Full Episode: Washington Week full episode, June 2, 2023

William Brangham: An economic crisis avoided, and Donald Trump's re-election campaign gets more complicated.

Joe Biden, U.S. President: Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher.

William Brangham: A potential economic disaster was narrowly averted after Congress raced to pass legislation lifting the nation's debt ceiling.

Plus --

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): His conduct, I think that's one of the reasons he's not in the White House now.

Donald Trump, Former U.S. President: You don't want him as your president.

William Brangham: -- the race to be the GOP's next presidential nominee heats up. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis kicks off his White House bid by hitting the campaign trail and sparring with former President Donald Trump.

But the former president also faces another kind of threat, new developments in the investigation of his handling of classified documents, next.

Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week. I'm William Brangham.

Tonight, after weeks of brinksmanship, posturing and intense negotiation, President Biden will soon sign into law a bipartisan bill that lifts the country's debt limit and averts what could have been an economic disaster. The president spoke about the bill's significance a short time ago.

Joe Biden: No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed. We averted an economic crisis.

William Brangham: That bill, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, was negotiated between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy and their teams. It passed the House overwhelmingly on Wednesday and was rushed through the Senate late Thursday.

Joining us now to discuss this and more, Peter Baker is Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, Leigh Ann Caldwell is co-author of The Washington Post's Early 202 and Anchor of Washington Post Live, Asma Khalid is White House correspondent for NPR and co-Host of the NPR Politics Podcast, and Nikole Killion is Congressional Correspondent for CBS News. Welcome to you all. Thank you all for being here.

Peter, to you first. Does the passage of this deal and the eventual soon to be signing by the president tell us anything new about President Biden and how he and his White House team operate?

Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, I think what it tells us is that President Biden, of course, has now been able to burnish his reputation for bipartisanship. This is important to him. It's part of his identity, his political identity. It's part of his case for re-election next year. I'm the adult in the room at a time of lots of fractious fighting among the parties. It doesn't necessarily match the desires and priorities of his own party. A lot of his House Democrats would have preferred he'd be more of a fighter, less of a compromiser.

But for him, you saw him tonight give that speech in which he made clear that his priority is being seen as somebody who rises above the partisanship in the nation's interest.

William Brangham: Asma, do you see the same way that the President tonight really defended how he held back what was a Republican attack on what he thinks of as his legislative priorities, is that what he thinks of as victory?

Asma Khalid, White House Correspondent, NPR: Certainly. And I would echo what Peter said. I mean, in many ways, he emphasized the fact tonight that he ran his 2020 presidential campaign as being someone who could find consensus, who would help the nation find unity, and he believes in bipartisanship still. He echoed those very similar themes this evening.

What I also heard from him, though, too, was a sense of, to your point, what he was able to defend, right? That he was able to protect Medicaid, to some degree, he was able to protect Social Security. And, to me, those were messages directed toward a larger possible 2024 electorate, just so folks would be aware of where his ambitions are, I think leading up into the re-elect.

William Brangham: Leigh Ann, though, he did say for many months, I am not going to negotiate on this debt limit, and then he did. Does that open up the future of what he calls hostage taking to become the norm by how he operated?

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Co-Author, The Washington Post's Early 202: Well, let me back up just a little bit. It's really interesting. In the middle of these negotiations, Democrats were very angry that he, in fact, did engage in these negotiations.

They thought, as Speaker McCarthy was coming out talking to the press all day long, every single day, really dominating the narrative, there were members of his party, including Sheila Jackson Lee, who stood up in a closed door conference meeting and asked Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, to ask President Biden, please address the nation, do an address to the nation, put pressure on these Republicans. And the White House did not do that.

And now he did this address tonight to claim victory, to use it as an opportunity, as Asma said, to talk about his priorities, what he's accomplished, and what he's been able to fight back. But I will say that there's a lot of concern on Capitol Hill about what sort of precedent this creates. There's a lot of members on the right and the conservative faction of the party who are very angry that this debt limit is suspended to 2025 because they say that Kevin McCarthy gave away his leverage to try to reform government spending. And so this might set another precedent for depending on who's in power in two years.

