The Justice Department launched a hate crimes investigation into the mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left nine people dead. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports on President Obama's calls for a shift in how the U.S. thinks about gun violence. In Congress, Republican leaders worked with the White House to pass fast-trade trade authority after Democrats blocked the initial bill. And a top al Qaeda leader was killed in a CIA drone strike. Foreign Policy's Yochi Dreazen reports on the growing drone war and the hunt for other terrorist leaders. On the 2016 campaign trail, Jeb Bush was one of two Republicans to officially enter the race for the White House this week. The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports on Bush's campaign kickoff.
Full Episode: Charleston Church Shooting, House Revives Trade Bill, Al Qaeda Leader Killed in Drone Strike, Jeb Bush Enters 2016 Race
Jun. 19, 2015 AT 9:02 p.m. EDT
TRANSCRIPT
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
GWEN IFILL: The attacks in Charleston force us to another crossroads, al-Qaida takes another hit, the president’s trade agenda bounces back, and the Republican campaign speeds into overdrive, tonight on Washington Week .
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.) There is something particularly heartbreaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.
MS. IFILL: Another mass shooting, this time in a church, revives recurring debates about race, hate and the roots of violence.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA MAYOR JOSEPH RILEY (D): (From video.) The only reason someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate.
MS. IFILL: The question’s why, and what happens next.
In Washington, the president’s trade agenda bounces back as the House clears the way to fast track a big deal.
HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): (From video.) Trade is another one. Where we find common ground we’re able to work together and get things accomplished on behalf of the American people.
MS. IFILL: The
And two more candidates join the presidential race. But of the two, all eyes are officially on Jeb Bush.
FORMER GOVERNOR JEB BUSH (R): (From video.) It’s nobody’s turn. It’s everybody’s test. And it’s wide open, exactly as a contest for president should be. (Applause.)
MS. IFILL: Covering the week, Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent for NPR, Chuck Babington, Washington correspondent for the Associated Press, Yochi Dreazen, managing editor for Foreign Policy magazine, and Dan Balz, chief correspondent for The Washington Post .
ANNOUNCER: Award-winning reporting and analysis. Covering history as it happens. Live from our nation’s capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill . Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.
MS. IFILL: Good evening. The names, they’re quite ordinary – Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Daniel Simmons and Myra Thompson. Those are the victims of the latest inexplicable burst of violence, allegedly visited this week by one American citizens against others – people who had welcomed him into a weekly church Bible study. The national sense of shock has been palpable.
SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY (R): (From video.) We woke up today and the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (From video.) I want to be clear. I am not resigned. I have faith we will eventually do the right thing. (Applause.) I was simply making the point that we have to move public opinion. We have to feel a sense of urgency. It is not good enough simply to show sympathy.
MS. IFILL: Attorney General Loretta Lynch launched a Justice Department hate crime investigation into the shootings, which means exactly what, Carrie?
CARRIE JOHNSON: So that means the FBI and civil rights investigators are on the ground right now in Charleston helping and looking over the shoulder of the state authorities who are also investigating the shooting allegedly by 21-year old Dylann Roof. The FBI has seized some computers in the Roof home. They’re going to be searching for his browser history, looking for his contacts on social media and spanning out to interview his friends, family members and associates.
The key, Gwen, in proving a hate crime is being able to establish someone was motivated by some racial animus or animus because of someone’s religion or gender identity. And in this case, we already have some clues according to some search warrants and law enforcement sources that Dylann Roof was pictured wearing a garment with the flag of Rhodesia and the Apartheid-era South Africa flag. There’s also a statement in the affidavit released today by state authorities indicating after Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed these nine people, he stood over one of the victims and uttered a racial epithet before leaving the
MS. IFILL: We saw the president just now saying he’s not resigned. And that was in response to the fact that he came out yesterday and said, you know, there ought to be – we ought to get over this gun violence, but I don’t expect we will – or he – I’m paraphrasing him, poorly. But what can the federal government do if it is determined, A, that it is a hate crime, and that gun violence is really at the root of it?
MS. JOHNSON: So at base this administration already tried and put a lot of capital after the killings of 20 school children in Newtown, Connecticut toward a background check bill and some other measures. That did not succeed in Congress. Congress wound up not doing anything with regard to that issue. So what this administration has done in the meantime is pose what it perceives to be some common-sense gun regulations that it can do via executive fiat. Those are not really moving the dial though, Gwen. And what the president said today was we need the American people to rise up and influence and lean on their members of Congress to try to break a stalemate, to the extent one exists, on gun regulations.
DAN BALZ: Carrie, what’s the relationship between the federal hate crime investigation and what the state authorities are doing?
MS. JOHNSON: Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the feds are working on a parallel track with the state. Often what that means, Dan, is that they’ll allow the state authorities to go first, as they have done in this case. This defendant, Dylann Roof, faces nine murder charges at the state level, and a weapons charge. But federal authorities are looking over the shoulder of the state and may eventually weigh in with a federal case either based on hate crimes or potentially even a domestic terrorism charge. That’s down the line though, not something we should expect right away.
CHARLES BABINGTON: Carrie, killing non – innocent people, for whatever reason or perceived reason, is a horrendous thing. Would there be some difference in the way the case would be punished if he’s convicted, or prosecuted, if it’s determined a hate crime or not a hate crime?
MS. JOHNSON: So in the South Carolina state system, these murder charges are death penalty eligible. And Governor Nikki Haley has already decreed that the state is going to seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof. The federal charges also carry very serious penalties – life without parole and the like. But the role of the federal government here appears to be mostly sending a message that this administration cares, that it views these acts, as accused, to be vile. And it wants people to know that they view these acts as unconscionable. And they’re sending a message to people right now by broadcasting their involvement in this investigation.
YOCHI DREAZEN: But so, if you have the state pursing death penalty charges, as Governor Haley said, and as you say the federal charges could also carry the death penalty, well, what happens procedurally? I mean, who goes first and if he’s convicted, not to be too blunt about it, but who kills him first?
