Special: Obama will travel to Hiroshima, Supreme Court preview, criticism of DNC & RNC chairs and an expensive California primary

ANNOUNCER : This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra .

MR. HARWOOD : Hello, I’m John Harwood, sitting in for Gwen Ifill this week. I’m joined around the table by Dan Balz of The Washington Post , Lisa Lerer of AP, Joan Biskupic of Reuters, and Alexis Simendinger of RealClearPolitics.

Alexis, President Obama’s trip to Vietnam and Hiroshima, what is he going to accomplish there? And is he going to apologize when he gets to Hiroshima?

MS. SIMENDINGER : President Obama’s about to do a weeklong trip that will take him to Vietnam and Japan. In Japan, he’ll be at the regular annual G-7 Summit, and at the end of that he’ll be visiting Hiroshima. The beginning, the visit to Vietnam, is interesting because his argument is or his claim is that he’s the first sitting president to visit Vietnam, and the White House is boasting that he’ll spend three days there and try to, you know, show the pivot to Asia and the consolidation of relations with Vietnam. By the time he gets to Hiroshima, there is a lot of interesting undertow to this visit, as you might imagine, because President Obama, as you remember, wanted to make part of his legacy the elimination of nuclear weapons as a threat around the world, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his efforts along these lines. So here we are, into the eighth year, and he’ll be in Hiroshima, obviously, and apparently not wanting to talk directly about what happened to end World War II, but wants to talk about the warnings about the use of war and the casualties and the price of war. And then, of course, Prime Minister Abe of Japan is not interested in recognition of Japan’s role in that either, so they will be visiting a peace park in which the two of them kind of circle around the issue of what happened at –

MR. HARWOOD : So they’ll finesse the dropping of the atomic bomb?

MS. SIMENDINGER : Yes, indeed. It will be worth watching.

MR. HARWOOD : Joan, we’ve talked earlier about the Obamacare decision, but what other major cases are yet to be decided by the Court?

MS. BISKUPIC : Yes, we’re into our home stretch. We’ll go through the end of June, so about five weeks left – five, six weeks. And the first abortion case in a decade is up there, from Texas. In fact, you’ll see a theme here with Texas as I go along. Texas has a state law that is quite restrictive in terms of physicians who can perform abortions. They must have certain admitting privileges to hospitals before they can work in clinics and do the procedure. And then clinics themselves must have – must have certain standards. So that was upheld by a lower court, so in this case if the shorthanded Supreme Court with only eight justices splits 4-4, that will leave that ruling intact. So big, big abortion case possibility there.

Also has the sequel to a 2013 affirmative action case, also from Texas, the University of Texas at Austin. A young woman who is white who was denied admission there back in 2008, she’s gone on, graduated from Louisiana State University since then, has gone on to another life, but her case ticks along. The justices, in 2013, took a look at it and punted. This case, however, they might be able to decide because they only have seven justices who heard it. Elena Kagan, when she was solicitor general of the United States, was involved in this case, so she’s recused. So we should get a majority, probably a 4-3 majority on that, looking at affirmative action that could set some rules for nationwide.

We also have the immigration order. You had spoken earlier about the executive order involving overtime pay. This is President Obama’s executive order trying to protect about 4 million – I think it was about 4 million – 4 million people who came here illegally from deportation. And that one, again, we don’t know. It’s such a hot issue; will they be able to get a majority for that? And just one last one that’s not from Texas, just to spread – and that is from Texas. Texas and about 25 other states have sued there to challenge the Obama administration.

Finally, remember former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who was convicted?

MR. HARWOOD : I do remember him.

MS. BISKUPIC : Yes. He came up to the Supreme Court, the first – I think he’s probably one of the first governors or top elected officials who’s been convicted of corruption to get his case heard at the Supreme Court in decades, literally in decades. He got a hearing by the Supreme Court, a very favorable one. Even some of the liberals seemed to suggest that maybe his conviction was wrongly – was in error, it had gone too far. And that’s one we’re waiting for, too.

MR. HARWOOD : Thank you, Joan.

