ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.

GWEN IFILL: Hello.

I'm Gwen Ifill.

And welcome to the Washington Week Webcast Extra.

I'm joined around the table by Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times; Manu Raju of CNN; Philip Rucker of The Washington Post; and Alexis Simendinger of RealClearPolitics.

While Donald Trump was attacking Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton was doing her best to allow Donald Trump to hurt himself, their seconds did battle on a different level, with varying degrees of success.

Democrat Tim Kaine knew his marching orders.

SENATOR TIM KAINE (D-VA): (From video.)

I mean, is there no limit to which this guy will descend?

Trashing the family of a - of a war hero?

Trashing John McCain for being a POW?

Saying the American military's a disaster when 2 million young American men and women volunteer in a time of war to try to help their country, and Trump goes around saying there's a - and he wants to be commander in chief?

GWEN IFILL: It was a little more difficult for Republican Pence, who got this question from an 11-year old.

INDIANA GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE (R): (From video.)

What did you say that I've been doing?

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: (From video.)

You've been kind of softening on his words and policies.

(Laughter, applause.)

INDIANA GOVERNOR MIKE PENCE (R): (From video.)

Let me tell you what, I couldn't be more proud to stand with Donald Trump.

And we are shoulder-to-shoulder in this campaign right now.

Sometimes things don't always come out like you mean, right?

And Donald Trump and I are absolutely determined to work together.

And we have different styles.

You might have noticed that.

(Laughter.)

GWEN IFILL: They have different styles, Alexis?

I hadn't - I had failed to notice that.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: It's interesting, isn't it?

Yes, the governor of Indiana has a different style than Donald Trump.

GWEN IFILL: And different tasks.

ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Different task, actually.

But you already said that it's been more challenging for Mr. Pence.

And that's partially because they are very different.

And of course, Mr. Pence has said in the past that he doesn't want to go negative.

And he had made a vow earlier in his political career that he didn't want to do that.

So part of the challenge has been kind of being a little disconnected.

And, Phil, actually, in your interview you asked him how - Donald Trump - asked him about how he relates to his vice presidential running mate.

And he seemed to not be too connected to him at all.

GWEN IFILL: Except he said that - Governor Pence said he asked for permission to endorse Paul Ryan.

He said that he - basically, that all the things they disagreed, that he has run it past Donald Trump and it's OK. ALEXIS SIMENDINGER: Well, what I don't think he imagined in the beginning was trying to be the consoler in chief to the elites of the party who are upset with the nominee.

I think he was thinking I'm going to help him expand the electorate who's going to vote for him in November.

And he hasn't quite gotten to that stage yet.

Tim Kaine has a challenge too, but he is seemingly enjoying the challenge that he has, which is to humanize Hillary Clinton, and to do battle against Donald Trump.

And we never really thought of the Virginia former governor, senator, as being an attack dog, but he has taken to it with some relish and glee.

And of course, he's traveling separately himself and really talking - he speaks Spanish and he's trying to be the surrogate in a way that, you know, has really made Hillary Clinton on the stump - when they're together, she is a more relaxed, happy candidate.

GWEN IFILL: I think that people in Virginia who ran against Tim Kaine knew he had this in him, and now America's discovering it all.

Manu, an interesting election result this week, that's a little bit under the surface.

But I wondered if it signaled the beginning of the end, if it's not over already, for the tea party.

And that's Tim Huelskamp.

MANU RAJU: Yeah, this was a remarkable development that happened in Kansas.

Huelskamp was this agitator, member of Congress, member of the House, member of the House Freedom Caucus that really was - helped ouster John Boehner from the speakership.

Huelskamp voted twice to remove John Boehner from the speakership.

And as a result, he was kicked out of the House Agriculture Committee in this big bitter feud between the leadership and the establishment - the leadership and the grassroots.

And what we saw was that on Tuesday the leadership won.

They punished Tim Huelskamp by essentially putting millions of dollars in his district, in his primary, to prop up a political no-namer to defeat him in a landslide victory on Tuesday.

Ag groups came out.

The Chamber of Commerce came out spending money.

And a super PAC bankrolled by the Ricketts family also putting money to send a message to Tim Huelskamp.

And I spoke with him right after the election.

He blamed the party leadership and he said that we need to figure out a way to get back at them.

So - GWEN IFILL: But he was right, right?

(Laughter.)

He was right to blame them.

MANU RAJU: Yeah, he was right to blame them, because they came after him.