Nikole Killion, Congressional Correspondent, CBS News: And I would argue, too, I mean, in talking to Senate Democrats on the other side of the aisle, many of them told me they actually think going forward that the 14th amendment should be invoked. We know that was a debate--

William Brangham: He should have used that to get out of this.

Nikole Killion: Well, no, for future debate, because from their standpoint, they don't want to be subject to hostage taking the next time around from their point of view. And so, obviously, we know the president argued that the 14th Amendment didn't have time to vet it out. It could be subject to legal challenges. But now, when you're looking two years out, whether it's Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, a number of senators told me they still feel that that should be an option on the table going forward.

Asma Khalid: I also think there are questions, too, about what this means for the broader state of the U.S. economy, right? You saw Fitch, the ratings agency, today warned that it is not necessarily taking the idea off the table that it would downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

William Brangham: Simply because of the way we behaved as a nation.

Asma Khalid: Exactly, and that this doesn't necessarily preclude that they're worried about sort of future political fallout of this sort.

And to me, that's really interesting because you're hearing President Biden declare this as a political victory, but you don't get a sense that the sort of domestic economy feels that way definitively yet.

Peter Baker: It doesn't actually end the debate, right? It takes a debt ceiling off the table now for two years. But that doesn't mean that the budget issues that they resolved are actually resolved, because you already hear people talking about going back to the well, right? You heard the president tonight say, I want to come back on taxes for the wealthy. You heard Republicans in the House say, let's go back on more cuts. And you heard even Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate say, how about more money for the defense industry or defense of the country? We don't think that they got enough for the Pentagon.

So, it's really not a closed deal. We have these appropriations bills that will come up in the fall. They're going to re-litigate a lot of these issues.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: And what Republicans are planning to do actually in the next couple of weeks is they're going to try to start the process to extend the Trump tax cuts. And so Democrats are furious saying, if you care about budget and government spending and reducing the deficit, extending the Trump tax cuts is not the way to do it. So, you're right, there's going to be more budget fights ahead.

William Brangham: Well, at least we all get to stay in point for a little bit longer.

Nikole, do you think that we in the political press at all overreacted to the threat to the worry about a default? I mean, deadlines have an incredible way of quickening people's pulses and forcing action. There has been fair amount of bipartisan reaction. I mean, do you think we got too worried about this or do you think that there was an appropriate level of concern?

Nikole Killion: Well, I think we were reporting what we were being told, which is that Janet Yellen sent letter after letter after letter to Congress saying, look, this is the date and if you don't do anything, then we're going to have an economic catastrophe. So, I don't think we and the press were blowing anything up. We were reporting what the treasury secretary was conveying to lawmakers. And, clearly, many of them felt, whether it was Republicans or Democrats, bound by that deadline, although you did have a number of Republicans who questioned the validity of the date and suggested that there could be some workarounds and the treasury could do some things if that date approaches.

But the bottom line is that I think everyone took that date seriously because, as we saw with the Senate, they got this cleared in record time.

William Brangham: Peter, Kevin McCarthy came through. He thinks of this as a success. At least that's how he's presenting it publicly. Does this tell us something about how he might govern over the next couple of years, vis-a-vis the White House?

Peter Baker: I think it actually tells us a lot more about Kevin McCarthy in some ways and Joe Biden, because we didn't know whether Kevin McCarthy was going to be serious about governing, right? In January, when he made it through those 15 ballots, he had to trade away the store to the hard right in his own caucus. And the question was, okay, does that mean he's now forever beholden to their priorities or is he going to be able to make a compromise like he did with President Biden?

