Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 9/15/23

Laura Barron-Lopez: House Republicans in disarray.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA): We will go wherever the evidence takes us.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy opens an impeachment inquiry into the president, all to appease his most extreme members, just weeks before a deadline to fund the government.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate total compliance or remove you.

Kevin McCarthy: I showed frustration in here because I am frustrated.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Facing threats of losing his speakership, McCarthy confronts his detractors in a fiery meeting.

Plus --

Reporter: Would the president pardon or commute his son if he's convicted.

Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary: So, I've answered this question before, and I was very clear and I said, no.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Hunter Biden is indicted on federal gun charges, next.

Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK. I'm Laura Barron Lopez. Jeffrey Goldberg is away.

House Republicans are in turmoil again. Under pressure from the far right, Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched a formal impeachment inquiry based on no evidence into President Joe Biden.

The move taken within hours of returning from summer recess didn't work. Right wing members say if they don't have all their demands met, they'll shut down the government. And they're threatening McCarthy's gavel to prove they mean it.

Matt Gaetz: We talked about balanced budgets, term limits, single subject spending bills. Those things have not happened.

And so he's throwing impeachment out like an ill-cast lure and he has no real intent to follow through.

Laura Barron-Lopez: By week's end, in an expletive-laden speech behind closed doors, McCarthy dared his detractors to remove him.

Kevin McCarthy: I don't walk away from a battle. I knew changing Washington would not be easy.

And you know what? If it takes a fight, I'll have a fight.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Meanwhile, Democrats are rallying behind the president, separating him from his son, who was indicted Thursday on three federal gun charges.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): The Hunter Biden matter is pending before a court.

With respect to President Biden, there is no evidence, not a shred of evidence that President Biden engaged in wrongdoing.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Joining me to discuss this and more, Leigh Ann Caldwell, co-Author of The Washington Post's Early 202 Newsletter and a Washington Post Live Anchor, Andrew Desiderio, Senior Congressional Reporter for Punchbowl News. Weijia Jiang, the senior White House correspondent for CBS News, and Heidi Przybyla, a national investigative correspondent at Politico. Thank you all for joining tonight.

Heidi, I want to start with you. Hunter may very well face additional charges beyond these three gun charges that deal with him making false statements about firearms that he purchased. But his lawyer questioned whether or not these charges were constitutional. Why?

Heidi Przybyla, National Investigative Correspondent, Politico: Well, there's the constitutionality, because in 2022 the Supreme Court actually made it more difficult to bring charges like these. And you start from a base of these charges as standalone charges being very unusual to be brought alone, according to legal experts. And that's why he's asking the question, the attorney, the defense attorney, of why this is happening now when the prosecutors known about this for years.

And the law has actually gotten more difficult to prosecute for this. He says the only thing that's changed in his opinion is the politics.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Weijia, this complicates the president's re-election a bit. I mean, how is the White House responding to this?

Weijia Jiang, Senior White House Correspondent, CBS News: Well, it complicates it in that they have to spend time answering the questions that they will no doubt continue fielding about this. But the White House's strategy has been pretty clear in this case to try to create as much separation as possible between any of these independent investigations by the Department of Justice and President Biden himself.

And we have seen a shift in tone from the president, who, at one point several months ago, was saying things like my son did nothing wrong. And now he is not saying that. He has switched to saying how much he supports his son and how much he loves his son. Because, of course, he doesn't want to give any ammo to anyone who is trying to accuse the White House of having anything to do with DOJ investigations, especially one that has to do with Hunter Biden.

And so they are trying to move forward, trying to focus on other things, but, of course, this is the president's son. And no U.S. government has ever put felony charges against the child of a sitting president.

So, it is historic, but it's something that I think the White House would like to not talk about.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right. I mean, Hunter Biden, Leigh Ann, is at the center of this impeachment inquiry that House Republicans just launched. But is there any evidence that President Biden took a bribe or that President Biden used his influence to benefit his son, Hunter, at all?

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Early 202 Co-Author, The Washington Post: There isn't. There's no evidence yet. And that is, there are some Republicans who wanted to impeach President Biden because of this yesterday.

But most Republicans say, including Kevin McCarthy, we need to continue to investigate. We have found some smoking guns. And while there's no direct connection yet, that is the reason we need to open an impeachment inquiry and need to keep investigating. But there is absolutely no evidence yet.

There are some people who have come forward that the Republicans thought would maybe be able to draw that connection. It's one of Devon Archer, who is one of Hunter Biden's former business partners. And the transcripts of that deposition showed that Devon Archer said, no. President Biden was never involved. Yes, he would stop by and say hi sometimes, but there was no illicit activity.

But Republicans are continuing to go down this path, even though impeachment inquiry is also very political at this moment.

