Full Episode: Washington Week full episode, July 7, 2023

Laura Barron-Lopez: President Biden's foreign and domestic priorities.

Unidentified Male: We want to make sure that the Ukrainians have sufficient artillery to keep them in the fight.

Laura Barron-Lopez: The U.S. announces new and controversial aid to Ukraine at a critical time in its counteroffensive against Russia, just days before President Biden is set to meet with top European leaders in an effort to expand NATO and rally support for Ukraine. Plus --

Joe Biden, U.S. President: Bidenomics is just another way of saying restoring the American dream.

Laura Barron-Lopez: -- before taking off the president makes his case for reelection in an early primary state.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): Identifying Donald Trump as having men compete against women in his beauty pageants, that's totally fair game.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And the Trump-DeSantis feud heats up again, next. Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK. I'm Laura Barron-Lopez. Today, President Biden announced the U.S. is providing more aid to Ukraine, this time in the form of cluster munitions. The controversial weapons banned by some 100 countries are meant to boost the Ukrainian military's slow going counteroffensive against Russia. The move is sure to upset members of Biden's own party right as he begins a critical five days on the world stage. The three-country trip could have significant consequences for the war in Ukraine and the president's own legacy. Weeks after a failed mutiny left Russian President Vladimir Putin weakened, Biden will attend a key NATO summit in Lithuania. There, he's aiming to bolster the coalition against Russia and increase the number of countries in the security alliance. Still, delicate and complicated dynamics are at play among NATO members, with Sweden's ascension to the alliance still blocked by Turkey and no clear timetable set for Ukrainian membership. Joining me to discuss this and more is David Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, and here with me at the table, Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, Sabrina Siddiqui is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Margaret Talev, Senior Contributor at Axios and the director of the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship at Syracuse University. Thank you all for being here tonight. David, I want to start with you. Let's begin with the cluster munitions announcement today by the White House, which President Biden told CNN was a difficult decision for him to make. It's controversial and it took the White House a long time come to this decision and they were reluctant about it. Why did they do it now?

David Sanger, White House and National Security Correspondent, The New York Times: Well, they did it now, Laura, in large part because the Ukrainians are getting pretty desperate. They haven't run out of ammunition right now, but they are burning off 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 rounds of artillery every single day. And the United States and its allies simply cannot keep supplying them with that level of what they call unitary munitions, in other words, an artillery round that just goes and lands in one place. But the Pentagon has been sitting for years on this very large mountain of these cluster munitions, and as you said, they are banned by treaty by well more than 100 countries, but including some of America's closest allies, Britain, France, Germany among them, who signed onto this treaty in 2008. And the reason they are banned is that they distribute a group of sort of small bomblets over several football fields worth of area. And these bomblets are basically like small hand grenades and then they go off and they can do grievous harm. And the concern is that some of them are duds and get picked up later on, frequently by children, years after a conflict is over. And you can imagine the kind of awful suffering and horrendous injuries or death that that causes. So, the administration pushed this down the road as far as they could, but they hit the moment where it was really the only option in order to keep the Ukrainians going. And the Ukrainians said they'd rather have this than lose to Russia.

Laura Barron-Lopez: That's right, the Ukrainians have been asking for these cluster munitions for a while now, Margaret. How significant is this announcement? And do you think that the political backlash here will be sustained or more muted against President Biden?

Margaret Talev, Senior Contributor, Axios: It is significant. It's a potential lifeline, or at least help, a big help for Ukraine. But also it's not what Ukraine really wants, which is NATO membership, and as President Biden heads into this NATO meeting, I'm not going to say it's a consolation prize, but it is certainly less skin in the game for the U.S. than the one sort of big help that Ukraine really wants, which is either entrance into NATO or at least a timetable to get there. Politically, on the home front for President Biden, yes, there's a group of 14 Senate Democrats who objected to this preemptively on the front end, yes, we're seeing several House Democrats coming out today, Chrissy Houlahan, who's a veteran from Pennsylvania, maybe one of the most important, but lawmakers from all over the country, Minnesota, California, saying the U.S. will lose its moral high ground. But in the White House's calculation, these cluster munitions already are being used. They're being used by Russia as well as by Ukraine. And while there is certainly the risk of collateral damage, civilian damage, thousands and thousands of civilians already have been killed. And the calculation is that this is a better protector of civilian life in Ukraine than not to give it to them.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Sabrina --

Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today: White House made another point, I think, that was important in the president's calculation, and that was Ukraine is going to drop these bombs on Ukrainian territory, not on foreign territory. Ukraine is going to have a huge incentive to clean up whatever duds there are once this war is over. And I think that was a persuasive argument for the White House when they considered this request.

