Full Episode: Infrastructure, Inflation, and New Details on Jan 6th

- A Friday night flood of news.

- Infrastructure week has finally arrived.

- President Biden celebrates Congress passing a $1.2 trillion by bipartisan infrastructure bill.

- We need to you remember what got us to the White House in the first place. We won in 2020 as a unified party.

- But he is still fighting to unify his party to pass his larger social policy plan.

- There'll be one price one day, and then tomorrow it's like up 30 cents.

- As inflation and prices soar to historic highs. Plus, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection issues a slew of new subpoenas.

- Millions of Americans have been tragically misled by former President Trump.

- And the battle over executive privilege heats up, next.

- [Narrator] This is Washington Week. Corporate funding is provided by. For 25 years Consumer Cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. We offer a variety of no contract plans and our US-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv. Additional funding is provided by, the Estate of Arnold Adams, Koo & Patricia Yuen for the Yuen Foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, Sandra and Carl DeLay-Magnuson, Rose Hirschel and Andy Shreeves. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you, thank you. Once again from Washington, moderator Yamiche Alcindor.

- Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. The Capitol insurrection happened 310 days ago. And on Friday, there was so much news related to that violent day. The Justice Department announced that Steve Bannon, a top Trump advisor, a top advisor to former President Trump, was indicted by a federal grand jury for contempt of Congress. The charges come after Bannon refused to comply with the subpoena from the House committee investigating the Capitol attack. Also, former Trump White House, chief of staff, Mark Meadows failed to show up for a deposition with the committee. Lawmakers have now threatened to hold him in contempt as well. This week, the committee also issued at least 16 new subpoenas to top Trump campaign aides and former White House officials. And also on Friday, if there wasn't enough news there, ABC News, chief Washington Correspondent, Jonathan Karl, friend of this show, released new audio from an interview he did with former President Trump for his upcoming book "Betrayal." The two talked about the attack.

- [Karl] They were saying hang Mike Pence.

- [Trump] Because it's common sense, Jon, it's common sense that you're supposed to protect. How can you, if you know a voter is fraudulent, right, how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress?

- Joining me tonight to break down all of this news on this Friday night, Katie Benner, Justice Department reporter for the New York Times, Kayla Tausche, Senior White House Correspondent and Anchor for CNBC, and joining me at the table, Brian Bennett, Senior White House Correspondent for Time Magazine, and Rachel Scott, Congressional Correspondent for ABC News. Thank you all of you for being here. Katie, I wanna start with you. I wanna start with Steve Bannon. It was, in some ways really important and interesting news that he was indicted. He's facing two counts of contempt of Congress. Talk a little bit about what's next for Steve Bannon. What's the legal process here?

- Sure, so Steve Bannon is expected to turn himself in on Monday and then after that go to the District Courthouse in Washington, DC for his first appearance. We'll see what happens, we'll see what the judge says. His side, the Justice Department will be able to argue why they believe that he should be charged with two counts of contempt. What is also interesting here is people have been waiting to see whether or not the Justice Department was going to make some sort of statement about the committee's work, about the committee's work to try to get to the bottom of January 6th. So when Bannon refused to comply, there were a lot of eyes on the Justice Department. Were they going to back the committee and were they going to enforce subpoenas or where they're going to get caught in this sort of legal morass around executive privilege that has happened so many times before during the previous administration.

- Steve Bannon is also expected to turn himself in on Monday and appear in court. I wonder what message that sends to others who are subpoenaed, including Mark Meadows, who is looking like he's going to defy a subpoena as well.

- Absolutely, so Mark Meadows his case is a little bit different from Bannon's. Keep in mind Bannon was a private citizen at the time that he was advising Trump around January 6th, that he was talking to Trump about the election. So his case is weaker now. Meadows, he was the Chief of Staff and so if he claims executive privilege, if he says that he was speaking to the President about legitimate White House executive actions, it will be, he will have a better time, I think arguing the executive privilege claim. But keep in mind, executive privilege generally speaking covers the actions of an administration. Running for president is not an executive act, it is not something that's part of your presidential duties. So to the extent that some of these conversations were about the election and to the extent that some of these conversations have already been, have already been testified to by other executive branch officials, including Justice Department officials, like the former acting attorney general Jeff Rosen, that then weakens the case. It says, okay, well, how are we going? It's not a cut and dry thing, it's not something that we can say we know how we, it's harder to predict that outcome.