Dan, I’ve got a double-barreled 2016 question for you. (Laughter.) The first part is: Is either national party chair in trouble because of the way Reince Priebus or Debbie Wasserman Schultz have run their nomination processes this year? And secondly, give us a little preview of what the Electoral College competition’s going to be like this fall.

MR. BALZ : You know, John, I think neither actually is in trouble, though there’s been great criticism of both of them, and particularly Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the Democratic side. I think in some ways it’s more trouble than it’s worth to kind of upend that situation at the DNC. The Clinton campaign will run their operation the way they want to run their operation, and the DNC will be kind of off to the side.

I think there’s mixed views on Reince Priebus. You know, there are a lot of people who think he ultimately handled this reasonably well, given all the turmoil within the party, and that he kept lines of communication open with all sides, and particularly with Donald Trump. You know, he said for months that Trump would not bolt the party, and he’s proven to be right about that. So I think that’s he – you know, he’s made – he’s made his way through it.

The Electoral College is an interesting question. There are a number of smart handicappers and forecasters, people we know well; all of them at this point say that this map tilts heavily toward Hillary Clinton. I mean, there are a couple of the forecasts that put her over 300 electoral votes. Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia at this point basically doesn’t have a toss-up map on the – a toss-up state on the map, as I recall. And you know, the national polls are tightening, as we talked about in the main program. But at this point, I think people still believe that the electoral map is tilted in her favor.

The question is, what can Donald Trump put into play that Mitt Romney or John McCain couldn’t? I think the most obvious state is Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was only decided by 5.4 percent last time, which was the same as Colorado, which was a real battleground state. Trump, if he can, A, break somewhat into the suburbs in Philadelphia and do well in western Pennsylvania, might be able to turn it around. The Clinton campaign is going to do everything they can to stop him early there. They’ll put a lot of resources in.

The flip of that is are there places that, because of Trump as the nominee, that Hillary Clinton might be able to go after that Democrats haven’t been able to get? The one most obvious is Arizona, where – you know, where the immigration issue is obviously very hot, but it’s got a sizeable Latino vote. Georgia is sometimes talked about. I think that’s less realistic. I mean, that’s a state that’s changing demographically, but probably isn’t ripe yet for the Democrats.

MR. HARWOOD : Well, we’ve both been doing this long enough to remember when they talked about a Republican lock on the Electoral College. We’ll see whether Donald Trump can pick the closest approximation to a lock that Democrats have right now.

Now, Lisa, Hillary Clinton heads west to campaign in California. Bernie Sanders has challenged her to a debate on Fox News. She going to take it up?

MS. LERER : We don’t know yet. I don’t think they’re particularly keen to have another debate, but California – (laughs) – for obvious reasons, they don’t feel that that’s something they need to do, given that the nomination is almost in their hands. But California is going to be really interesting. It’s really fun to see a presidential race in California. That’s not something we get to see often. She’s leading in the state, and it is a state that in some ways should really favor her. It’s diverse. It’s a semi – what they called a semi-closed primary, which are things – you know, she’s done well in areas that have looked like that previously. But there’s a lot of universities. There are a lot of young people. That’s good ground for Bernie Sanders. So –

MR. HARWOOD : She has been leading in the polls so far.

MS. LERER : She has been leading in the polls. There’s the Central Valley. It’s awfully expensive to advertise there. And we know that Bernie Sanders’ fundraising has slowed, so we haven’t seen him up with any ads. And we know that Hillary Clinton does not want to spend the money in California because she wants to conserve it for the general, so we haven’t seen ads there. It will be interesting to see if that changes. But this is important because she wants to get a really big win in California. She doesn’t want to eke it out there. She wants a big victory because her campaign and Democrats who support her want to be able to make the case that this race is over, should be over after the California primary, so they don’t go into June and July and the convention in this messy, ugly intraparty battle. So a big win there helps her make this case.

MR. HARWOOD : Thanks, Lisa. Thanks, everybody.

While you’re online, check out the Washington Week blog on 16 of the biggest political scandals in history. And test your news knowledge on the Washington Week-ly News Quiz. You’ll find both at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.

I’m John Harwood, in for Gwen Ifill. Thanks for watching the Washington Week Webcast Extra.