He seems proud of the fact that he made a compromise. He seems actually to be perfectly comfortable that he came to the middle with the Democratic president, that they tend to vilify, and found that that's a better solution for the country even at the expense of complaints on the right.

Now, that doesn't mean that the people on the right are going to let it go. It may ultimately cost him down the road. But for the moment, I think he's shown that he does have at least some instinct for governing.

Nikole Killion: I actually thought that was one of the interesting things about what the president said tonight, because he said, with respect to bipartisanship, we can never stop trying. And one thing Speaker McCarthy has said repeatedly from his speakership fight onward is that he doesn't give up. So, both of them conveying a sense of optimism going forward. Whether or not they continue working together, I think, remains to be seen.

Peter Baker: He praised McCarthy, which might not help McCarthy.

William Brangham: Let's pivot to the people who would love to replace President Biden. I mean, the race for the Republican presidential nomination stepped up this week with former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attacking each other on the campaign trail. DeSantis officially kicked off his campaign in Iowa, where he took aim at Trump, who is the current frontrunner.

Ron DeSantis: At the end of the day, leadership is not about entertainment. It's not about building a brand. It is about results.

William Brangham: For his part, Trump criticized DeSantis for saying it would take the next Republican president two terms, something former President Trump legally cannot fulfill to get the country headed in the right direction.

Donald Trump: It will take me six months to have it totally the way it was. If it takes eight years to turn this around, then you don't want him.

William Brangham: As this frontrunner feud intensified, the Republican field is about to get even more crowded. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, both one-time Trump allies now turned adversaries, are set to join the race as well next week.

And all of this comes amid new reporting that seemingly further chips away at Trump's defense of how he handled all those classified documents. So, a lot going on there.

Asma, Ron DeSantis, we are now seeing him out on the campaign trail for the first time, him sparring with Donald Trump. DeSantis has been thought by many as the obvious, quote/unquote, main rival to Trump. Does it still seem that way?

Asma Khalid: I think it does. I mean, part of that is public opinion polling that has shown that. But also part of it, I think, is just the dynamic between these two men. Clearly, the former President Donald Trump sees the Florida governor as his main rival, just hearing the level of sort of attacks.

William Brangham: Right, he's doing this to no one else.

Asma Khalid: Right, exactly. So, clearly, he sees that rivalry. I mean, one of the things I think that the Florida governor needs to try to do to distinguish himself is really build on this idea of electability. It's what you often hear him present. I think it's what you hear his aides suggest is that he is more electable than Donald Trump.

I think that is a very difficult argument for him to make. But perhaps you got a glimpse of it this week because he was out doing some degree of retail campaigning, right? You saw him out with his wife telling these stories about being a dad. Those are stories that Donald Trump isn't really able to tell in the same way, that, look at me, I'm just like you, right?

William Brangham: I mean, Leigh Ann, to this point that Asma is making is that DeSantis is arguing that the GOP has to embrace the idea of winning and he keeps bringing up 2020 and 2024 as digs at Donald Trump. Is that argument, though, resonant with voters?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Well, some Republicans in Congress anyway, would even also bring up 2018 and 2022, as well as why Republicans have lost because of Donald Trump. It's really difficult. I mean, there is still no one like Donald Trump, who has such a handle on the Republican base. And so for his base, the best way to win is Donald Trump. But he has proven over and over again that he has been unable to win national elections.

The difficult thing for Ron DeSantis is no one can be meaner and more effective on their attacks than Donald Trump. And Ron DeSantis, who is hesitant to directly attack Donald Trump, unless he's, as we saw this week, only when he's talking to the press, not to voters, it's a really challenging position.

And I'm going to go one step further in the sense that Ron DeSantis is also not willing to talk about January 6th or the 2020 election as well. And that is a very clear way to draw contrast with the former president. And if he's not willing to do that, what is the difference between the two, just a less better Donald Trump, maybe.