Heidi Przybyla: I was just going to say, they have also had these suspicious transaction reports from the Treasury for many, many months, and nothing has come out of there. And the only documentation that they have pointed to is a family cell phone plan and some text messages that Hunter sent while he was addicted to crack cocaine.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I mean, Andrew, to Leigh Ann's point about the fact that there are a number of House Republicans who did not want to go down this path, what are Senate Republicans saying?

Andrew Desiderio, Senior Congressional Reporter, Punchbowl News: Well, there is that group of House Republicans to start that come from districts that President Biden won in 2020. They are the ones who do not want to vote on the House floor to open up an inquiry.

What Speaker McCarthy essentially did was declare by edict that, yes, we're opening up an inquiry, even though a few years prior he had criticized that tactic that Speaker Pelosi had used. So, that's number one.

Number two is the fact that you see Senate Republicans really skeptical of this right now. I talked with Senator John Thune, the number two Senate Republican, a few days ago, and he said that he believes that or he fears that impeachment has become weaponized, that it's become too political over the last few years or so.

And he worries that it would put another thing on Congress' plate at a time when they have so much to do on the must pass agenda, right, government funding, the annual defense bill, reauthorizing the FAA, the farm bill. These are major things that Congress has to get done. And they're right now in a huge time crunch.

Imagine throwing an impeachment trial on the Senate at this time. And what Senator Thune basically said was that it would not be advantageous for an impeachment trial to move forward right now.

Laura Barron-Lopez: So, we have established that there's no evidence right now linking Hunter Biden's business dealings to Joe Biden and that there are a number of Senate Republicans and House Republicans that don't want to do it.

So, I want us to focus on the why they're doing this. And we might find some insight if we look back to 2015 and the GOP Benghazi investigation.

Kevin McCarthy: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Heidi, is this Benghazi 2.0? I mean, is the goal for McCarthy, as he admitted then, but this time around, to politically damage Republicans' opponent?

Heidi Przybyla: Well, they haven't come across any new evidence that they're citing that warrants this impeachment inquiry. And we in Politico reported that a senior Republican actually said that they thought it would be best timed around the convention to maximize political damage.

Now, that's not quite as blatant as what McCarthy said there in 2015, but you can't deny that there is an absolute political calculation that was made here, that this might appease right wing legislatures who were pressuring him, but that lasted no more than, what, like, 24 hours before Matt Gaetz kind of shut that down.

But, look, he's right. Just creating the illusion of impropriety can politically be very advantageous. And we saw that not only with Benghazi, we saw it with WikiLeaks, all of us who covered Hillary Clinton. I would interview people, and they couldn't tell me what was so damning about WikiLeaks, but just the word itself had a connotation that had been created from a branding campaign by Republicans. And, of course, we don't talk about WikiLeaks anymore.

Laura Barron-Lopez: A lot of potentially just smoke and mirrors and revenge, which we know that former President Trump has also been talking to them, saying that he wants them to go down this path.

But, Weijia, the White House has been preparing for this. They've been waiting for this. House Republicans haven't set a deadline. So, this inquiry could go on for as long as they wanted to. How is the White House preparing for that?

Weijia Jiang: Well, as you mentioned, they already have a very robust war room that they had before it became an official inquiry. And I think that the strategy has largely remained the same, which is trying to discredit the investigators, discredit the investigation and focus on what the president is doing.

As we've been talking about tonight, when you hear anyone from the White House talk about this, their main point is that there is no evidence. And so they use that to frame this as a political witch hunt. And they also point to the fact that they can't even get the votes to have a vote about this, because there are Republicans in McCarthy's own party who disagree with moving ahead with this.

So, they're trying to put more attention on what the president is doing. But the question is whether that's enough to overcome how this could be impacting the public opinion of Joe Biden, who largely, until now, I mean, was pretty pristine. I mean, when it comes to something that might question, you know, whether he had committed high crimes and misdemeanor. So, I think just that question alone being out there obviously impacts the White House in a way.

But they are prepared. They're ramping up their attacks. They are even asking formally news organizations to, you know, hear their talking points. They listed them out, sent them out to network presidents as an example. So, they're really trying to get their points across.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right. In that memo that they sent out, they also detailed some of the facts that you highlighted, Leigh Ann, which was that some of Hunter Biden's own former associate said there's nothing here, that the president never discussed business with his son.

But this impeachment inquiry was meant to win over these far right Republicans. McCarthy announced it to win them over to try to then get them to agree to fund the government, and it didn't work. I mean, there was expletives hurled, curse words at a behind this closed door meeting.

