Special: Wall Street Reaction to Jobs Report, UN Climate Talks and Ballot Initiatives Across the Country

ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.

MS. IFILL: Hello, I’m Gwen Ifill. I’m joined around the table by Dan Balz of The Washington Post; Coral Davenport of The New York Times; Jeff Zeleny of CNN; and Eamon Javers of CNBC.

We want to return to the fallout from two pieces of the week’s big news: the unexpectedly strong jobs report and the administration’s decision to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

First, to the jobs numbers. We know they are good for people seeking work and bad for people who were hoping zero interest rates would last into next year. But what do they mean for the markets? Does Wall Street even know what good news is anymore, Eamon?

MR. JAVERS: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So for a long time we’ve been in this cycle where Wall –

MS. IFILL: I know it is, because you told me to ask you – (laughter) – by the way.

MR. JAVERS: Don’t tell them that!

MS. IFILL: Oh, I’m sorry, the secret. This is why you watch the webcast.

MR. JAVERS: The webcast – to get the real deal on the webcast. (Laughter.)

So, look, you know, Wall Street for a while now has been in this phase where bad news in the economy is actually good news on Wall Street because it means that the Fed is going to keep interest rates low and going to – is going to continue with what they call QE, or quantitative easing, all the stimulus that the Fed’s been pumping into the market. So the market actually has been reacting well to bad news on the jobs front. Now we’re in this weird moment where we’re getting good news on the jobs front, so is that bad news for the market? Well, today the market really couldn’t decide. The Dow ended up about 47 points at the end of the day, so it was kind of a wash.

MS. IFILL: That was it, kind of a wash, yeah.

MR. JAVERS: Yeah, the market is sort of unsteady now, trying to figure out is now the point at which we can finally decide that good news is actually good news.

MS. IFILL: I always try to decide whether it’s even worth it to use the market as a measure.

MR. JAVERS: Yeah, right, because markets go up and markets go down, right?

MS. IFILL: Yeah, yeah, right.

MR. JAVERS: I mean, so – but it does tell you what people with enormous amounts of capital to move around the world are thinking at any given moment. It’s a good window into their minds, anyway.

MS. IFILL: And Coral, I wanted to go back to the XL decision, because you said during the regular program that one of the things that the president was thinking – had in his mind was – were these big Paris climate talks next month. First of all, what are they? Who’s going to be there? And why was it important to send a signal to that?

MS. DAVENPORT: So the U.N. climate change summit, the aim of it is to get an international accord which would commit 196 countries – every country on Earth – to new domestic policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions at home. We’ve seen this – we’ve seen this song before. They tried to do it in Kyoto, failed. Tried to do it in Copenhagen, failed. Big reason that both of those attempts failed is because the U.S., historically the world’s largest carbon polluter, had nothing to bring to the table. That was fundamentally the reason that those attempts at these global accords fell apart.

MS. IFILL: Does the U.S. have something this time?

MS. DAVENPORT: It does. It actually has something that the president didn’t talk about today. It has President Obama’s ambitious, highly controversial EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and power plants, a.k.a. by his opponents the war on coal. This is really serious stuff. This is a big deal.

Also, China is coming to the table with promises of significant cuts. So there’s a real opportunity here. But the rest of the world still looks at the U.S. and says, you know what, you know, in 2009 President Obama promised that the U.S. would act, promised, you know, that Congress would pass a bill. It fell apart. It didn’t happen. So the rest of the world looks at President Obama and says, we know, you know, you’re talking a good game, you say you’re bringing something, but the U.S. has twice, you know, played chicken on this. And so this is something that President Obama – he has a substantial policy to bring to the table. He just wants to show even more – he wants to send a really political symbol as well.

MR. ZELENY: Didn’t we get a headline this week that the Chinese are actually emitting far more emissions than we ever knew before?

MS. DAVENPORT: Yes. Yes.

MR. ZELENY: And I wonder how that plays into this, if the Chinese are coming to the table now a little bit chastened because now we know their dirty big secret, so to speak.

MS. DAVENPORT: I know. So that was really interesting news, that China is actually emitting, you know, possibly 20 to 70 percent more coal than had been reported. It’s going to be a huge complication for these Paris talks. So I think for the U.S. to say, oh, you know, we’re coming in even stronger than we had been positioned to be, I mean, that doesn’t at all offset what we see from China.

President Obama also – you know, you played the clip of what he said in his – in his remarks today. He was pretty clear that there is actually a lot of substance to saying no to the Keystone.

MS. IFILL: Even though it really came in handy for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. (Laughter.)

MS. DAVENPORT: The whole – I mean, it’s a – it’s a great –

MS. IFILL: Defused a big issue.

MS. DAVENPORT: It’s like it’s a great political symbol. He basically said – you know, he has kind of said all along I’m going to make my decision on the Keystone based on whether or not it’s good for the climate. It doesn’t make a difference either way, but he used this as justification because it will help us in these climate talks as a symbol, thus it’s going to be good for the climate.

MS. IFILL: Well, you know, I’m thinking if it gets really complicated, Coral, you’ll be forced to spend more time in Paris.

MS. DAVENPORT: I’m going to spend three weeks in Paris.

MS. IFILL: Oh, we’re heartbroken about that.

MS. DAVENPORT: Yes.

MR. JAVERS: You guys are going to Iowa, right? That’s also –

MS. IFILL: Yeah, right. (Laughs.) They’ll be in Iowa at that time.

