about the president's involvement in these payments?

We don't know. It's just sort of a tease for what could potential be to come.

ROBERT COSTA: And when I mentioned David Pecker, I was talking about David Pecker, who

is head of AMI, who runs the National Enquirer, which has had this cozy relationship with

Trump for decades, Dan. And you think, how vulnerable really is Trump right now with

David Pecker getting immunity? Allen Weisselberg, who knows everything about the

Trump Organization, the CFO, getting immunity as he - they all cooperate?

It's more than just campaign finance violations here.

DAN BALZ: Well, I guess it's - I think that's the big question. Is the grant of

immunity to the two of them mostly aimed at shoring up what Michael Cohen has pleaded to?

Or does it open up other areas for the special counsel to investigate, to explore, and

perhaps to find other things where Trump or the Trump Organization have committed crimes

or have done - you know, done shady things.

We don't really know the answer to that, but I think that one thing we see, as Molly

suggested, is that this case continues to build. And it builds up and it builds out.

And all of that surrounds Donald Trump at this point.

And so we - you know, we have to wait for the conclusion.

But these two men know a heck of a lot of stuff that could be problematic for Trump.

ROBERT COSTA: And, Molly, you know a heck of a lot about Michael Cohen.

You've covered him for years. What drove him as a - you know him as a reporter. What -

his whims, his personality. What drove him to cooperate, to make this - to plead guilty?

MOLLY BALL: Well, I should say, I've spoken to him in the past.

I haven't spoken to him recently. And I don't think a lot of reporters have.

But this is someone who had such an incredible - incredibly close relationship with

Donald Trump. Back in 2011, he was the guy putting up the website trying to get Trump

to run for president against Obama. And so he has been by his side for a very long time.

He has had a very, very close relationship. He was the one who would, you know, call

reporters and scream obscenities at them when he didn't like a story.

He was very much there in Trump's orbit. But as many have pointed out, Weisselberg had

a lot more official responsibilities in the Trump Organization, had access to a lot

more of the really significant dealings of the organization, as opposed to just Trump

personally. They're both very significant. And I think it's important too that the

significance isn't just that they've decided to turn around, you know, be disloyal

and say nasty things. They have access to a lot of information.

And so whether, you know, a potential jury or someone examining this case decides that

they find Michael Cohen credible or not, that may not matter because of the information

that is being collected. Things like the tapes, that we already know that he has.

In the Manafort trial, the jurors were told by the prosecution: Our star witness isn't

Rick Gates. It's this pile of documents. And this juror that went on Fox News said:

I am a Trump supporter. I didn't - I wanted him to be innocent. But based on all of

this evidence that we looked at, I couldn't do it. It was - it was just all there.

And so it's - you know, we know already from the Cohen indictment, there's internal

emails, there's all kinds of information that prosecutors now have access to.

ROBERT COSTA: So we thought it was going to be a two-front war for the president this

week. He's fighting on Cohen. He's battling on Manafort, which is part of the Mueller

probe. There's a third front, Paula. His own Attorney General Jeff Sessions,

already a target of the president's venting due to his recusal from the Russia probe.

He punched back this week, defending himself and the institution he leads.

In a written statement Sessions wrote: While I am attorney general, the actions of the

department will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand

the highest standards. And when they are not met, I take action. He continues to refuse

to resign. Is that because the president doesn't want to be seen as obstructing justice?

PAULA REID: Well, we've asked the president this. You may have been there with me.

We've asked the president at some of these gaggles we've had at the White House.

Why don't you just fire Attorney General Sessions? You have the power to do it.

Clearly you're not shy about firing people. And he just always sort of waves it off

and says, oh, we'll see. So it does appear that there's some sort of issue with optics.

That's a reason he doesn't fire his attorney general. But remember, when the president

is tweeting at this point about the attorney general, he's not pressuring him to resign.

That's not going to happen. That's clear. Jeff Sessions loves his job.

He's unilaterally enforcing policies he could never get through the Senate.

The president obviously isn't going to fire him. And if he wanted someone to look

into Clinton emails or some of these other matters, you actually have to pressure

Rod Rosenstein. So who are they talking to? Jeff Sessions is talking to the rank and file.

They're extremely frustrated that he has not been more forceful in pushing back on the

president and his allies and all the criticism that they have really put on the Justice

Department and the FBI. And the president? I think he is more talking to his supporters,

trying to undermine the legitimacy of the Justice Department and federal law enforcement.

So some of us see this as a feud between the two. I think they're sort of talking

past each other, because neither one is going to get what they want out of the other.

ROBERT COSTA: You know, it's interesting, Abby. You were talking earlier about the

president in Ohio. The voters seem to be with him. He's defiant.

But there were some cracks among the Republicans on Capitol Hill this week.

Some of the Republican senators said: If you move on Sessions, you may lose us.

ABBY PHILLIP: Yeah. I think there have been some changes on Capitol Hill.

There are still a lot of Republicans who support Sessions, who think it's a bad idea for

the president to fire him. But I think we are starting to see some other Republicans -

many of them friends of Sessions - who used to hold the line, saying: You know what,

Mr. President? If you want to do this, you need to wait. Do it after the midterm

elections when we have more bandwidth and when we can actually take this up.

That's significant for a lot of different reasons. One, because it does open the

door for the president to potentially do this at some point.

But it's an acknowledgement that this is a toxic situation that cannot continue.

Jeff Sessions' friends like Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, are now the ones saying, you

know, you can do this but do it later, Mr. President. I think the Sessions situation

for Trump is one that he's been unwilling to deal with because he knows what the

consequences are. He knows that he probably can't tolerate those consequences.

And to Paula's point, he has to continue to talk to the base.

