Special: The Road to the Georgia Runoffs

ROBERT COSTA: Welcome to the Washington Week Extra. I’m Robert Costa.

Let’s pick up our conversation where we left off on the broadcast and cover more of this week’s pressing issues. Joining us are three of the best reporters: Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times; Asma Khalid, political correspondent for National Public Radio and co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast; and Paula Reid, White House correspondent for CBS News, joining us from the White House. Welcome to all of you.

I want to start here by coming back to a topic we touched on during the program, Rudy Giuliani. Paula, help us understand why he’s still and suddenly front and center again in President Trump’s orbit. Where are the president’s usual campaign aides, the other lawyers?

PAULA REID: So most of the president’s other attorneys want nothing to do with this case because, again, they don’t believe that this legal campaign that they are waging is going to be successful. We’ve seen case after case where judges look at these allegations and say, look, this is not supported by any evidence, you’re not bringing enough to even sustain the claims that you are making. Now, there was one possible case that was going to possibly go to the Supreme Court, and that was in Pennsylvania. The campaign was hoping to litigate about ballots that came in in the three days after the election. But once it became clear that President-elect Biden’s margin was sufficiently large, many of the president’s other lawyers, they just sort of stepped back from this case. So Rudy Giuliani, he is front and center. Objectively speaking, he’s not bringing a lot of success or glory to his client here. Yesterday’s press conference, or press conference earlier this week, it was a disaster. That’s just not how you want any attorney to represent their client, especially when the stakes are so high. So at this point it all appears to be political theater, and Rudy Giuliani appears to be enjoying himself.

MR. COSTA: Peter, you’ve written books on George W. Bush, a great book, Days of Fire, and you’ve written extensively on 9/11. What does this all mean for Giuliani’s legacy?

PETER BAKER: Well, it’s a remarkable change, of course, because after 9/11 he was, you know, styled America’s mayor. He obviously stood up at a moment of great crisis, earned an extraordinary amount of attention and acclaim for his handling of this horrific moment in American history. And for years, you know, he obviously, you know, enjoyed that basic reputation among the American people, but I think in the last few years as President Trump’s lawyer he has, you know, increasingly, you know, slid down dark holes of conspiracy, advancing, you know, ideas and theories that have no basis in reality, that – no evidence to back them up. He looks more and more like a – you know, a partisan figure rather than a, you know – a standup mayor and former prosecutor. And I – and I think Paula’s right; who else would take this case? You know, we talk about Jim Baker. When Jim Baker ran George W. Bush’s recount effort in Florida, he didn’t actually argue the case himself because that wasn’t something he did; he brought in people like Ted Olson, Michael Carvin, people who knew what they were doing in court. Rudy Giuliani hasn’t been in court in decades, and I think that showed this week. And that’s because, as Paula said, nobody else would go to court of any stature to argue this case.

MR. COSTA: Asma, let’s get back to the Biden Cabinet discussion we had on the program. You said President-elect Biden could announce a treasury secretary pick in the coming days. What else are you hearing? Who’s lobbying for who?

ASMA KHALID: Oh, gosh, I mean, I guess we’re hearing some things, I mean, thanks to some reporting from my amazing colleague Carrie Johnson. You know, she’s done some work on possible AG picks, even throwing around Merrick Garland as a possibility there. But you know, what I have heard – and I don’t know, you know, sort of how much – I am very sort of interested, I will say, in the treasury secretary pick, in part because Biden publicly came out and said that whoever he selected – and he didn’t give a name – would appease both moderates and progressives, and there were a lot of names that were mentioned early on in this process – notably Elizabeth Warren, one of his former opponents during the primary cycle, who people instantly assumed was out of the running because she is a sort of lightning rod, people thought, for some more – of the more moderate voters who did support Joe Biden. And so, you know, I don’t have a clear sense of who the treasury secretary pick is, but I think we were able to rule out who some of the possible candidates are based on how Biden framed things.

MR. COSTA: Peter, any thoughts on the Biden Cabinet?