- It's a smart thing that you just said about the distinctions between an executive action and running for president. Rachel, we know that President Biden has been pretty clear that at least with the documents that have been requested that he's not gonna be waving executive privilege. That said, I wonder what you think of lawmakers sort of possibly sending a warning to others who are gonna defy the house committee that they obviously stepped up their work this week.

- Yeah, and I think that this was welcome news for a lot of the lawmakers on the committee. We heard the statements from Representative Thompson and as well as a Congresswoman Liz Cheney basically saying, this is a warning signal to anyone else that chooses to defy our congressional subpoenas, our request to testify behind closed doors. If you do not comply, you are going to have to face the consequences. And in a lot of ways, the Justice Department was saying, here listen, we're gonna have your back. We believe that this should go forward, we support this effort, but obviously this could take some time. We don't know how long the trial could play out. And I think this will also be a test of loyalty for a lot of these former Trump campaign officials who were close to the former President. This is going to be an ultimate test of loyalty of whether or not they're willing to face the consequences on behalf of the former President.

- Well, do we get a sense that some people are cooperating especially as you look at some of these subpoenas are going to aids of former Vice President, Mike Pence too. His office has been a little bit more loose lipped.

- Yeah they have. And the committee says that they've received dozens of people that have actually cooperated behind closed doors. They're actually collecting a lot of interviews, they have a lot of documents so far, but when you look at the inner circle of the former President, and now the focus is also on, the days leading up to January 6th, this meeting at the Willard Hotel about how they were possibly strategizing ways to overturn the election. The immediate circle around the President, what they were saying at the time and to whom, who were they communicating back to in Congress? All of those details still remain unknown which is why the committee is pressing forward.

- And Brian, there's a lot in there what Rachel was just talking about. They're looking at documents as well wanting to get communication including, at one point I was reading the judge's order, judge's order looking at April 1st, 2020 to January 20th, 2021, that's a big time period that they're looking for. But talk a little bit about this fight over these documents, where things are landing now that it seems a federal appeals court has at least temporarily blocked these documents for being released.

- So this stuff really matters. The Congress is trying to get to the bottom of the events that led up to the ride of the Capitol on January 6th. And it's really going to be a test of how much executive privilege can protect documents from being handed over to Congress, can President Trump, who's a former President use executive privilege to protect these documents when he's out of office, and also, whether or not when he's taking actions in office that are political in nature to try to get reelected and undermine democracy at the same time, whether or not executive privilege provides the umbrella that it would under other circumstances?

- Yeah, and Kayla, when you think about sort of these historic times that we're living through, this is the first time that federal judges have had to sort of deal with competing claims of executive privilege. I wonder what you're hearing as a White House Correspondent from the Biden administration, from your sources about how they're seeing this.

- Well, certainly the Biden administration is leading this effort from the extension of the Justice Department, which I think a lot of the Democrats were hoping would make the moves that they did today and that prosecutors would sort of ramp up some of these efforts, which they did. But now they're sort of in a no win situation because the mudslinging has only gotten worse. And for a lot of the members of Trump world, as Rachel mentioned, this is a loyalty test as President Trump thinks about whether and how to launch a potential 2024 campaign, those who are seen as defying the request of the select committee, they're gonna be lionized by a lot of this. I mean, there's really no harm and there's some legal protection. If you show up to the committee because they ask you to show up and you say in those conversations, I can't talk about that because there's executive privilege, but at least you show up, which is what the committee is subpoenaing you to do. But because they are very publicly taking a stand against that, I mean, they're almost getting celebrity status or martyr status that could potentially even elevate them in Trump world as you think about how this evolves in the coming years.

- And Katie, Kayla was just talking about mudslinging, how much of that mud might end up in the Supreme Court?