Sabrina Siddiqui, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: And that's a key point because the White House said that it did not come to this decision easily. As you noted, this has been a debate that's been ongoing for months. And in order to get to a decision, they did secure some assurances from the Ukrainians that they will not use these munitions in densely populated areas, and specifically that the Ukrainians will record the use of these munitions so that they would be able to assist in the demining effort after the war is over. The administration also was emphasizing that the dud rates for their munitions is less than 3 percent, significantly lower than that of Russia's. Worst are estimated to be about 40 percent. Now, of course, with the uncertainty of war, how much of those assurances will be met remains unclear, but it's also an acknowledgment, I think, by the administration that not only is Ukraine very quickly running out of artillery shells, but in order to continue and make gains in this counteroffensive and really move past what is largely a static battlefront, they need not just the equipment that the U.S. has already been providing, but they need new types of weapons in order to move the ball forward.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And another big part of this trip coming up for the President as he heads to the NATO summit. David, is the question of Ukraine's membership, which Margaret mentioned to NATO. What is the status of their potential membership? And you've reported that the White House has essentially been reluctant to fast track that membership. Why are they so reluctant?

David Sanger: Well, that's right, Laura. They are reluctant because they believe, first of all, no one's going to let Ukraine into NATO in the middle of an ongoing war. That would trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which would bring everybody else in NATO, or could well bring everybody else in NATO, into a direct conflict with the Russians. And so far, President Biden has said we're going to help the Ukrainians but we're not going to start World War III. And that means no direct superpower conflict. Now, you could argue that with all the weapons we've provided, including now these cluster munitions, we've done everything but put our own folks into this. But what the Ukrainians want, as Margaret suggested before, is either admission or a clear timetable. And the U.S. and the Germans have made the case, how can you provide a timetable when you don't even know how long the war is going to last. And what kind of assurances would you like to have first that Ukraine is truly going to emerge from this a democratic nation? I mean, we're all and great support of them, but they do not have a long history of democracy and they are operating under martial law right now. We sort of all forget that while the war is on. The martial law was triggered, of course, by the invasion. So, it's a pretty complicated issue, and I think what everybody's trying to do is come up with some kind of wording that would help assure that President Zelenskyy comes to the meeting. He has not said yet that he would. He's obviously holding out here. And that also would indicate some pathway of how quickly they could get there. And that negotiation has been going on for months now and it's coming right down to the wire.

Laura Barron-Lopez: David, the other country whose membership to NATO is still in question is Sweden. And their membership is being blocked by Turkey and Hungary. Do you think that there will be significant progress on that at this summit next week?

David Sanger: I suspect that Sweden is going to get in, just as Finland did. For NATO, it was much more important that Finland get in quickly. They have a much superior military and obviously they have a huge contribution they make to the intelligence effort because they watch so much of the seas and have 800 miles of border with Russia. But Sweden is important as well to get into this. And those two countries, of course, have been out of NATO for a long time. I suspect at some point you're going to see President Biden and President Erdogan of Turkey meet. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. is simply not giving Turkey F-16 fighters that it wants right now. And the Congress has made it pretty clear they're going to block this unless Turkey relents. Turkey's concern is what they believe is Swedish support for dissident groups and ethnic groups that they believe are opposing Erdogan.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Margaret, looming over this entire summit is also what just played out over the last few weeks with the Wagner Group mutiny against Vladimir Putin. How much do you think that is going to be a topic of conversation as these leaders meet?

Margaret Talev: Well, for sure, on the sidelines, it will be a huge topic of conversation. I think what gets said officially at the microphones would probably be a little bit more circumspect, but it has -- on the one hand, Ukraine has had a much harder time with the counteroffensive than they'd hoped, slower progress, on the other hand, the incident with Prigozhin and President Putin certainly showed a whole lot of weaknesses and vulnerabilities on his part, and I think that will become part of the western alliance's conversations. You'd asked about politics earlier, domestic politics as well, actually. I think really at home, the Ukraine war has been much more of a wedge issue for Republicans than it has been for Democrats, and I think that helps insulate Biden. As long as there's no U.S. forces on the ground whose lives are at risk, Americans are worried about the economy, most Americans support the Ukrainians, and their red line is they don't want U.S. troops committed.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Susan, Biden is going to be giving a big speech when he's on this trip in Vilnius, in Lithuania, at the conclusion of the summit, which the White House is saying it's going to be about America's work to restore alliances and be working alongside allies. This was a bit of his 2020 pitch as well. But do you think voters are paying attention to this message that he's sending when he's abroad?