William Brangham: Right? It's a very tricky path you're describing. Nikole, we are going to see two new entrants next week, perhaps more, Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence. Do you have a good sense as to what they think of as their argument for why they belong in this race and why they have a shot at this?

Nikole Killion: Well, I think Chris Christie has made clear he's the anti-Trump. And so that is the lane he has kind of carved from day one, even when he started putting some rumblings out that he may get into the race.

William Brangham: To be the pugilist who goes directly at the president, unlike former president, unlike anybody else.

Nikole Killion: That and that he is not the former president. I mean, he's willing to make that distinction. He's willing to pull those punches where some of the other candidates have not.

With respect to Mike Pence, I mean, I think it remains to be seen, because we've seen him kind of toe the line between aligning himself with the policies of the Trump administration, but also putting some distance on issues like January 6th and others.

So, I think it will really be interesting when we get to that first debate in August to see how much the gloves come off between all of these candidates.

Asma Khalid: And who's on the stage also.

William Brangham: Right. What is your sense of the calculus? Are they all just waiting for a Trump implosion? Is that --

Peter Baker: I mean, there are two ways to win here, right? One is to actually take Trump down. The other is to wait for Trump to take Trump down. And so far, nobody seems to be doing the first part of it very well because Trump is doing quite handily in the polls.

So, they're waiting for Jack Smith. They're waiting for Georgia. They're waiting to see what happens here. If he gets a second indictment, a third indictment, a fourth indictment, does that change the calculus for Republican voters who like Trump, but say, I actually agree with him on most of these policies, I want to do the things he wants to do, but maybe there's just too much baggage here?

And that's why DeSantis won't go after him, because DeSantis doesn't want to alienate the Trump voters. He wants to be there the moment Trump implodes, if he does, and say, okay, guys, I'm here for you. Come on board. It's an if. It's a gamble. Nobody knows. He did better after the first indictment than he did, you know, than then it was doing before that. But questions whether it all adds up into a cumulative baggage that kind of finally weighs them down.

William Brangham: Asma, Peter is talking about that one potential liability for the former president is the looming idea of these indictments. And there were these new revelations this week that that chip away, it seems, at Trump's argument that he handled the classified documents in an above board way. But is it your sense that those -- let's say, another indictment were to come from Jack Smith or from the Georgia elections case, does that really dent Trump in a meaningful way, or do you think his primary voters would forgive that?

Asma Khalid: The primary voters I met leading up to the midterms, because I was actually down in Florida doing some reporting when the original tranche of classified documents was discovered at Mar-a-Lago, did not seem bothered by this. I think, thus far, just looking at how he has held a steady lead in all of the polls, being the frontrunner, I don't know that there's any indication.

So, I mean, it is an interesting hypothetical. If there are additional indictments, will that, over time, build up and make people question him? Perhaps, but so far, I don't see any evidence that anything that the former president has done has actually led people to question whether or not they want to vote for him, at least within the sort of die hard based supporters.

William Brangham: Right. Is that your sense as well?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes. I mean, the challenge is that Donald Trump has done such an effective job at convincing his supporters that these investigations are nonsense, are witch hunts, that the 2020 election was in fact stolen, that it was a bunch of peaceful people on January 6th. And so why would a deep state government investigation and indictment change any of their minds?

And so I'm super skeptical that it's going to have any real impact on in the Republican primary. The only way it could is if he can't maybe get on the campaign trail because he's spending his time in court and he can't visit these primary states, and maybe it will convince some Republicans not to vote for him. But conventional wisdom is out the window. We've been talking about for a long time about Donald Trump.

William Brangham: Right. I mean, Nikole, as Leigh Ann, there is such a huge slice of the GOP primary base that does think that January 6th or has been led to believe that that wasn't such a big deal and that the election was somehow tainted. And it makes it very, very difficult, it seems, for anyone who doesn't toe that line to punch through.