MR. BALZ: We like Iowa.

MR. ZELENY: We love Iowa. (Laughter.)

MS. IFILL: Well, let me test that. Jeff, let’s talk about the Democrats.

MR. ZELENY: Sure.

MS. IFILL: They have been kind of back in the background while all this drama’s been going on on the Republican side, and what we’ve seen is the happy people, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who promised – at least he promised he wasn’t going to attack her, that’s kind of changing.

MR. ZELENY: It is changing. Certainly his strategists wanted it to change a lot. I mean, time is essentially running out for Bernie Sanders to make his argument. Again, it’s less than three months before this whole thing begins in Iowa on February 1st, and he is becoming more aggressive. I think a lot of people kind of read the wrong signal from him at the debate when he says enough of the damn emails. The context of that was, he’s like, let’s talk about issues. Let’s not have this whole email controversy drown out everything. So he gave an interview to –

MS. IFILL: When she shook his hand, that kind of – yeah.

MR. ZELENY: Of course. She loved it. (Laughter.) It was –

MR. JAVERS: Sounded like a get out of jail free card, right?

MR. ZELENY: It was a huge endorsement. But – I’m not going to comment on the jail part. (Laughter.)

MR. JAVERS: Metaphorically speaking.

MR. ZELENY: But look, he talked – Senator Sanders talked to The Wall Street Journal this week and he said that he believes the investigation into her emails is appropriate, it should continue, so he is drawing distinctions. But you get the sense that his aides, his advisers want him to swing a little harder. So I think we’re going to see how aggressive he is willing to go here.

MS. IFILL: Don’t we assume she’s ready to swing back?

MR. ZELENY: Sure. But increasingly she has her eye on what’s happening on the Republican side. I was in Iowa this week with her, and she is consolidating support there and she is, you know – she’s doing well. She’s had a very strong month. Our new poll this morning showed that she’s leading by 18 points in Iowa.

MS. IFILL: Wow.

MR. ZELENY: She’s doing very well with women. She’s doing very well with voters over the age of 50, who are more reliable caucus-goers here. And she’s doing very strong in South Carolina. She’s come back a touch in New Hampshire. So on the Democratic side, at least right now, it’s beginning to look like what we always assumed, I guess, it would be, that she would be in the commanding position.

And this jobs report, boy, does that help her.

MS. IFILL: Oh, absolutely. It takes another issue and puts it to the side.

MR. ZELENY: I mean, if – you know, she says she’s not running for a third term of this president, but you know, she’s a Democrat and –

MS. IFILL: Why not? Unless it helps. (Laughs, laughter.) Unless it’s a good thing.

MR. BALZ: Unless everyone loves the president.

MR. ZELENY: And so she’s in a good position, but –

MS. IFILL: It helps to have done this before, in her case.

MR. ZELENY: Right. But you know, she knows better than anyone that things can change, and they are going to not let this escape them.

MS. IFILL: Well, here’s a – here’s a good example of how things change. We saw what kind of amounted in a small way to a conservative wave this week. There’s been generally considered that America is moving one way on gay marriage or on LGBT issues, that America is moving toward legalization of marijuana, that Democrats always will hold the statehouse in Frankfort, Kentucky. And all three of those things proved wrong this week.

MR. BALZ: They did, but they may not prove the overall case. I mean, I think that’s part of what we saw this week.

Look, Kentucky is a border state; i.e., it’s more Southern than Northern. And everything we’ve seen in American politics over the last 20 years is that that part of the country gets redder and redder. And so, yes, the new governor is an outsider with no political experience. The person he ran against, Jack Conway, was – has lost other races there.

MS. IFILL: Three times. Three statewide races.

MR. BALZ: Right. So in a sense he – Matt Bevin, the new governor-elect, outperformed some of the late polls. But the idea that Kentucky is electing a Republican governor shouldn’t be that much of a shock, given everything else we’ve seen.

On the – on the other issues you mentioned – on the anti-discrimination ballot measure in Houston and the marijuana ballot issue in Ohio – again, there is a red/blue split in this country. And on LGBT issues, again, in Southern states, that’s a much harder lift.

MS. IFILL: There’s a red/blue split just in Texas.

MR. BALZ: It is a – it is a much harder lift.

Now, Harris County, which encompasses Houston, went narrowly for Barack Obama in 2012. He carried it by, I think, like a percentage point. But this measure went down handily. This was not a close vote.

Now, the question is, is that a statement on the broader issue of same-sex marriage –

MS. IFILL: Or about the way this particular –

MR. BALZ: – or about – or about the particulars of this ballot initiative.

MS. IFILL: Ordinance.

MR. BALZ: I suspect it’s a little bit of both, but it may be more one than the other.

MS. IFILL: OK. And of course, in Ohio John Kasich won this – won that battle included, because he was against the marijuana legalization. And somebody – some boy group guy, who apparently – anyway, there’s – a lot of things happened.

MR. JAVERS: Nick Lachey.

MS. IFILL: Nick Lachey.

MR. JAVERS: I learned how to pronounce his last name.

(Cross talk.)

MS. IFILL: Just for this?

MR. ZELENY: (Inaudible) – from Ohio. He would have profited off this handsomely.

MR. JAVERS: He would have benefited from the marijuana.

MS. IFILL: The things you learn. See, that’s why you stick around for the webcast.

But all good things have to end. That’s it for now.

Be sure to check us out online at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek, and we’ll catch you here again next time for the Washington Week Webcast Extra.