Susan Page: You know, if you think about unintended consequences, Ukraine is not going to become a member of NATO, not in the near term, but Ukraine has both pulled NATO together and given NATO a mission after a period of time when there were some questions about what was the role of this western alliance in what had become a new world order. Now, we're back to the west confronting Russia. And one of Joe Biden's fundamental appeals to voters last time around was that he was an experienced foreign policy hand with a network of contacts and an understanding of these international relationships that he could bring to bear because there was a fair amount of repair that needed to be done after the tumult and change of the Trump administration. So, I think this is going to be a big speech he makes, makes that argument that he's provided this leadership. Does it matter politically in the United States? I don't think so. If there was a war, yes. But I think Americans are glad things are going as well as they have gone in Ukraine. Certainly, we never expected this war to go on so long at the time at the original Russian invasion, but Americans care, as Margaret was saying, about what's happening at the kitchen table. Where is inflation? Does the job market keep strong? What's happening to crime in the streets? These are issues in people's daily lives.

Laura Barron-Lopez: David, before I let you go, I do want to ask you about one other big, far reaching action that's going to happen at the NATO summit, which is them -- NATO approving their first defense plan since the cold war. What is the significance of this? And, practically, what does it mean?

David Sanger:  It means that they are, after experimenting, as Susan suggested, with all kinds of other missions during those 30 years of kind of false hope that Russia was going to get folded back into the Western economy, they are now coming up with a true integrated defense plan with requirements about how much money they've got to go spend. Not all of them that signed onto this. And they've also been approving, as of today, in fact, more aid to Ukraine in the amounts of hundreds of millions of dollars. I think what's worth remembering here is that Vladimir Putin has three ways to go win this war over the next year or so. One of them is if European resolve fails. The second one of them is, and I think suspect in Putin's mind, is if Donald Trump or someone with similar views ends up getting elected and pulling back the U.S. commitment. And as Susan suggested, it's really the Republicans who have suggested, some of them have, that the U.S. should not be as deeply involved. And the third way he could win is if the Ukrainians run out of ammunition, not just the munitions we were discussing, but air defenses and so forth, which the Europeans are helping provide as well. And it's really only the third item providing this for the Ukrainians that's within Europe and the president's control. And so the focus, the laser focus on making sure the Ukrainians don't lose and perhaps helping them win is going to be really the drive of this summit. It's going to be a lot harder than the last time NATO met.

Laura Barron-Lopez: David, thank you so much for joining us. I will see you over in Vilnius and for sharing your reporting with us. On Thursday, President Biden visited South Carolina, an early Democratic primary state, touting his economic policies and infrastructure investments. Elsewhere on the 2024 campaign trail, the feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump flared up again, this time after DeSantis' campaign attacked Trump for his previous support of some LGBTQ rights.

Donald Trump, Former U.S. President:  I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Well, there you have it. But, first, before we get to that video, Margaret, the GOP field, as we saw, is focused on LGBTQ saying no to gender identity being taught in schools, abortion restrictions. But President Biden this week, when he was in South Carolina, was talking all about Bidenomics. What's behind this strategy where he's focused entirely on the economy?

Margaret Talev: You know the expression, it's the economy, stupid? So, I mean, he's running for reelection, and they think that how Americans feel about the economy is going to matter. And they're probably right, because guess what, it's mattered in every single election since forever. But I think there's a couple of things at play here. One is that it's confounding to the Biden team and to a lot of economists that people's perceptions of the economy is really different than some of the indicators of the economy, that the economy is better than people feel like it is, or, I mean, I guess the economy is as good as you feel like it is, but that's the reality. So they need to address it. And they're taking a page from the Obama playbook where, the Affordable Care Act when Republicans tried to hang the name Obamacare around it and Democrats got hit really bad in the first midterms. And then after that, health care started working for them and Obama started embracing the name Obamacare. And so Biden is going to embrace Bidenomics. It's also a bit of a hat tip to Reaganomics, except for a repudiation of it. It's to say, I reject trickledown economics. And it's, thirdly, the Biden team team's belief that some of these longer term plays through the big spending, the bipartisan deals that were enacted, right, the green energy stuff, the efforts to reduce prescription drugs, that those are going to take a while to play out and that the economy is actually going to feel better for people by election time, by this time next year, than it does right now. So, they are placing their bets on it, and they've decided, the same way they kind of have with age, how he's making jokes about how old he is. They've just decided that he should own the economy. I don't know if it's going to work, but that's what they're trying to do.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Sabrina, as Margaret said, voters still perceive the economy as not necessarily working for them. So, the Biden administration appears to be highlighting the fast work on the I-95 Bridge that collapsed and how quickly they were able to help in Philadelphia turn that around. Do you think that those types of projects that the president is highlighting will ultimately help them break that perception that Margaret's talking about?