MR. BAKER: Well, I think you’re going to see a mix, obviously. There are some – you know, what you’ve seen so far in the White House selections, of course, are all people who have been in Biden’s orbit for a long time. I’d be surprised if he goes too far afield even in the Cabinet. But he wants to – he wants to build a Cabinet that is a diverse mix not just of, you know, gender, race, religion, but also ideology. This is a party that has very, very drastically different points of view, and his coalition coming out of this election is pretty fragile. The one thing that united people behind Joe Biden a couple weeks ago was their antipathy for Donald Trump, but after January 20th it becomes much more complicated. So he’s got a lot of factors at play at this point. He’s got to try to keep the progressive wing happy even as he tacks toward the middle, particularly if he doesn’t win these runoff elections in Georgia and has to deal with a Republican Senate.

MR. COSTA: Well, what about on the other side, Paula? President Trump has terminated Mark Esper as secretary of defense, Chris Krebs gone as the elections officials. What’s on the horizon in terms of a shakeup between now and January?

MS. REID: What we’re looking at most closely are any changes in the coronavirus taskforce. There is such a fear among those health experts, even the ones who aren’t political appointees. The president can’t directly fire them – for example, Dr. Anthony Fauci – but he could move him off the taskforce, and that is a very real concern that the president could try to disrupt that group at this critical time. Now, I have also learned that there are some backchannel conversations between the coronavirus taskforce and the transition team, but there is a concern that if the president gets wind of that or believes that that is that particular group telling him that, yes, he has lost, there is such a concern that he could try to go on a firing or removal spree, and the greatest fear is that they would put Scott Atlas in charge of this critical period of the pandemic response. Of course, the other person everyone’s looking at is the FBI director, Chris Wray. The president has made it clear he is not happy with him. That would also leave President-elect Biden with four top jobs at the Justice Department to fill: attorney general, deputy attorney general, associate attorney general, and potentially there an FBI director.

MR. COSTA: As a lawyer and a reporter, you’ll be on top of all those confirmation battles, I’m sure of that. Meanwhile, all eyes politically in Washington are turning to Georgia and its two Senate runoffs in January, January 5th. They will play a critical role in deciding the Senate majority. On Monday I reported for the Post that Georgia’s incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue told donors on a private phone call last week that he and fellow Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler knew the president had lost or was moving in that direction and may not be able to provide them much help. Perdue said, quote, “We’re assuming that we’re going to be standing out here alone, and that means we’re going to have to get the vote out no matter what the outcome of that adjudication on the recount in two states and some lawsuits…Kelly and I can’t wait for that.” Senator Loeffler talked about on that call how she’s hoping the Trump voter comes out. Senator Perdue says he’s going to let the president pursue his legal options, but said maybe he’s not going to end up the president next year, so there’s this private acknowledgement within the GOP that you don’t necessarily hear characterized in the same way publicly. And the Democrats, they feel pretty good. The challengers down in Georgia, Reverend Raphael Warnock and Democrat Jon Ossoff, have said the race is in their favor, perhaps, if they can pull together a coalition. Let’s watch.

JON OSSOFF: (From video.) Reverend Warnock is an inspirational leader who reaches out across faith lines, across racial lines to inspire people and unite the people, and that’s what we need right now. People are feeling hope for the first time in four years.

RAPHAEL WARNOCK: (From video.) Health care’s on the ballot. That’s what this race is about and that’s what I will continue to lift up even as I move across the great state of Georgia. People are responding to that message, and that’s why we are in such a strong position.

MR. COSTA: Asma, how do Democrats see this? They only have a few weeks to try to pick off two red state seats in the U.S. Senate.

MS. KHALID: I mean, it is certainly a challenge for Democrats. But to me, Georgia is an interesting state demographically, in part because it did flip for Joe Biden this year – you know, the first time that we saw any Democrat win the state of Georgia since 1992. But I spent a lot of time there actually in 2018, when Stacey Abrams was challenging Brian Kemp for governor. And so it’s notable to me that President Trump is somebody whom, you know, Perdue and Loeffler can’t count on, because I recall during that 2018 gubernatorial race really these massive rallies, actually, in Macon at the airport, where President Trump flew in.

And really, in some ways, Brian Kemp benefitted from that support that the president was able to bring down to the state of Georgia during that gubernatorial race. And you know, that was a remarkably close race. So I will say, you know, Democrats think demographically. There are certain changes, both around, I would say, a growing Latino population and Asian population in and around Atlanta, as well as just northern college-educated voters that seem to be turned off from the Republican Party, that they think helps them. Of course, you know, traditionally Democrats do tend to suffer from not as strong turnout when you talk about nontraditional races, and a runoff being one of those.