- Yeah, that's hard to tell. Obviously, we know that the Trump administration, the former Trump administration officials who are adamant about approaching the Supreme Court before January 6th, there are still a lot of people who believe that those legal arguments which former Trump officials at the Justice Department said do not hold water all believe that there's a chance that if presented before the Supreme Court some of these arguments could hold water. We know that's not the case and yet there is a hope for that. Another thing that Kayla mentioned, when people do go before the committee, one of the risks that the committee is taking by issuing so many subpoenas and going so broad is in our reporting we found that there are people and Bernard Kerik has had this publicly. There are people who've been subpoenaed who planned to go before the committee to cooperate and to also tell what they say is their side of the story. So, I don't like to use the word mudslinging, but to go in and say, in fact, we were correct, there was election fraud. In fact, these things did happen and we were only trying to protect the country. Now, if enough people go in as witnesses and tell that account, it will certainly blur the ultimate report that this committee is creating.

- Yeah, and Ryan, the other thing that happened this week that we talked about and that we showed was former President Trump defending these chance of hanging Mike Pence. I wonder just what does it, what do you take away from what he told John Carl and how much do you think that this just connects to the state of the GOP right now?

- Well, I mean, Trump, he has no qualms about what happened on January 6th. He's defended his actions all the way through, including his speech right before the riot that directed people to go down to the Capitol building. And we heard on the tape that John Don Carl released that he defended the fact that there was a noose and people calling for the hanging of Mike Pence. He said, this is what happens and then he repeated the lie about the election being stolen. So, Trump is non-repentant and has no remorse about the actions of that day. He's gonna continue to dig in and he's gonna continue to demand the people around him and people in the Republican Party to hold up that lie as we move toward the midterm elections and another presidential election in 2024.

- Yeah, describing President Trump has non-repentant is an eloquent way to describe what we've been seeing, that's a good job Brian there. Rachel, the other thing that happened this week that was sort of shocking was Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona he tweeted out this sort of doctored video, animated video, showing him literally killing Democratic Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I just, what's going on here in the Capitol? I mean, there's been so much violence after, in January 6th, on January 6th, and still we're we're here where lawmakers are tweeting out videos depicting killing other lawmakers.

- Yeah, I mean, let's just take a step back from what we're actually talking about here. You just referenced the former President defending, sort of how he saw the tempts to hang his own Vice-President, we're seeing in Congress right now, we're seeing in Congress there right now threats against one another. This is a very tense and hostile mood on Capitol Hill. And it's significantly affected how people work together. This idea of do you have a friend and colleague across the aisle? Many are people on Capitol Hill are even questioning whether or not that even exists at this point. It is just, it's really stark and very troublesome. And when you talk to a lot of members on Capitol Hill, a lot of them will say that in a lot of ways since January 6th, they have feared for their safety, they've had questions about their safety and they have legitimate concerns about their colleagues who they felt like were supporting attempts that threatened their safety.

- And Katie, these are dangerous times. I wonder what you're hearing from your sources about the atmosphere that we're living in, especially after or maybe during Representative Gosar tweeting out this video of him killing another lawmaker.

- So one of the things that was observed during the Trump administration was whenever the President would criticize another politician, a lawmaker, the number of threats against that person would really spike. And I don't think that has changed. And now that more people are willing to make those threats, I think that you're seeing a lot of chatter, whether it's on the internet, whether it's in messaging groups that really replicates that phenomenon of a visual image or a comment, an overly harsh criticism or even a threat being uttered and then you see in sort of like in the world of domestic extremism, a lot of chatter and a lot of movement. Now where this going to become extremely difficult is as we head into the midterms. We already saw in the last election, election workers being harassed, election workers being threatened, secretaries of state, including Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger being threat threatened and harassed, his family being threatened and harassed. And now when you add more and more politicians being willing to engage in that behavior, it's going to become very difficult for law enforcement, for the FBI, for DHS, to really weigh and evaluate those threats and figure out which ones are just online chatter and which ones could lead to the next really violent action.

- Yeah, it's hard work and it's also dangerous times. We're definitely gonna be talking to you I'm sure through the midterms. So thank you, Katie so much for joining us, we really appreciate your reporting. Meanwhile, last Friday, Congress took a huge step and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. But Democrats are still trying to work out the details of the Build Back Better Act as a second larger infrastructure bill expected to be backed only by Democrats. This week President Biden went to Baltimore to push that plan.