MS. JOHNSON: So Attorney General Lynch said this week that they’re looking at all avenues at the federal level. She says it’s too soon to say whether the state or the feds will go first. But of course, the states have gone first. Dylann Roof is now locked up without the possibility of bond on these nine charges. And that system has already moved into action. So to the extent the federal authorities decide to weigh in with a charge that will likely happen farther down the road. I heard today from law enforcement sources, they’re very eager to get into these computers and see his browser history. Right now, it appears as if he was acting alone, but they want to see what he was looking at, what kinds of materials he was reading, what other influences may have acted on him.
MS. IFILL: And of course, there’s a larger question of what “alone” means in our society, but we can’t address all of that tonight. We’ll be coming back to it. Thank you, Carrie.
MS. JOHNSON: Thank you.
MS. IFILL: Back to Capitol Hill. This week, a reversal of policy fortune for the president, one that brings him closer to his goal of pulling off a major 12-nation trade agreement before his terms ends. Just last week, right at this table, we said this deal looked if not dead, ailing. What changed, Chuck?
MR. BABINGTON: Gwen, what changed was that the pro-trade forces realized they made a miscalculation starting this thing off. It’s not that unusual to try to put a package together in Congress that’s going to get some votes from each side.
And so when they originally put this package together they had something – the fast-track authority that President Obama wants, that’s primarily supported by Republicans. And they packaged that in the Senate with this Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is for displaced works and it’s something Democrats generally support. And they thought when we put these together we’ll get enough votes from everybody.
It worked in the Senate. It went to the House. And it failed utterly because the Democrats there who so strongly oppose fast track decided, the heck with it, we’ll vote against our own program – this trade assistance program – in order to bring the whole package down. And they did that. It shocked the people who had put this thing together, and then they were in a bind.
MS. IFILL: So they came out of the bind, we assume, even though it still has to go to the Senate. But what shifted? Did votes shift? Did sentiment shift? Did the leadership take charge of this and say we’re going to force it through?
MR. BABINGTON: Votes hardly shifted at all. It was almost an identical vote. What they did is they decoupled what they originally had coupled. So this time, instead of voting on this combined package – or, in the House they actually voted for them separately – but they were still in one package. They separated them. They had to start all over. They didn’t want to go back to the Senate, but now they have to. So they said, let’s have a stand-alone vote, just on this fast-track authority. And it already had enough votes in the House just on that part – it was the other part that brought it down.
And you know, Gwen, it’s a truism in Congress, members hate to take two different votes on one tough issue. Once a member’s cast a vote on a hard issue, he or she almost always sticks with that because they figure the worst thing is to go both ways. So they had enough votes for fast track. So when they broke it apart, they still had enough votes for fast track. Now it goes to the Senate.
MR. BALZ: So what’s the prospect in the Senate? And what kind of procedural gamesmanship will have to go on to get it through there?
MR. BABINGTON: Yeah, Dan, the gamesmanship could be kind of complicated. The supporters of Obama’s agenda are somewhat optimistic because, as in the House, there have been enough votes that have been cast already for – in favor of this notion of fast track. If those votes can hold, then what should happen – just as it did in the House – there should be enough votes for that.
But Democrats are still insisting, look, we’re not giving up on this Trade Assistance Program. We’ve got to have it. If we can’t have it in the same package, you’ve got to promise us that we’ll get it in another way. And some of them – there’s a big debate now, how are they – how do they get the assurance that they’ll get that if the fast track is passed alone.
MS. JOHNSON: Chuck, what are you hearing about unions potentially leaning on Democratic members on these issues?
MR. BABINGTON: They’re not leaning on them, they’re pounding. Carrie, this is – the unions have been just really forceful – very, very forceful, like no issue that I can remember in any recent time, vehemently against fast track, even – you know,
MS. IFILL: Well, let me – let me play a little tape for you, because you were at a press conference that Nancy Pelosi gave this week and you asked her about what it was, because she is not with the president on this. And you asked her about the nature of that disagreement. This was her answer – part of it.
MR. BABINGTON: Absolutely.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): (From video.) This has been a long-standing difference in the Democratic Party, having nothing to do with the president of the United States, and everything to do with our bosses, the constituents we work for. But again, we have deep friendships, deep respect. And move on to the next subject.
MS. IFILL: (Laughs.) Let’s move on here. Nothing to see here.
MR. BABINGTON: Our boss is the constituents we work for – indeed, when a member of Congress runs for re-election, that’s the boss. And what’s happened, Gwen, in so many Democratic districts, and especially in the all-important Democratic primaries in these fairly liberal districts is free trade has gotten a really bad name, rightly or wrongly, especially since NAFTA. And it’s become an article of belief among liberals and Democrats, and especially union members, that this is a very bad deal. So these Democrats in the House and Senate are under tremendous pressure. And the great majority of them are voting against the fast track, against their president on this.
MR. DREAZEN: Do you think Hillary will get some credit from union voters for having spoken out against it, or some blame for having not done more to stop it?
MR. BABINGTON: I don’t know how to answer that. (Laughter.) Hillary Clinton has been pressed repeatedly by reporters to take a stand on this. You know, when she was secretary of state she defended this Asian treaty that the president was trying to put together. And remember, it was her husband who was president when NAFTA – he pushed NAFTA very hard. She studiously avoided a solid answer one way or another. Her Democratic opponents, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, mocked her. And they said, we’re adamantly against this. Why don’t you take a stronger stand?
MS. IFILL: Well, and that’s not over yet either.
MR. BABINGTON: No, it’s not.
MS. IFILL: The week began with a victory lap as the
MR. DREAZEN: I think, unfortunately, not that great. I mean, this was a man who ran what is thought to be the most dangerous al-Qaida branch in the world, which is in Yemen. We talk a lot about Iraq. We talk a lot about Syria. We don’t talk about Yemen as much as we should. The fear among intelligence officials is that if a major attack takes place in the U.S., and in particular if an American plane is brought down, it will be because of a terror group in Yemen, not Iraq or Syria.