I mean, is the threat to oust McCarthy, which some of these hardliners are making, is it real?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: So, it is real. There are some in the party who do absolutely want to do it. McCarthy should have been listening to his members before it because I was reporting, and others too, that leading up to this new session, these hard line Republicans were saying, yes, we want impeachment but McCarthy giving us impeachment is not going to solve the financial, the debt crisis either. And so we all knew that these were not going to be connected and these far right Republicans are continuing to keep impeachment and the budget issues separate.

But as far as McCarthy's threat to his speakership, whether it's a possibility that he could actually lose his job, because, let's remember, there needs to be 218 votes to remove him from his position, and he still has a support of a large swath of the party, but McCarthy is governing under the fear of losing his gavel. And so he is placating repeatedly over the last several months and especially now the far right to address that fear.

But most of these people they want what they want, they usually don't fund the -- vote to fund the government, they usually don't fund or vote to fund short-term spending bills, so he's trying to negotiate with people who are never going to come to the table.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right, negotiating with hostage takers even though they may not be willing to ultimately vote for this in the end.

I mean, Heidi, McCarthy appears to be prioritizing, based on what Leigh Ann is saying, his speakership over the House majority.

Heidi Przybyla: Yes. Look, this time feels a little different to me only because we do have this new rule that it only takes one person to bring up the motion to vacate. And Leigh Ann and I have covered many potential shutdown together, and this feels different to me because of that, because it only takes one person.

And I think what may ultimately decide this is actually how the Democrats want to treat it, too. Are the Democrats having any discussion whatsoever about saving McCarthy? Because if Democrats all stick together, it would only take, I think, like five Republicans to vote, right? And so you could say more about this.

But that's I think, a fascinating question, if he can't satisfy them, because he's not going to be able to, because the Senate will not go along with it, ultimately, to give them what they want. A deal was already cut on the debt ceiling and the budget. And now he's going to also disappoint them on an impeachment vote, because it's unclear whether they have the votes for that either.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Well, I was just going to say that I actually asked to Hakeem Jeffries that exact question yesterday if Democrats are going to save McCarthy or going to help oust him if the opportunity arises. He said they have not had a caucus-wide discussion about it yet. But Democrats that I'm talking to privately say, if there's a lot of goodwill with McCarthy, they would probably help him keep his job.

But opening an impeachment inquiry against President Biden under no evidence does not help that goodwill. And also when he is trying to jam through Republican-only spending bills, leading them to a government shutdown, that also does not provide any goodwill.

So, McCarthy is kind of negotiating with the devil here, and the people who could help keep the government open and who could save him don't really have any inclination at this point, too, yet.

Laura Barron-Lopez: On that government funding deadline, Andrew, it's September 30th, and you think that something that could potentially cause House Republicans to go over that edge is Ukraine funding.

Andrew Desiderio: Yes, absolutely. So Kevin McCarthy is looking to use Ukraine funding as essentially a bargaining chip with the administration to try to get some border policy changes and additional border funding. The White House has asked for $4 billion as part of the supplemental funding request for specifically the border. House Republicans don't think that that's enough.

And, obviously, McCarthy has the problem within his conference of there's about a third of them who do not support Ukraine funding anymore. So, he has to think about that.

And, you know, when the House eventually sends a stopgap funding bill to the Senate, the Senate is going to add Ukraine aid to it, right? There is broad bipartisan support in the Senate for that. Schumer and McConnell are essentially locking arms on this issue.

You send it back to the House. What's McCarthy going to do? Is he going to put that on the floor or not? And many of these members who have threatened to use this motion to vacate have said that Ukraine is a red line for them, that they do not want to continue funding the Ukrainian military.

Obviously, next week or this coming week, President Zelenskyy is going to be in Washington. He's going to be in New York first for the U.N. General Assembly. Yes, thank you. And he's going to come to Capitol Hill after he comes to the White House. And those meetings are going to be critical.

And it couldn't come at a better time, frankly, for the White House and for people like Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, who have really been banging this drum for a very long time.

And we'll see if he changes any minds. And it could get potentially awkward with the speaker, knowing what we and others have reported, which is that the speaker wants to use funding for Ukraine as leverage for something else.

Laura Barron-Lopez: But Mitch McConnell, he's not going to budge on this, right? Because he could be having this face-off with McCarthy, specifically on whether or not to continue aiding Ukraine as they fight Russian aggression.

Andrew Desiderio: McConnell is extremely passionate about this issue. He believes that the Republican Party is trending in the wrong direction on foreign policy, in general. He believes that's largely the fault of Donald Trump and those aligned with him. So, he's looking at what's happening in the House right now with real panic.

And what he's done over the last couple of weeks is every single day he's gone to the Senate floor and he's trying to rebut point by point the arguments of those who want to cut off funding for Ukraine.