Nikole Killion: Yes. I mean, I think that's a big part of it. I know spending a lot of time in Georgia specifically, and obviously one of those investigations, the investigation in Fulton County has to deal with election interference, but a lot of conservative voters there and during the midterms told me they do buy into that, and they do think that there were some shenanigans going on during the election.

So, to your point, yes, it's hard to break through. How do you convince those voters? But I would also argue that Republicans as a whole, I think, are trying to be very forward-looking. I think there's a lot of reticence to look back at January 6th, to look back at 2020. It's really about looking -- and I think, too, to your earlier question about Mike Pence and some of these other candidates, I think it's about trying to define how the party is moving forward. What are those issues that are key to the base? What are the issues of importance as we go forward, as opposed to re-litigating things in the past?

So, I think that is the direction that you will see the campaign going in terms of how candidates litigate their arguments to voters. But that being said, Democrats, I think, continue to rely on this argument about democracy. So, with respect to the president's messaging going forward, I mean, certainly, yes, it's about the economy, it's about reproductive rights, but I think that issue of democracy will also play big in this upcoming election, but maybe more so on the Democratic side than the Republican side.

Peter Baker: And to be clear, I don't want to leave that I was thinking, by the way, that he will implode. I want to say that's one scenario. I agree with your skepticism. The other thing --

William Brangham: And you're not holding a crystal ball out here tonight?

Peter Baker: We should be very humble about making predictions when it comes to Donald Trump.

I would say the one thing he has it to his advantage, as we see in these new candidates coming in, is a split field, right? That's how he got ahead so conveniently in 2016, because there were 16 other candidates, they didn't ever coalesce their opposition to him. We're seeing something like that right now. The question is whether they will coalesce by the end of the year when the voting starts.

William Brangham: And I think, Peter, the point that Nikole is making here, too, is that if you're on a debate stage and Donald Trump is there, you can't avoid those questions about 2020. And so Pence and Haley and Asa Hutchinson and Christie and all of them are going to have to speak their mind about whether they thought that election was stolen, whether they thought January 6th and all the defendants ought to be pardoned, as Trump has argued. And that's going to put a lot of them on the spot and maybe in the crosshairs of GOP primary voters.

Peter Baker: Yes, no, absolutely. In fact, most of these people are on record saying they don't think the election was stolen, or at least giving that indication, right? Obviously, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Chris Christie have said that, Asa Hutchinson.

DeSantis is kind of having it both ways, right? When he says Trump is a loser, what he means is you really did lose in 2020, even though he's not saying it directly to the voters that way. And so we'll see how he handles that on the debate stage.

William Brangham: Right. Last question, and we saw President Biden last night after he was giving a speech at the Air Force Academy stumble and fall. And it was hard not to notice that that was immediately picked up on across conservative media. Donald Trump and his town hall last night on Fox News talked about it at length.

How much of that of President Biden's age and mental acuity is going to focus by the GOP? Two seconds left.

Asma Khalid: I would say it's not just a concern of the GOP. You hear from Democratic voters who are concerned about his age. The question I would say is who's on the Republican side because, Donald Trump is not particularly younger.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: I would completely agree with Asma. And then it brings into question about Kamala Harris too. I think that it could be a liability for the president and 82 might not be so bad, but people think about 86 four years later.

William Brangham: And the same?

Nikole Killion: I think so. I mean, I think it was interesting that Donald Trump said his fall wasn't inspiring, but he also referenced his own tripping down the stage. So, I mean, look, it happens to everybody.

Peter Baker: It is the essential tension for Biden right now. On the same day he got this big deal through, he also stumbles and falls, his great advantage of being seasoned, the great disadvantage of age.

William Brangham: Thank you all so much for being here for joining us on Friday and thanks to all of you for joining us as well.

Don't forget to watch PBS News Weekend on Saturday for a look at what's next for Congress after passage of this debt limit deal and this growing list of 2024 GOP presidential candidates.

I'm William Brangham. Good night from Washington.