And the specific branch of al-Qaida that Wuhayshi ran, the most dangerous person in it was not him. It was a bomb maker named Ibrahim al-Asiri. What al-Asiri is able to do is the underwear bomb. He specializes in making bombs not out of metal, out of liquids and out of powders, things that metal detectors can’t pick up, dogs can’t pick up. And when you talk to people in the
MS. IFILL: That’s what they’re worried about.
MR. DREAZEN: That this is going to bring down a plane.
MS. IFILL: Hmm.
MS. JOHNSON: Yochi, what are you hearing about the efficacy of the U.S. intelligence in terms of targeting? There have been some questions about whether they know who they’re targeting at any given moment.
MR. DREAZEN: It’s interesting, because they took – after Wuhayshi was killed, they said, we got another one. Then it came out that actually they didn’t really know who they were firing the missile at and they just happened to get lucky that the person they killed was him and not some innocent Yemeni – innocent Pakistani.
We think back a few months ago when they killed Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, again, they didn’t know who they were firing at. That same day, it came out they had killed another al-Qaida leader. They admitted they didn’t know he was actually in the building they blew up.
So it tells us that – we like to think of drones as these precision weapons, they never make a mistake, they never screw up. Sometimes when they have a success, they don’t know who the person was before they fired the missile that hit the building, which is kind of alarming.
MR. BALZ: Yochi, there’s been so much focus for the last year-plus about Islamic State and the threat from them. This is a reminder that al-Qaida in various forms is still there. Which is the greater threat, particularly to the United States homeland?
MR. DREAZEN: I think for us, living in the United States, it’s al-Qaida. It’s not the Islamic State. You know, we think about even their name, they’re focused on holding the territory they have. There’s a fear that people who have fought for them and have passports might leave. So far, there’s no sign that they want to do that or have done it or can do it. Al-Qaida, all of its branches, we know they want to hit the U.S. We know that that’s what they’ve been focused on for decades. The Yemeni branch, this bomb make, al-Asiri, he almost brought down planes over Detroit and over Chicago, and a later plot in 2012 that, again, would have been over the United States. He came very close three different times. I mean, that’s the branch to worry about.
MR. BABINGTON: What is it about Yemen? It’s a pretty small country. Why is there so much focus on Yemen? Why is so much of this terrorism taking root in that country?
MR. DREAZEN: We think of Yemen, it’s a country now that’s ravaged by civil war. It’s ravaged by basically a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And there’s chaos. The central government collapsed. When it collapsed, the
MS. IFILL: So we have some numbers that we can apply to this this week, in an annual report that came out of the State Department about terrorist activity. What does it tell us?
MR. DREAZEN: It’s jaw-dropping. Thirty-three thousand people died in terror attacks in 2014, up 80 percent from 2013. The number wounded is up 35 percent. Most of the deaths, as you might imagine, are in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, but 33,000 people. So we like to think there’s a war on terror that maybe we’re winning, maybe we’re making some progress in, but the death toll says the exact opposite.
MS. IFILL: How do they quantify that? As you know, there are such warring – so much at war about numbers. Amnesty International counts differently than the Pakistani government counts. How do they decide what qualifies as a terror attack and who qualifies as a true victim?
MR. DREAZEN: It’s a great question, and the State Department numbers are, one, a little bit squishy; and two, without question understated. My guess is that if you were to take the broadest definition possible, somebody being killed as a message by a subnational group – which is basically the definition the U.N. uses – the numbers would be a lot higher. And not to go back to domestic issues, but if we were to consider this act of – this horror in Charleston as an act of terror, that – again, the numbers would go higher still.
MS. IFILL: That’s true. It’s all how you define it. Thank you very much.
And we end with politics. Dan has spent some time this week in Iowa, where the world’s most engaged early primary voters got to hear from another series of candidates this week. But he also traveled to Florida, where former Governor Jeb Bush finally threw his long-awaited hat into the ring.
MR. BUSH: (From video.) So here’s what it comes down to. Our country’s on a very bad course, and the question is, what are we going to do about it? The question for me – (cheers) – the question for me is, what am I going to do about it? And I’ve decided I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)
MS. IFILL: As campaign announcements go, how did this one measure up, Dan?
MR. BALZ: Gwen, you know, we measure politics week by week, and this was a pretty good week for Jeb Bush, starting with that announcement. Now, we would have to say it followed a not-so-good week the previous week, so up and down. But this was – this was a good week.
One of the interesting things about it was this was done at a community college, Miami Dade Community College, and it was a big audience and it was a very boisterous audience and it was a very diverse audience. It had all of the energy that one associates with South Florida and Miami, and everybody kind of fed off of that.
He made several, I thought, important arguments. One was he stressed his record as governor of Florida. He went into that in some detail, both as a way to talk about who he is but also as a way to say I have executive experience, not everybody in this race does.
The second thing he did with that announcement and subsequently during the week in Iowa was to try to convince people that he is a conservative, a true conservative. He said in Iowa at the end of his opening remarks in Pella on Wednesday, “I am a committed conservative and a reformer.” This is a question mark above his head with a lot of voters in the Republican Party, and he was working on that.
But the other thing –
MS. IFILL: He decided not to use the term “severe conservative”? (Laughter.)
MR. BALZ: No, not severe. He’s learned a number of things from Mitt Romney.
MS. IFILL: (Laughs.)
MR. BALZ: But the other thing, which was both explicit and implicit during the week, was that this is – this is a candidate who will present himself as someone who would be a good general election candidate. He is trying to say to Republicans – and there are some Democrats who believe this – that he would match up better against Hillary Clinton, who is presumed to be the – you know, she’s certainly the favorite for the nomination – better than his opponents because he’s prepared to do and say things that will expand the appeal of the Republican Party beyond what it is today.
MS. JOHNSON: So, Dan, that brings us to immigration, which has been a problem for Mr. Bush with some members of his own party. How’s he going to balance that?
MR. BALZ: Carrie, it was very interesting this week. There was not a line about immigration in the prepared text of his announcement speech. But about two-thirds of the way through it there was a disruption up in the balcony, and a group of young people stood up and their – across their shirts it spelled “legal status is not enough,” which is a reference to his position, which is he’s in favor of a path to legalization for illegal immigrants but not a path to citizenship.