Sabrina Siddiqui: Well, that's the key challenge that the administration and the Biden campaign is grappling with, that although there have been gains in the economy under this president's watch and there's a lot for them to tout in terms of even legislative accomplishments with the infrastructure bill, with the Inflation Reduction Act, Chips and Science Act, the problem they're encountering is at least so far a lot of the public says that they're not yet feeling the impact of those bills, right? And so touting the impact that that legislation will have on people's day to day lives is a message that I think they believe will help them break through. It's very much the are you better off than you were four years ago argument that we've seen previous incumbents really put at the center of their re-election campaigns. Look, I think the other thing that they're contending with is an enthusiasm gap. And so Margaret mentioned even the jokes that Biden is making about his age. And so the message is very much focused on the economy. But I think as we get more into potentially a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump, we're also going to go back and see similar themes to what we saw in 2020, which is that there may not be a lot of enthusiasm behind the president right now. But when faced with a choice between Biden and Trump, a lot of voters will choose Biden as the better alternative. So, I think that's a lot of the message that we're also going to see take shape in the coming months.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Moving over to the GOP side, that clip that we played of the DeSantis video, Susan, you told me specifically that that one stood out to you where Trump said in it, former President Trump says that he'll do everything he can to protect LGBTQ citizens. And why did that specific part of the video stand out to you?

Susan Page: Because he was making comments in the wake of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida where DeSantis is governor that left 49 people dead. And to then make it the kind of theme of a video with those images that DeSantis chose to show, I thought, was striking. You might use a stronger word. It's one of the things that DeSantis has done, like signing a six-week ban on abortion. That may help him in Republican primaries, although so far, it's not helping him much. It will haunt him if he gets into the general election as the Republican nominee, because that attitude toward LGBTQ rights is quite at odds with where American public opinion is today.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Margaret -- yes, go ahead.

Sabrina Siddiqui: I was just going to say, even in a primary, there are real questions about this strategy because it overlooks what we've long known about support for former President Trump within the Republican primary electorate, and that it's not about policy. It's not about his record as a conservative. I mean, we saw Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in 2016 try and hold up then-Candidate Trump's prior positions on LGBTQ rights, on abortion, the fact that he used to donate to Democrats, none of that matters, because none of that is why anyone had supported Trump in the first place or continues to support him. And so I think what Governor DeSantis is going to learn is that it's a really delicate balance when you're trying to figure out how to out-trump Trump, and that running to the right of Trump really has not proven successful when, again, it's more about the cult of personality than is about any real policy debate within the Republican Party.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Margaret, you've said, though, about that specific video, that it's not really about Trump, that there's something --

Margaret Talev: It's starts all about Trump.

Laura Barron-Lopez: What's DeSantis' goal here, though?

Margaret Talev: Right. I mean, in fairness, it's not his video, but he certainly has embraced it, right? But if this if the purpose of the video was just to show that Donald Trump has moved further to the right, has moved away from or -- sorry, if the purpose of this was to show that Donald Trump is to the left and that he has embraced gay rights, that's where the ad would have stopped. The purpose of the ad is to begin there and then to define Ron DeSantis as the sort of champion of anti-gay, anti-trans positions. And so it begins as being about Donald Trump, but in the end, it's not really about Donald Trump. It's much more about positioning Ron DeSantis. And I think that's, to Susan's point, it is a play for the primary, but it's a danger if you were to --

Laura Barron-Lopez: Very quickly, Susan.

Susan Page: But Trump has a huge advantage, which is he's been indicted twice. And unsurprising to all of us, that has turned out to be a fundraising bonanza and something that has strengthened his position within the party.

Laura Barron-Lopez We don't really have much time left, so I think we're going to have to leave it there. That video is definitely, as you said, Margaret, very anti-LGBTQ, anti-transgender, and not necessarily something that will help Ron DeSantis or former President Trump on the campaign trail in the general electorate, if they make to the general electorate. We're going to have to leave it there for now. Thank you to my panel for joining us and for sharing your reporting. 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 how black and brown communities are bearing the brunt of automated speeding cameras in cities like Chicago. I'm Laura Barron-Lopez. Good night from Washington.