MR. COSTA: Peter, Georgia isn’t Jimmy Carter’s Georgia anymore. It’s not Newt Gingrich’s Georgia anymore. It’s an evolving, fast-changing state.

MR. BAKER: Yeah, Georgia may be the new battleground now for the next cycle or two, that this is in fact the place where both parties are, you know, struggling to gain a foothold, basically. The Republicans to hang onto something that’s been a bedrock of their southern wall for many, many years and the Democrats now trying to convert it, they way they did Virginia and to some extent North Carolina, at times. And suddenly that’s a remarkable change, the idea that Georgia is on the table.

Now, this is a particularly big moment, right? Ralph Reed told one of my colleagues that this is the Super Bowl of politics. You already see $125 million pouring into the state. Both parties across the nation are going to make this the be-all and end-all contest for control. And both sides have a lot at stake, because the Democrats obviously want to give Joe Biden a chance to govern. They have to win both these contests to get to 50/50, with Kamala Harris as the vice president breaking the tie. Republicans only have to win one of the two in order to hang onto their majority in the Senate – albeit, a very narrow one, 51 to 49 if they did so.

The real question is who turns out, right? People turned out on November 3rd because they loved or hated Donald Trump. Will they turn out on January 5th motivated by the same reasons? Or do we revert to a more traditional Georgia special election, with the traditional demographics that we’re seeing absent Trump’s influence? That’s the big question.

MR. COSTA: Paula, what’s the read on Georgia inside the White House?

MS. REID: There was a lot of talk about – not necessarily inside the White House, but with the campaign – about how the president and the vice president should be used. As you saw today, the vice president went down to Georgia to help campaign. And there’s a belief – look, the president didn’t have a lot of legislative accomplishments, but control of the Senate is so key, particularly to protect those few accomplishments he had – tax laws, and of course the USMCA. They are concerned about these races.

And also there is concern among sources out in the campaign about how the president’s rhetoric around the election and his unsuccessful litigation campaign could potentially undermine those two candidates in Georgia. That’s definitely something they’re not talking about publicly, but privately it is a concern, that perhaps it’s getting to be time to put the president’s egos and interests aside and look forward to the future of the Republican Party.

MR. COSTA: Asma, it’s a pretty brutal campaign already, especially the Loeffler race against Reverend Raphael Warnock. Republicans are talking about Warnock’s comments on Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor for President Obama’s church in Chicago. They’re talking about Warnock and trying to connect him to socialism. What are you hearing about the Republican effort there to cast Warnock in this ultra-left light? Do Democrats worry about his chances?

MS. KHALID: I mean, this is, I would say, sort of become the traditional strategy for a lot of Republicans. I mean, earlier today we also saw some attempts to link, you know, both of these Senate candidates with members of the Squad, which has become, I would say, a particularly – particularly prevalent, you know, strategy for a number of Republicans, ever since 2018 when the Squad members were first elected.

Look, you know, I would say that this, to me, comes back, though, again to sort of a turnout race, right? These sort of allegations, you could argue, of socialism are particularly, frankly, race-baiting allegations, right? And that’s what I think we’re seeing with Warnock in particular. They could really, really energize Democratic base voters. We saw some of that actually in the 2018 gubernatorial race with Stacey Abrams and, I would argue, you know, it really energized a lot of Democrats to come out in support of her.

So you know, I would argue it’s a very risky strategy, especially in a state like Georgia where about a third of the Democratic, you know, base of voters are African American, and a growing number of them are minorities, Latino, Asian American, who wouldn’t necessarily, you know, subscribe to some of that race-based rhetoric either.

MR. COSTA: We’ll leave it there for tonight. Many thanks to Paula, Peter and Asma for the discussion here on our Extra. I really appreciate it on a Friday night. And thank you all for joining us. Make sure to sign up for our Washington Week newsletter on our website. We’ll give you insight into the world of our Washington Week regulars and reporters. You’ll also receive a weekly note from me about what to expect on the program and what I’ve been up to with my reporting. I’m Robert Costa. Good night from Washington.