In Iowa on Wednesday he took the issue head-on and basically said this is an issue that’s killing the Republican Party. He said, you know, I’m for a variety of things, including a path to legalization. And he said, frankly, I don’t see any other way to deal with 11 million people who are now in the shadows; we have to somehow bring them into the open, and this is the way I want to do it. And he said as long as we let – we, the Republicans, let this issue linger, the Democrats will use it as a wedge issue, and it has helped them in the last two elections to win the presidential election. And he said, I want to win.
MR. BABINGTON: Dan, talk about the obstacles that Jeb Bush faces to getting the Republican nomination.
MS. IFILL: Including his last name, perhaps.
MR. BALZ: Well, no, I mean, I think it starts – it doesn’t end with that, but it starts with that.
MR. BABINGTON: Ironic, isn’t it?
MR. BALZ: And we’ve talked about that from the – from the beginning, when he first made it clear he was likely to run for president. There are people within the Republican Party, many of whom are great admirers of his father, George H.W. Bush, and some who are admirers of his brother, who’s obviously the more controversial of the two Bush presidents, who nonetheless feel two Bush presidencies is enough and the country should move on. And that is a very difficult thing to overcome. I mean, there’s no kind of argument you can make about that. So, for Bush, he has to find a way around that to convince people. And I think that his advisers believe that now that he’s a candidate he can begin to introduce himself as himself so that he’s more Jeb than Bush, and he began to do that this week. He’s talking more about who he is and what he’s done, and his hope is that as people get to know him they’ll have a different view. But you know, in many ways it’s as difficult for him to do that as it is for Hillary Clinton to reintroduce herself, as long as she’s been in the public eye.
MS. IFILL: We’re going to have to leave it there for tonight, but that’s really interesting. I get the feeling we may be talking about Jeb Bush again. I don’t know, maybe. Thank you, everybody.
We have to go. But, as always, the conversation will continue online, where you’ll be able to find the Washington Week Webcast Extra later tonight and all week long at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. Among other things, we’ll talk about whether the St. Louis Cardinals hacked the Astros, or maybe we’ll talk about Donald Trump. I don’t know! You’ll have to tune in to see. Keep up with developments with me and Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour , and we’ll see you here next week on Washington Week . Good night.
(End of broadcast show.)
(Beginning of Washington Week Webcast Extra .)
ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra .
MS. IFILL: Hello, and welcome. I’m Gwen Ifill. We’re ready to pick up online where we left off on air.
I’m joined by Dan Balz of The Washington Post , Carrie Johnson of NPR, Chuck Babington of the Associated Press and Yochi Dreazen of Foreign Policy magazine.
We start with a little preview of something we’ve been waiting for, the expected release next week of the administration’s review of its hostage policy. Yochi, you’ve been watching that. What are we waiting for, exactly, and what do we expect?
MR. DREAZEN: We’re waiting for – well, one question is, will they roll it out publicly or privately? A lot of the families want it to be public. They still feel profound anger at the White House, feeling that not enough was done to bring back their loved ones. And the main question that this will be looked at to see if it addresses is the question of ransoms. Most European governments openly pay ransoms to get back their people. The Germans do it. The French do it. The Italians do it. The U.S. emphatically does not do it, and in one case told a family that if a family tried to raise money on its own they would go to jail. So that’s the kind of central question we’ll all be looking at to see if it’s addressed or how. My hunch is that it won’t be addressed in any concrete way, or if it is it’ll be, well, we’re kind of going to keep the policy the way that it is. But that – at the core of all of this is this question of ransom: Can you pay money to get back a missing American or should you pay money?
MS. IFILL: I can’t imagine that the administration policy will change.
MR. DREAZEN: Yeah, I can’t, either, especially because then the argument becomes immediately, well, by doing that you’re funding the Islamic State.
MS. IFILL: Well, exactly. After a while you’re in a – between a rock and a hard place on that one.
Chuck, I want to ask you about one of these issues – one of these things that goes through on Capitol Hill that has completely different interpretations depending on where you sit. In this case it sounds obscure, but it was the defense authorization bill. And the president maybe thinking – in position to veto it? What’s going on?
MR. BABINGTON: Yeah, Gwen, it’s over funding it, how to fund it, and this all grows out of the whole – this whole sequestration thing.
MS. IFILL: Ah, that favorite – my favorite word. I can’t believe you said it. (Laughter.)
MR. BABINGTON: I’ll try to simplify it.
So there’s been a long-running quarrel between the two parties for years now about how to – you know, how much to spend and how to fund it. And the Republicans in particular have said, you’ve got to pay for things; you can’t just keep putting it on the credit card. And yet, when it comes to – so now they’ve had these limits in place that keep kind of ratcheting down spending, and a lot of Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, are concerned that we’re ratcheting down on the military too much. So the Republicans have said, well, we can – we can bring up the spending for the military, but we’ll pay for it by – this money that we set aside for wars that we really didn’t expect, we’ll kind of put that money in there. And the Democrats are saying, no, no, that’s a gimmick. You know, if you’re going to pay for it, if you’re going to do it, do it up front because what they don’t like is the idea that they’ll find a gimmicky way to pay for military spending and not a gimmicky way to pay for domestic spending.
MS. IFILL: So basically this allows the Republicans to say that the Democrats are anti-military and for the Democrats to say the Republicans are blowing up the budget.
MR. BABINGTON: Exactly, yeah.
MS. IFILL: Oh, that’s nice.
MR. BABINGTON: You have a problem with that? I mean –
MS. IFILL: I don’t have a problem with it. (Laughter.) I just wanted to be clear about what the disagreement is.
MR. BABINGTON: You’ve got it exactly right.
MS. IFILL: OK. (Laughs.)
I want to go to Carrie. There were two things that happened on your beat. First I want to ask about the serious one and then about the lighter one – to me, lighter. One is a Medicare fraud bust. There was a big announcement at the Justice Department.