Every night there is a drumbeat: fire Jeff Sessions, fire Rod Rosenstein, fire all the

people that Trump actually appointed to those jobs within the Department of Justice.

And the president has to respond to that in some way, and this is how he does it.

ROBERT COSTA: Do you see a break in the GOP as the president

continues to chip away at Sessions, Dan?

DAN BALZ: Not yet.

I think the - I think the Republicans have - are sticking with the bargain that they've

made, which is that they will - they will try to get as much from Trump being president

as they can of their own agenda, whether it's judges, the tax bill that they got earlier,

all of those things, and they will stick with him until there is something more

significant than we've seen. That could be the midterm elections. I mean, that

could be the inflection point that affects Republicans in a much broader way.

If the Republicans take a real beating in November - and I'm not saying that that's going

to happen, but if that were to happen then Republicans are going to have to reassess what

it means to be as loyal as they have been.

But until then I think they're going to try to ride it out. I don't think they

want to create additional controversy now, heading into those elections.

PAULA REID: And we have to remember, Jeff Sessions pays very little attention to

anything outside of immigration. Since the day he took office, he has been squarely

focused on strict immigration enforcement. Some people think he's been too strict -

obviously, the separating families - but that's something the president campaigned on.

The president's supporters know that Jeff Sessions is working to staff up immigration

courts, give them resources, expedite deporting people out of prisons.

He has done so many things to deliver on that campaign promise. So I think one of the

consequences, if you did try to oust him, is some of the president's supporters will

say, well, wait a second, he was the one delivering on that campaign promise.

MOLLY BALL: Not just immigration, but also criminal justice, right?

He's pushed this tough-on-crime agenda, and that's what he talks about when he goes

around the country talking to police, talking to sheriffs.

And that's another huge plank of Trump's agenda and that was another part of the

statement that Sessions issued at the very beginning, said that, you know, he feels that

he is winning for the president. He feels that he is executing the president's

agenda, as Paula said, and he never gets credit for that from the president.

The president doesn't appreciate it very much, but that's really what - the utility that

Sessions sees for himself.

ROBERT COSTA: As the Democrats watch all this, Molly, I mean, we're saying this is a

pivotal week for Trump, but what about for the Democrats?

They still seem to be pretty muted when it comes to talking about impeachment.

MOLLY BALL: Yeah, it's very interesting, and you had Nancy Pelosi send another letter to

the rank-and-file Democrats in the House this week saying let's keep focused on the

economy, let's talk about the corruption of the Republicans, talk about their enabling of

Trump; let's not talk about the I-word, impeachment.

The feeling is that this alienates independent voters because it seems like a partisan

political battle and it seems like a personal battle against the president.

Of course, the Democrats' base is quite activated and, you know, it doesn't get a lot of

coverage, but in a lot of cities practically every weekend there's an impeachment march,

there is a protest against Trump for one thing or another.

And so that is driving the enthusiasm that Democrats expect will power them to big gains

in November, but they're very much, most of them, in lockstep with this message that is

trying to focus on something substantive, trying to - trying to turn the focus to the

Republicans they're actually running against rather than the president, who's not on the ballot.

ROBERT COSTA: Smart politics, or are they missing the opportunity of a lifetime to

energize their base?

DAN BALZ: Their base is pretty energized, and I think that to put the impeachment issue

front and center would create conflict, particularly in a lot of the districts.

I mean, it's not as though every district is - you know, is deep blue.

I mean, a lot of these districts have swing voters. You know, they're - you know,

they're competitive districts, so I think that's difficult. I think both Republicans

and Democrats right now are sort of playing a double game on the impeachment issue.

We'll see what happens after November, but it is - I mean, it's pretty mature, frankly,

based on everything we know yet, to get too far into that discussion.

ABBY PHILLIP: I think if there is one thing that the - that Republicans and perhaps even

the president thinks might work in their favor here is that this encircling of the

president with all of these various different probes - the special counsel probe, the

Southern District of New York, potentially one coming from New York state prosecutors -

could create an atmosphere in which he is perceived to be unfairly under siege.

It's something that they always cite Bill Clinton, during the impeachment fervor his

approval ratings rising. There is some argument to be made that they can use that

as a tool to help inoculate the president. I'm not sure how much, frankly, it will

inoculate Republicans writ large at a district-by-district level, but certainly the

president has already proven to be pretty resilient in spite of all of this.

He's stayed much where he's been for most of his presidency in terms of his approval

ratings, and I think that they believe that some of that has to do with the fatigue of

all of this - fatigue from Russia and fatigue from all these investigations.

ROBERT COSTA: What about inside of the White House? Are they pretty fatigued?

Is the president - I mean, you say he's resilient, but maybe he's isolated as well.

It seemed almost on Wednesday, after Tuesday's events, quiet from the West Wing.

PAULA REID: Very quiet, very quiet.

I mean, I think - we saw Sarah Sanders come out clearly at the behest of President Trump

to say almost nothing, surprisingly scheduling a briefing, which she does not often do.

And she went out there, basically, to repeat a single talking point, that the president

has not been charged with a crime and there is no collusion and he did nothing wrong.

She did that over and over again, but added not much, and she seemed weary from all of this.

ROBERT COSTA: We're going to have to leave it there. Appreciate all of you being

here tonight. Great conversation.

And before we go, a moment to recognize Senator John McCain and his family.

The veteran Arizona senator has decided to discontinue medical treatment in his battle

with brain cancer, and today his wife, Cindy, tweeted about her love for her husband and

expressed her appreciation for the outpouring of support.

The Senate halls and American politics haven't been the same with him away.

And we need to leave you early tonight, but please stay tuned and support your local PBS

station. And our conversation will continue on the Washington Week Extra.

You can find that after 10 p.m. Eastern every Friday at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.

I'm Robert Costa. Thanks for joining us.