- This bill is gonna reduce the cost of goods to consumers, businesses, and get people back to work, helping us build an economy from the bottom up in the middle out that where everybody's better off.

- This comes as the White House faces tough questions about the economy and what they are doing to stop surging inflation. On Friday, we learned that a record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September. Experts say workers are leaving in search of better pay or better jobs. Earlier this week on Wednesday, the Labor Department also announced that inflation is at 31-year high. Supply chain issues and consumer demand are causing the cost of cars, gas, groceries, and yes, even Thanksgiving dinner to spike. All of this is making Americans very anxious.

- Who can afford to fill up 15, 20 gallons of gasoline. I know a lot of people are struggling. That is a heck of a lot of money.

- We started seeing everything going up. Grocery prices went up, gallon of milk was $1.99, now it's 2.79.

- We're not buying the most healthy stuff because that prices have gone way up, but I feel kind of guilty sometimes when you can't afford the really good things that would be healthier also.

- These are really, really tough times Kayla. Talk a bit about what's causing this inflation and also when if at all will Americans possibly see some relief?

- Well, you mean, there are a few things that are contributing to inflation. First, the pandemic. Last year, companies to get people to go out and do things and buy things they had to lower prices because the economy was at such a fragile point. Now the recovery has boomed in that time and so the change over last year is pretty stark. But also, input costs for companies have risen substantially. Labor costs to hire people and keep them in those jobs have risen. Also the cost to produce and ship things to the U.S. from overseas, and then get them driven or transported by freight through the country and to shelves has have also risen. So companies and industries have asked the White House for a few different things. For instance, a lot of these clothing and shoe companies that are still hit with tariffs when they bring things from overseas to the ports, they've asked the administration to reimburse them for some of those so that they can not pass all of those costs onto customers. So far, no dice there. And then there's gasoline, which is up about 60%. The administration is looking at some specific actions there, but those aren't gonna have an overnight effect if they tap the emergency reserves of gas, of oil rather, it takes about two weeks to hit the market. I've talked to senior administration official who acknowledged that Thanksgiving travel was sort of a date that was circled on the calendar. So, because the White House didn't move this week, that oil is not gonna hit the market and it's not gonna relieve any of that pressure at the pump by the time a lot of Americans hit the road.

- In a quick follow-up Kayla, we talked about a record number of people quitting their jobs. I wonder how that might impact this economy that's still struggling through COVID. And also, I wonder a little bit about sort of what are people weighing as they quit?

- Well, I think people are weighing a lot of things as they quit. I think the pandemic significantly changed worker's priorities. A lot of workers, especially older millennials and younger millennial workers are demanding from their companies some sort of hybrid lifestyle. A lot of offices are trying to convince these employees to go back to the office and they're saying, I don't wanna do that. Some workers who have always worked in-person are now figuring maybe the risk just isn't worth it, maybe I'm not feeling fulfilled, and maybe at this point I have enough saved to really make a sea change in my life. One thing is clear though, is that costs for companies are going up. I mean, I can't state that enough. I talked to Jared Bernstein from the White House last week about this and he acknowledged that companies are gonna have to keep paying workers more and more and more to be able to get them to take these jobs and stay in those jobs. They have a few other statistics that the white house looks at where they say, maybe the costs aren't going up that much, but they've acknowledged that to hire people, it's gonna be really expensive. And so the fear is, that we'll also possibly trickle down to the consumer, the consumer that the administration has said, anyone making under $400,000, won't see their taxes raised. But you're starting to see a political message forming from the other side of the aisle that, this is an indirect tax in the form of the inflation and the administration isn't doing enough about it.

- Yeah, and on that point, thinking about what the administration's response, on Wednesday, I questioned Brian Deese, he's the Director of the National Economic Council about the White House's approach to the economy. What do you say that to some critics who think that the White House is too focused on long-term investments and are not focused enough on sort of short term right now relief for Americans.

- He is focused like a laser on those issues. Part of why we're in this problem is we haven't invested in building our infrastructure so that we have more resilient ports, more resilient roads and bridges around America.

