Amy Walter and Laura Barrón-López on Biden’s ATF nominee, Trump’s sway in primary races

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Congress may be out on spring recess this week, but political fights are brewing in D.C. over hot-button issues like guns, abortion, and the president's social spending package.

  Lisa Desjardins brings us up to speed on all the news in politics.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The announcement of a nominee to run that agency that regulates guns has recharged an intense political debate here in Washington, and the primary election season is getting into high gear, as the former president weighs in on key races.

  Here to break this down, of course, are our Politics Monday crew, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter, and Laura Barron-Lopez of Politico. Tamara Keith is away.

  Laura, let's start right with you.

  You broke the stories of the announcements on guns today from the White House, including the announcement of the new nominee for the ATF. Now, Steve Dettelbach is someone who comes from a prosecutor's background, a little different than the previous nominee, who did have experience with gun control advocacy groups.

  What does that tell you? What does this — all the announcements today tell you about where we are on the politics of guns, especially for Democrats right now?

• Laura Barron-Lopez, Politico:

  Right. So this is a big second attempt by the White House to try to get an ATF nominee director confirmed.

  There hasn't been a director of the ATF, which is responsible for cracking down on illegal or trafficked guns, there hasn't been a director of that agency, a permanent one, since 2015. So, if Biden is able to get Dettelbach confirmed, that's a big deal.

  Hill sources have told me that they think Dettelbach has a better chance than the prior nominee, David Chipman, who, as you noted, used to advise gun advocacy groups, namely, the Giffords Group. And so they're thinking that he could potentially have a bigger — a better shot at getting confirmed, particularly among those Democratic senators or senators that caucus with Democrats, supporting him, because, last time, it was the fact that they couldn't get enough of those Democratic senators to support the prior nominee, which is why that nomination fell apart.

  But this could be a big potential boost for the Democratic base in terms of if Biden is able to get the ATF nominee director confirmed, as well as seeing this ghost gun rule finalized, which is a major regulation that cracks down on untraceable guns. And so a lot of gun advocates that — gun control advocates I have spoken to today say that they hope that the White House continues to hammer home their gun safety agenda, because they think that it could turn out younger voters.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Amy, another perennial dividing line in this country is abortion.

  As you heard Judy report earlier, a young woman in Texas was arrested for murder last week. Those charges were dropped for an illegally obtained abortion. We talk so much about the politics of abortion, but I want to ask you about the policy now. The politics have been inflamed for so long.

  Do we now see policy becoming inflamed, people being arrested for things that are legal policy because of, I think, political kind of debate?

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Well, Lisa, we have seen a number of states actually follow the lead of states that, like Mississippi, whose case is being heard in front of the Supreme Court at this time, or the decision will come out this summer, that shrinks the window of viability.

  So it says that a woman is allowed to have an abortion, but only in this certain window of time. Some states, it's like — Texas is short of six weeks, others this 15-week window. But while these states, mostly red states, have been passing these laws, we haven't seen this issue really rise to the top of either Democratic or Republican voters' agendas.

  I was just looking at some polling that came out in March. And, for Democrats, this issue of abortion ranks sixth — as the sixth most important. And it is as important to Republicans as it is to Democrats, which is to say they both are invested in this issue.

  But they're not as invested in it as, say, the economy or climate change or immigration. The other thing we're waiting for, as I alluded to earlier, Lisa, of course, is the Roe v. Wade decision later this summer. We don't know exactly what that's going to look like. And what it looks like, I think, is going to be very important to understanding the reaction to it.

  You can assume that if the court decides to completely overturn the 50-year-old decision, that would probably have a very intense reaction. If they decide to keep the law, but, again, allow states, like we're seeing in a place like Mississippi, to keep that window shorter, that may not elicit the same kind of intense response that we would see otherwise.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  And then a question for both of you. I'm excited that we're getting close finally to primary season here. I call it super month of May, beginning with — we have got Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, big primaries.

  And, of course, we have seen now some endorsements from former President Trump, much-sought-after endorsements.

  Amy, I want to ask you about that. What does President Trump want out of giving those endorsements? And what is the effect on his party?

• Amy Walter:

  So, by the end of these primaries, there will be a win-loss record for Donald Trump and his endorse candidates. And we can use that as a metric to say whether he's been successful in his political acumen, how smartly he picked candidates.

  But I think the more important thing to appreciate is that almost every single candidate running in a Republican primary is running as a Trump Republican. This is not the Trump endorsed candidate or the Trump wing of the party vs. the anti-Trump wing.

  All of them are running in that same mold. Almost all of them talk about things that President — then-President Trump put forward, like building a wall along the border. And so this is — much will be made about whether his specific candidates made it through.

  But, again, I think it's important to appreciate how many of these candidates are running in the mold that was made by Donald Trump.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Laura.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Yes, I mean, I agree with Amy.

  Also, specifically, when you look at all of these candidates, a lot of them — in the instance of Pennsylvania, where we're seeing Trump endorse Dr. Oz, but a lot of Republicans prefer David McCormick, who is also running in the primary and appears to be the leader in that Pennsylvania Senate primary.

  But McCormick has not distanced himself from Trump on the issue of whether or not the 2020 election was fraudulent, which it wasn't. McCormick has actually continued to repeat baseless claims that the election — there was broad irregularities across the 2020 election, which we know is not the case.

  And so, he, like Oz, are very much trying to stay in line with Trump. And we see that increasingly across these races, where these candidates are deciding very much to repeat the same — the same efforts to undermine democracy and other sentiments, like Amy pointed out, in terms of immigration, in terms of increased embrace of white nationalist sentiments.

  They're repeating all those points, and that's been growing within the Republican Party.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  OK.

  Well, I have to say, it was a pleasure being back with you. There's a lot that you're observing that we're watching too. And as we can all say, this year keeps changing. We're distancing again, but I'm sure we will be back together in person hopefully in coming weeks.

  Laura Barron-Lopez, Amy Walter, thank you so much, both of you.

• Laura Barron-Lopez:

  Thank you.

• Amy Walter:

  You're welcome.