MS. JOHNSON: The biggest Medicare fraud bust in U.S. history, according to the attorney general, the FBI director and the head of HHS. They wound up doing a sting operation or a series of operations rolled out over three days in 17 cities, arresting hundreds of people – including, Gwen, 46 medical professionals – doctors, nurses – taking advantage in large part of Medicare Part D and other schemes. And the government says that so much money is being wasted on fraud in the health care system that they really want to send a message that they’re on the case. The problem, though, Gwen, is that the default is to pay these claims, and so it’s hard to get the money back once it’s gone out of the federal coffers.
MS. IFILL: When we hear about fraud and fraud in health care, this is not what we envision, people who qualify for Medicare as being the perpetrators.
MS. JOHNSON: Absolutely not. And when you’ve got medical professionals engaged in these schemes and, in fact, being the essential or central part of the scheme, the government has a real problem there and needs to crack down on it.
MS. IFILL: OK. So now the Justice Department is also getting a reputation as being – waging a war against sports, this time a potential hacking investigation in baseball.
MS. JOHNSON: Corporate espionage involving, allegedly, the St. Louis Cardinals: lower- to mid-level people in the front office allegedly hacking into a proprietary computer system operated by their rival, the Houston Astros. And, Gwen, the electronic trail, according to federal officials, led back to a home with ties to the St. Louis Cardinals. So whoever was engaged in these shenanigans did not do a very good job of covering their tracks. The problem here is that when you’re talking about computer intrusions, there’s a law on the books called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and it carries five- or 10-year penalties – criminal penalties. Not clear to me, though, whether the feds are going to decide this is a matter best handled by baseball disciplinary officials.
MS. IFILL: Well, and I – can I just say the Astros, are they really somebody you want to take down? I don’t know that they’re – I don’t know baseball that well, but are they that –
MR. BABINGTON: They’ve gone from being bad to being very good.
MS. IFILL: Oh.
MR. BABINGTON: Yeah. And the guy that’s made them good is the guy that used to run the Cardinals.
MS. IFILL: Well, so thank you for clearing that up for me. I was so confused.
MR. BABINGTON: I’m happy to do that. (Laughter.)
MS. IFILL: OK. One more question, and this is something we may have overlooked in the main program, which is that there’s another presidential candidate who announced this week, and his name is Donald J. Trump.
MR. BALZ: Donald J. Trump –
MS. IFILL: Yes.
MR. BALZ: – as he was introduced, yes. Donald Trump has flirted with this idea for many years, and this week he said he is an actual candidate. He hasn’t quite yet done all the paperwork necessary to become a real candidate.
MS. IFILL: Oh, paperwork, paperwork.
MR. BALZ: A real candidate, and he has a little time for that, so we’ll see how long he stays in. But right now he’s in, and he’s going to be a disruptive force. I mean, we know what he is like. He’s beyond egocentric. He’s very brash. He’s inflammatory. Some of the things he said on his opening day about illegal immigrants being rapists and drug dealers and killers and worse was, quite frankly, shameful, and Hillary Clinton called him out on it later in the week and said this kind of language ought not to be tolerated. He is right on the edge of qualifying to be in the first presidential debate among the Republicans in August.
MS. IFILL: It’s from name recognition.
MR. BALZ: Well, yes. He’s right there. Fox News has said we will take the top 10 people from the five most recent national polls, and he’s right there – you know, not by a healthy margin, but he could be on that stage. He’s taken very direct shots at Jeb Bush and others in the race, and he’s going to cause them some problems.
MS. IFILL: And him being on the stage means there are people who are governors, there are people who have long track records of public service who would not make that threshold.
MR. BALZ: That’s right. There are – there are people who Republicans would regard as more serious or credible candidates who could be kept out while he’s in. And in some ways it’s the party’s worst nightmare. I mean –
MS. IFILL: Is there anything they’re willing to do about that or is there anything they can do about that?
MR. BALZ: There’s not much they can do. I mean, the rules – the rules, as established by the sponsors of the debates, are such that, you know, he’s likely – he could well be in.
MS. IFILL: Get your popcorn, folks. This is going to be the part of the campaign that people are going to look and go, what are we doing? We’ll see how it goes.
Before I go, I want to wish a happy Father’s Day to everybody in the crew here, but also everybody at the table where – who have – we have children at this table from the age 11 weeks to 36 years. Won’t say who has what. (Laughter.)
MR. BABINGTON: Have to guess.
MS. IFILL: But I just know that there is a – there is a lovely muffin waiting for you all Sunday morning. Happy Father’s Day.
And thank you, everybody. We’ll see you on the next Washington Week Webcast Extra . GWEN IFILL: The attacks in Charleston force us to another crossroads, al-Qaida takes another hit, the president’s trade agenda bounces back, and the Republican campaign speeds into overdrive, tonight on Washington Week .
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.) There is something particularly heartbreaking about a death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.
MS. IFILL: Another mass shooting, this time in a church, revives recurring debates about race, hate and the roots of violence.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA MAYOR JOSEPH RILEY (D): (From video.) The only reason someone could walk into a church and shoot people praying is out of hate.
MS. IFILL: The question’s why, and what happens next.
In Washington, the president’s trade agenda bounces back as the House clears the way to fast track a big deal.
HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): (From video.) Trade is another one. Where we find common ground we’re able to work together and get things accomplished on behalf of the American people.
MS. IFILL: The
And two more candidates join the presidential race. But of the two, all eyes are officially on Jeb Bush.
FORMER GOVERNOR JEB BUSH (R): (From video.) It’s nobody’s turn. It’s everybody’s test. And it’s wide open, exactly as a contest for president should be. (Applause.)
MS. IFILL: Covering the week, Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent for NPR, Chuck Babington, Washington correspondent for the Associated Press, Yochi Dreazen, managing editor for Foreign Policy magazine, and Dan Balz, chief correspondent for The Washington Post .
ANNOUNCER: Award-winning reporting and analysis. Covering history as it happens. Live from our nation’s capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill . Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.
MS. IFILL: Good evening. The names, they’re quite ordinary – Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Daniel Simmons and Myra Thompson. Those are the victims of the latest inexplicable burst of violence, allegedly visited this week by one American citizens against others – people who had welcomed him into a weekly church Bible study. The national sense of shock has been palpable.
SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR NIKKI HALEY (R): (From video.) We woke up today and the heart and soul of South Carolina was broken.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: (From video.) I want to be clear. I am not resigned. I have faith we will eventually do the right thing. (Applause.) I was simply making the point that we have to move public opinion. We have to feel a sense of urgency. It is not good enough simply to show sympathy.
MS. IFILL: Attorney General Loretta Lynch launched a Justice Department hate crime investigation into the shootings, which means exactly what, Carrie?
CARRIE JOHNSON: So that means the FBI and civil rights investigators are on the ground right now in Charleston helping and looking over the shoulder of the state authorities who are also investigating the shooting allegedly by 21-year old Dylann Roof. The FBI has seized some computers in the Roof home. They’re going to be searching for his browser history, looking for his contacts on social media and spanning out to interview his friends, family members and associates.
The key, Gwen, in proving a hate crime is being able to establish someone was motivated by some racial animus or animus because of someone’s religion or gender identity. And in this case, we already have some clues according to some search warrants and law enforcement sources that Dylann Roof was pictured wearing a garment with the flag of Rhodesia and the Apartheid-era South Africa flag. There’s also a statement in the affidavit released today by state authorities indicating after Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed these nine people, he stood over one of the victims and uttered a racial epithet before leaving the
MS. IFILL: We saw the president just now saying he’s not resigned. And that was in response to the fact that he came out yesterday and said, you know, there ought to be – we ought to get over this gun violence, but I don’t expect we will – or he – I’m paraphrasing him, poorly. But what can the federal government do if it is determined, A, that it is a hate crime, and that gun violence is really at the root of it?
MS. JOHNSON: So at base this administration already tried and put a lot of capital after the killings of 20 school children in Newtown, Connecticut toward a background check bill and some other measures. That did not succeed in Congress. Congress wound up not doing anything with regard to that issue. So what this administration has done in the meantime is pose what it perceives to be some common-sense gun regulations that it can do via executive fiat. Those are not really moving the dial though, Gwen. And what the president said today was we need the American people to rise up and influence and lean on their members of Congress to try to break a stalemate, to the extent one exists, on gun regulations.
DAN BALZ: Carrie, what’s the relationship between the federal hate crime investigation and what the state authorities are doing?
MS. JOHNSON: Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the feds are working on a parallel track with the state. Often what that means, Dan, is that they’ll allow the state authorities to go first, as they have done in this case. This defendant, Dylann Roof, faces nine murder charges at the state level, and a weapons charge. But federal authorities are looking over the shoulder of the state and may eventually weigh in with a federal case either based on hate crimes or potentially even a domestic terrorism charge. That’s down the line though, not something we should expect right away.
CHARLES BABINGTON: Carrie, killing non – innocent people, for whatever reason or perceived reason, is a horrendous thing. Would there be some difference in the way the case would be punished if he’s convicted, or prosecuted, if it’s determined a hate crime or not a hate crime?
MS. JOHNSON: So in the South Carolina state system, these murder charges are death penalty eligible. And Governor Nikki Haley has already decreed that the state is going to seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof. The federal charges also carry very serious penalties – life without parole and the like. But the role of the federal government here appears to be mostly sending a message that this administration cares, that it views these acts, as accused, to be vile. And it wants people to know that they view these acts as unconscionable. And they’re sending a message to people right now by broadcasting their involvement in this investigation.
YOCHI DREAZEN: But so, if you have the state pursing death penalty charges, as Governor Haley said, and as you say the federal charges could also carry the death penalty, well, what happens procedurally? I mean, who goes first and if he’s convicted, not to be too blunt about it, but who kills him first?
MS. JOHNSON: So Attorney General Lynch said this week that they’re looking at all avenues at the federal level. She says it’s too soon to say whether the state or the feds will go first. But of course, the states have gone first. Dylann Roof is now locked up without the possibility of bond on these nine charges. And that system has already moved into action. So to the extent the federal authorities decide to weigh in with a charge that will likely happen farther down the road. I heard today from law enforcement sources, they’re very eager to get into these computers and see his browser history. Right now, it appears as if he was acting alone, but they want to see what he was looking at, what kinds of materials he was reading, what other influences may have acted on him.
MS. IFILL: And of course, there’s a larger question of what “alone” means in our society, but we can’t address all of that tonight. We’ll be coming back to it. Thank you, Carrie.
MS. JOHNSON: Thank you.
MS. IFILL: Back to Capitol Hill. This week, a reversal of policy fortune for the president, one that brings him closer to his goal of pulling off a major 12-nation trade agreement before his terms ends. Just last week, right at this table, we said this deal looked if not dead, ailing. What changed, Chuck?
MR. BABINGTON: Gwen, what changed was that the pro-trade forces realized they made a miscalculation starting this thing off. It’s not that unusual to try to put a package together in Congress that’s going to get some votes from each side.
And so when they originally put this package together they had something – the fast-track authority that President Obama wants, that’s primarily supported by Republicans. And they packaged that in the Senate with this Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is for displaced works and it’s something Democrats generally support. And they thought when we put these together we’ll get enough votes from everybody.
It worked in the Senate. It went to the House. And it failed utterly because the Democrats there who so strongly oppose fast track decided, the heck with it, we’ll vote against our own program – this trade assistance program – in order to bring the whole package down. And they did that. It shocked the people who had put this thing together, and then they were in a bind.
MS. IFILL: So they came out of the bind, we assume, even though it still has to go to the Senate. But what shifted? Did votes shift? Did sentiment shift? Did the leadership take charge of this and say we’re going to force it through?
MR. BABINGTON: Votes hardly shifted at all. It was almost an identical vote. What they did is they decoupled what they originally had coupled. So this time, instead of voting on this combined package – or, in the House they actually voted for them separately – but they were still in one package. They separated them. They had to start all over. They didn’t want to go back to the Senate, but now they have to. So they said, let’s have a stand-alone vote, just on this fast-track authority. And it already had enough votes in the House just on that part – it was the other part that brought it down.