Paul Ryan, interestingly, didn't do anything one way or another.

And that's one thing that actually has agitated a lot of the folks in the House Freedom Caucus because they believe no matter what you're supposed to defend your members, even if they may disagree with you and do things that upset you in the House.

GWEN IFILL: Well, somewhere John Boehner is smiling with a glass of merlot.

(Laughter.)

Doyle, let's talk a little bit about the Trump phenomenon.

We can't talk about that too much.

But you wrote a column this week about Trump's anger factor, this - he was angry at the fire marshals who wouldn't let enough people into his events, he felt.

He was angry at the media - he's always angry at the media.

He's angry at debate organizers.

He is angry a lot, and it seems to be working for him.

DOYLE MCMANUS: He's angry a lot.

Well, it seems to be working - it seemed to be working for him during the primaries.

And I think that's one of the reasons he's so angry, because when he could be angry at the likes of "lyin' Ted Cruz" or "little Marco Rubio" and kind of demolish them, well, that showed him that anger works.

What has changed now is that he's being angry at more targets.

And of course, the Khans, the gold star parents, were exhibit A.

Then, as you say, we had the odd little episodes where he accused a couple of fire marshals - one in Colorado Springs, one in Columbus, Ohio - of playing politics, of keeping his crowds low.

GWEN IFILL: He actually came out before his event and talked to reporters to tell them about it.

DOYLE MCMANUS: Accused them both of being Democrats.

The one in Colorado Springs, as it turned out, a very Republican town, turns out to be a registered Republican.

He even had - and this is getting in the comical - he even had a run-in with a crying baby in Virginia.

Now, normally we wouldn't pay attention - GWEN IFILL: I can't believe we're just getting to the crying baby.

(Laughter.)

DOYLE MCMANUS: We wouldn't - no, no, I mention that because we normally wouldn't pay any attention to a crying baby.

But what Donald Trump is in danger of is this settling into a narrative that Donald Trump is the kind of character who gets into a fight in every bar he walks into.

And I think one reason for that, if you want to psychoanalyze - why not?

GWEN IFILL: Why not?

DOYLE MCMANUS: Why not?

Donald Trump is a big man, he's a mogul, he's a tycoon, he's a rich guy who most of his career he's been surrounded by enablers, flatterers, aides.

He's not used to being challenged on his judgement and he doesn't like it.

And as Phil I think very wisely pointed out during the broadcast, it's one thing if he lashes out at other politicians or the press, or even, arguably, a federal judge - although, in that case, he went over the line by making it a racial comment.

But if you start picking on ordinary civilians, fire marshals who, incidentally, are usually career firefighters just doing their jobs, gold star families, that doesn't sit well.

GWEN IFILL: Phil, you spent a lot of - how much time was your interview this week?

PHILIP RUCKER: About 50 minutes - 5-0.

GWEN IFILL: So tell - 50 minutes with Donald Trump - so tell us what we didn't see in a story.

Tell us what that was like.

PHILIP RUCKER: So, well, we were at his golf course.

This was right after the crying baby rally - (laughter) - in Northern Virginia.

He has a beautiful golf course in Loudoun Country, right on the Potomac River.

And he started off by showing me the property and talking about how beautiful a speech he could give over there on the flag pole overlooking the river.

But then we sat down for lunch.

And it was a bit of a distracting scene, because all sorts of club members would come up to get selfies with him.

He's a neat eater, I can tell you that.

He had a cheeseburger and he ate with a fork and a knife, did not want to get any grease on his hands, apparently.

GWEN IFILL: So that picture of him with the Kentucky Fried Chicken is real?

PHILIP RUCKER: That's how he eats.

(Laughs.)

GWEN IFILL: That's how he eats.

PHILIP RUCKER: Yeah.

And then the most intriguing thing, I thought, was he had a Diet Coke with ice, and he would take two or three sips and then have the waitress come bring another Diet Coke because the ice started to melt.

And I guess that's how a billionaire has Diet Coke.

GWEN IFILL: That's how you do it.

(Laughter.)

PHILIP RUCKER: Yeah, that's how you do it.

GWEN IFILL: That's a fascinating little detail, which I suspect tells us more than we want to know, but actually exactly what we need to know about the Republican presidential nominee.

So, interesting.

Thank you, everybody.

We are now going to allow you to go back to the Olympics.

And we'll see you here next time on the Washington Week Webcast Extra.