- Brian, what could be the impact of passing the Build Back Better Act? It's what the White House, not only Brian Deese, but also the President is saying needs to happen to help some of this inflation.

- So I talked to White House officials about this today and about what their concerns were like about the inflationary prices and what was happening. They believe based on their economic analysis that these inflationary concerns are temporary. That they're a temporary result of the pandemic and the supply chain issues. And that there'll be resolved in a few months and there they want the Build Back Better Act to get past so that some long-term investments can lower the cost of things like childcare and home and healthcare and other things to offset any continued inflation or any continued expenses that Americans are still having to pay because of that. So, they're hoping that these long-term investments, and they're also looking at the infrastructure bill and implementation of that, hoping that that would in pumping more jobs and more structural productivity into the economy would reduce inflation in the longer term.

- And Rachel, the President he's supposed to be signing, planning to sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Monday, but of course, Democrats, as we said, are scrambling on that second larger bill. Does this inflation give moderate, Democratic moderate to sort of leverage here, to sort of get what they want, maybe even push it back as Senator Joe Manchin, who we talk about every week is now saying maybe we'll just wait until 2022 to pass this.

- Yeah, a strategic pause, I think is what Senator Joe Manchin has called it. He looks at this and he says, why are we rushing to spend more money if inflation is hitting a 30-year high right now, why don't we just slow things down? Congress has already spent trillions of dollars already, why don't we just take a moment and look at how this has all rolling out and see the effects of it before we actually move forward? My guess is that we'll be hearing a lot more of that from moderates, not only from Senator Joe Manchin, but others in the house. We know the house is gonna try and push forward with a vote by November 15th on this much larger Build Back Better Act, but moderates still do have some concerns and they wanna hear more from the CBO, some estimates House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, noting tonight that six estimates have already come out. She's really pushing moderates here to get a vote, but obviously it's gonna be in the Senate, that's gonna be the uphill challenge.

- Yeah, and Kayla, we only have about a minute left here, but I wanna come to you really quickly. Talk a bit about President Trump, former President Trump attacking Republicans who voted for this bipartisan infrastructure bill. I wonder what that says about where things are going from here.

- Well, certainly he can use the bully pulpit from afar and see if that wields any leverage over the party. But ultimately, I think President Biden knows well that when money is spent in individual districts, it goes a long way at home and I don't think any of those conservative lawmakers wanting to face their constituents face to face and to be able to say, we could've gotten money for this bridge or this road, or this port, and we opted not to, and certainly there were a lot of Republicans who had to make that choice.

- And Brian in the last couple of seconds that we have here. It's interesting to me that when you look at sort of these Republicans that are being targeted, you have someone like Michigan Representative, Fred Upton, who's saying, he's now getting voicemails of people telling him that they hope he and his family die. We're talking about security issues before, but I wonder what you make of sort of this now being tied to a vote on infrastructure.

- Well, President Biden campaign on bringing bipartisanship back to Washington and doing more of this with Congress. He was hoping this would be an example of Republicans coming together with Democrats to get something big done for the country. And we saw the blow back that these Republicans who voted for the bill are experiencing. And Biden's hoping that Monday would be a time when you can show some unity, but it's gonna be challenged because of that reaction.

- Yeah, it's gonna be a challenge and I think it's something that we're definitely gonna have to watch closely. And before we go tonight, a salute to American veterans. On Thursday, President Biden marked the 100th anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and paid homage to those who have served.

- Our veterans represent the best of America. You are the very spine of America, not just the backbone, you're the spine of this country. And all of us, all of us, owe you.

- This week also was the first time in nearly a century that members of the public were allowed to lay flowers at the tomb. To all our veterans and military families, thank you for your service and for your sacrifice. That's it for tonight. Thank you to Kayla, Brian, and Rachel for your reporting and thank you all for joining us. And don't forget to watch the PBS NewsHour next week for "Searching For Justice." They will look at one man's transition to life outside of prison after two decades behind bars. We'll continue our conversation on the Washington Week Extra. This week's topic, a look at the Kyle Rittenhouse homicide trial and the murder trial for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Find it on our website, Facebook, and YouTube. I'm Yamiche Alcindor, good night from Washington.