And you know, Gwen, it’s a truism in Congress, members hate to take two different votes on one tough issue. Once a member’s cast a vote on a hard issue, he or she almost always sticks with that because they figure the worst thing is to go both ways. So they had enough votes for fast track. So when they broke it apart, they still had enough votes for fast track. Now it goes to the Senate.
MR. BALZ: So what’s the prospect in the Senate? And what kind of procedural gamesmanship will have to go on to get it through there?
MR. BABINGTON: Yeah, Dan, the gamesmanship could be kind of complicated. The supporters of Obama’s agenda are somewhat optimistic because, as in the House, there have been enough votes that have been cast already for – in favor of this notion of fast track. If those votes can hold, then what should happen – just as it did in the House – there should be enough votes for that.
But Democrats are still insisting, look, we’re not giving up on this Trade Assistance Program. We’ve got to have it. If we can’t have it in the same package, you’ve got to promise us that we’ll get it in another way. And some of them – there’s a big debate now, how are they – how do they get the assurance that they’ll get that if the fast track is passed alone.
MS. JOHNSON: Chuck, what are you hearing about unions potentially leaning on Democratic members on these issues?
MR. BABINGTON: They’re not leaning on them, they’re pounding. Carrie, this is – the unions have been just really forceful – very, very forceful, like no issue that I can remember in any recent time, vehemently against fast track, even – you know,
MS. IFILL: Well, let me – let me play a little tape for you, because you were at a press conference that Nancy Pelosi gave this week and you asked her about what it was, because she is not with the president on this. And you asked her about the nature of that disagreement. This was her answer – part of it.
MR. BABINGTON: Absolutely.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): (From video.) This has been a long-standing difference in the Democratic Party, having nothing to do with the president of the United States, and everything to do with our bosses, the constituents we work for. But again, we have deep friendships, deep respect. And move on to the next subject.
MS. IFILL: (Laughs.) Let’s move on here. Nothing to see here.
MR. BABINGTON: Our boss is the constituents we work for – indeed, when a member of Congress runs for re-election, that’s the boss. And what’s happened, Gwen, in so many Democratic districts, and especially in the all-important Democratic primaries in these fairly liberal districts is free trade has gotten a really bad name, rightly or wrongly, especially since NAFTA. And it’s become an article of belief among liberals and Democrats, and especially union members, that this is a very bad deal. So these Democrats in the House and Senate are under tremendous pressure. And the great majority of them are voting against the fast track, against their president on this.
MR. DREAZEN: Do you think Hillary will get some credit from union voters for having spoken out against it, or some blame for having not done more to stop it?
MR. BABINGTON: I don’t know how to answer that. (Laughter.) Hillary Clinton has been pressed repeatedly by reporters to take a stand on this. You know, when she was secretary of state she defended this Asian treaty that the president was trying to put together. And remember, it was her husband who was president when NAFTA – he pushed NAFTA very hard. She studiously avoided a solid answer one way or another. Her Democratic opponents, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders, mocked her. And they said, we’re adamantly against this. Why don’t you take a stronger stand?
MS. IFILL: Well, and that’s not over yet either.
MR. BABINGTON: No, it’s not.
MS. IFILL: The week began with a victory lap as the
MR. DREAZEN: I think, unfortunately, not that great. I mean, this was a man who ran what is thought to be the most dangerous al-Qaida branch in the world, which is in Yemen. We talk a lot about Iraq. We talk a lot about Syria. We don’t talk about Yemen as much as we should. The fear among intelligence officials is that if a major attack takes place in the U.S., and in particular if an American plane is brought down, it will be because of a terror group in Yemen, not Iraq or Syria.
And the specific branch of al-Qaida that Wuhayshi ran, the most dangerous person in it was not him. It was a bomb maker named Ibrahim al-Asiri. What al-Asiri is able to do is the underwear bomb. He specializes in making bombs not out of metal, out of liquids and out of powders, things that metal detectors can’t pick up, dogs can’t pick up. And when you talk to people in the
MS. IFILL: That’s what they’re worried about.
MR. DREAZEN: That this is going to bring down a plane.
MS. IFILL: Hmm.
MS. JOHNSON: Yochi, what are you hearing about the efficacy of the U.S. intelligence in terms of targeting? There have been some questions about whether they know who they’re targeting at any given moment.
MR. DREAZEN: It’s interesting, because they took – after Wuhayshi was killed, they said, we got another one. Then it came out that actually they didn’t really know who they were firing the missile at and they just happened to get lucky that the person they killed was him and not some innocent Yemeni – innocent Pakistani.
We think back a few months ago when they killed Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, again, they didn’t know who they were firing at. That same day, it came out they had killed another al-Qaida leader. They admitted they didn’t know he was actually in the building they blew up.
So it tells us that – we like to think of drones as these precision weapons, they never make a mistake, they never screw up. Sometimes when they have a success, they don’t know who the person was before they fired the missile that hit the building, which is kind of alarming.
MR. BALZ: Yochi, there’s been so much focus for the last year-plus about Islamic State and the threat from them. This is a reminder that al-Qaida in various forms is still there. Which is the greater threat, particularly to the United States homeland?
MR. DREAZEN: I think for us, living in the United States, it’s al-Qaida. It’s not the Islamic State. You know, we think about even their name, they’re focused on holding the territory they have. There’s a fear that people who have fought for them and have passports might leave. So far, there’s no sign that they want to do that or have done it or can do it. Al-Qaida, all of its branches, we know they want to hit the U.S. We know that that’s what they’ve been focused on for decades. The Yemeni branch, this bomb make, al-Asiri, he almost brought down planes over Detroit and over Chicago, and a later plot in 2012 that, again, would have been over the United States. He came very close three different times. I mean, that’s the branch to worry about.
MR. BABINGTON: What is it about Yemen? It’s a pretty small country. Why is there so much focus on Yemen? Why is so much of this terrorism taking root in that country?
MR. DREAZEN: We think of Yemen, it’s a country now that’s ravaged by civil war. It’s ravaged by basically a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. And there’s chaos. The central government collapsed. When it collapsed, the
MS. IFILL: So we have some numbers that we can apply to this this week, in an annual report that came out of the State Department about terrorist activity. What does it tell us?
MR. DREAZEN: It’s jaw-dropping. Thirty-three thousand people died in terror attacks in 2014, up 80 percent from 2013. The number wounded is up 35 percent. Most of the deaths, as you might imagine, are in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, but 33,000 people. So we like to think there’s a war on terror that maybe we’re winning, maybe we’re making some progress in, but the death toll says the exact opposite.
MS. IFILL: How do they quantify that? As you know, there are such warring – so much at war about numbers. Amnesty International counts differently than the Pakistani government counts. How do they decide what qualifies as a terror attack and who qualifies as a true victim?
MR. DREAZEN: It’s a great question, and the State Department numbers are, one, a little bit squishy; and two, without question understated. My guess is that if you were to take the broadest definition possible, somebody being killed as a message by a subnational group – which is basically the definition the U.N. uses – the numbers would be a lot higher. And not to go back to domestic issues, but if we were to consider this act of – this horror in Charleston as an act of terror, that – again, the numbers would go higher still.
MS. IFILL: That’s true. It’s all how you define it. Thank you very much.
And we end with politics. Dan has spent some time this week in Iowa, where the world’s most engaged early primary voters got to hear from another series of candidates this week. But he also traveled to Florida, where former Governor Jeb Bush finally threw his long-awaited hat into the ring.
MR. BUSH: (From video.) So here’s what it comes down to. Our country’s on a very bad course, and the question is, what are we going to do about it? The question for me – (cheers) – the question for me is, what am I going to do about it? And I’ve decided I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)
MS. IFILL: As campaign announcements go, how did this one measure up, Dan?
MR. BALZ: Gwen, you know, we measure politics week by week, and this was a pretty good week for Jeb Bush, starting with that announcement. Now, we would have to say it followed a not-so-good week the previous week, so up and down. But this was – this was a good week.
One of the interesting things about it was this was done at a community college, Miami Dade Community College, and it was a big audience and it was a very boisterous audience and it was a very diverse audience. It had all of the energy that one associates with South Florida and Miami, and everybody kind of fed off of that.
He made several, I thought, important arguments. One was he stressed his record as governor of Florida. He went into that in some detail, both as a way to talk about who he is but also as a way to say I have executive experience, not everybody in this race does.
The second thing he did with that announcement and subsequently during the week in Iowa was to try to convince people that he is a conservative, a true conservative. He said in Iowa at the end of his opening remarks in Pella on Wednesday, “I am a committed conservative and a reformer.” This is a question mark above his head with a lot of voters in the Republican Party, and he was working on that.
But the other thing –
MS. IFILL: He decided not to use the term “severe conservative”? (Laughter.)
MR. BALZ: No, not severe. He’s learned a number of things from Mitt Romney.
MS. IFILL: (Laughs.)
MR. BALZ: But the other thing, which was both explicit and implicit during the week, was that this is – this is a candidate who will present himself as someone who would be a good general election candidate. He is trying to say to Republicans – and there are some Democrats who believe this – that he would match up better against Hillary Clinton, who is presumed to be the – you know, she’s certainly the favorite for the nomination – better than his opponents because he’s prepared to do and say things that will expand the appeal of the Republican Party beyond what it is today.
MS. JOHNSON: So, Dan, that brings us to immigration, which has been a problem for Mr. Bush with some members of his own party. How’s he going to balance that?
MR. BALZ: Carrie, it was very interesting this week. There was not a line about immigration in the prepared text of his announcement speech. But about two-thirds of the way through it there was a disruption up in the balcony, and a group of young people stood up and their – across their shirts it spelled “legal status is not enough,” which is a reference to his position, which is he’s in favor of a path to legalization for illegal immigrants but not a path to citizenship.
In Iowa on Wednesday he took the issue head-on and basically said this is an issue that’s killing the Republican Party. He said, you know, I’m for a variety of things, including a path to legalization. And he said, frankly, I don’t see any other way to deal with 11 million people who are now in the shadows; we have to somehow bring them into the open, and this is the way I want to do it. And he said as long as we let – we, the Republicans, let this issue linger, the Democrats will use it as a wedge issue, and it has helped them in the last two elections to win the presidential election. And he said, I want to win.
MR. BABINGTON: Dan, talk about the obstacles that Jeb Bush faces to getting the Republican nomination.
MS. IFILL: Including his last name, perhaps.
MR. BALZ: Well, no, I mean, I think it starts – it doesn’t end with that, but it starts with that.
MR. BABINGTON: Ironic, isn’t it?
MR. BALZ: And we’ve talked about that from the – from the beginning, when he first made it clear he was likely to run for president. There are people within the Republican Party, many of whom are great admirers of his father, George H.W. Bush, and some who are admirers of his brother, who’s obviously the more controversial of the two Bush presidents, who nonetheless feel two Bush presidencies is enough and the country should move on. And that is a very difficult thing to overcome. I mean, there’s no kind of argument you can make about that. So, for Bush, he has to find a way around that to convince people. And I think that his advisers believe that now that he’s a candidate he can begin to introduce himself as himself so that he’s more Jeb than Bush, and he began to do that this week. He’s talking more about who he is and what he’s done, and his hope is that as people get to know him they’ll have a different view. But you know, in many ways it’s as difficult for him to do that as it is for Hillary Clinton to reintroduce herself, as long as she’s been in the public eye.
MS. IFILL: We’re going to have to leave it there for tonight, but that’s really interesting. I get the feeling we may be talking about Jeb Bush again. I don’t know, maybe. Thank you, everybody.
We have to go. But, as always, the conversation will continue online, where you’ll be able to find the Washington Week Webcast Extra later tonight and all week long at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. Among other things, we’ll talk about whether the St. Louis Cardinals hacked the Astros, or maybe we’ll talk about Donald Trump. I don’t know! You’ll have to tune in to see. Keep up with developments with me and Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour , and we’ll see you here next week on Washington Week . Good night.
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