And he's pretty directly saying, yes, it's members of my own party. He isn't naming McCarthy directly or specific members. But what he's trying to do is continue to make the case and make the case to our allies and to the Russians, frankly, that there remains solid, strong bipartisan support for funding Ukraine.

And if you were to put that on the floor at both the House and the Senate, it would obviously pass overwhelmingly. The question is, from McCarthy, does it impact his political future if he does that?

Laura Barron-Lopez: And as the House is in chaos, Weijia, Biden's week has included the launch of this impeachment inquiry, his son being indicted, today, the United Auto Workers strike. What is -- I mean, how is the White House -- how is the president himself responding to this week that he's in?

Weijia Jiang: Well, and not to mention a pretty alarming column whether he should run or not in 2024. All the things that you just mentioned are going to be the backdrop of 2024.

Laura Barron-Lopez: From The Washington Post?

Weijia Jiang: Yes, from the Washington Post, of course, now saying that he and Vice President Harris should get out of the race. And I mentioned that because, again, all these things are sort of coming together and it's pretty clear that they're not going to go away by the time the election comes.

So, it is -- has been a challenging week for the president. I think that, again, he's trying to focus on his economic agenda. He's trying to show that, today, you know, he was getting involved with the Auto Workers Union, which I think, you know, paints a picture of just how critical everything now is for him, because that politically and economically could have a really big impact on his support.

But I think, you know, again, they're just trying to dismiss as much as they can with regard to Hunter Biden, whether it's the impeachment inquiry or whether it's the federal charges. But they are also aware that they can't be completely dismissive of it because, again, you know, these are some legitimate concerns that they have to answer to.

So, I think that, you know, people in the White House are frustrated, but, again, this is not necessarily new. These things were all expected to happen. It's just that they all came at once in a five-day period.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And I do want to get to another big story this week, which was Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, decided to retire at the end of his term. And that's a big deal, because there are not many Republicans left like him, moderate Republicans.

And I think it ties into what we're talking about here in terms of this extremist faction in the House. That same faction is the same group of lawmakers that celebrated January 6th, Heidi. They voted against -- a wide majority of them, voted against certification, Joe Biden's certification to be elected president. And they continue to lie about elections.

So, on his way out the door, Romney, is very publicly talking about what he thinks the stakes are for accommodating extremism in the ranks. And I want to read this clip from The Atlantic where he -- well, I'm sorry, I accidentally don't have it in front of me.

But in it, he recalls that a House lawmaker says to him that they wanted to vote to convict Donald Trump after January 6th but that they were too afraid to do it out of fear for their family. What do you think that says about the party?

Heidi Przybyla: Well, you couldn't help but just feel the stoicism in that piece. It was a wonderful piece. And in it, Romney says, look, I came here in part to try and set an example for members like that, for senators like that, to give them the cover, to make the strong decisions, to make the brave decisions. And instead, I'm leaving and things are worse than they've ever been, more challenging than they've ever been.

And he actually brings up and uses the word of authoritarianism and warns. He says, look, he pulls out this histogram of human -- the history -- charting the history of human civilization over the past 4,000 years. And he says, look, we are an exception, okay? Throughout most of human history, we have as a group think psychology congregated around strongmen. And that's what I fear is happening right now. And he's speaking very heavily to his own party.

He's also saying in this that, look, I'm leaving now in a way falling on a sword, but I'm not done. It's a bit of a nod. And I think also a little bit provocative statement about whether there is a place still in the party for members like him, for members like Liz Cheney, and whether there is anything they can do, because instead of setting an example, he's acknowledging here that it's kind of gone the other way and has been consumed.

Laura Barron-Lopez: It's at the point where he had to pay $5,000 a day for private security for his family.

Leigh Ann, another notable part of the report is that Romney details that he texted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell days before January 6th, saying, I'm really worried about security and that Capitol Police are not going to have the reinforcements necessary that people are going to storm the Capitol.

I mean, do you think that this time around leaders -- McConnell never responds, by the way, to that text message, which is what was stunning about it. Do you think that leaders are prepared now if some form of violence like that were to take place again? 

Leigh Ann Caldwell: It's an excellent question. And I'm not sure. I will say that it's happened once and I think that people know that it could happen again. They know that political violence is much more apparent. There are more threats to member security on a daily basis.

People have learned their lessons from January 6th. I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was also at the Capitol on 9/11, and they learned their lessons from that. But the question is, do they know what else is coming. There are so many threats and how they respond to it, but what they're not really doing is trying to eliminate the political rhetoric that leads to this violence, and that is the problem.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right, we're seeing so much --

Weijia Jiang: (INAUDIBLE) are the court cases that have really set a precedent, and I think send a pretty strong message to would-be rioters about the potential consequences.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Right. We're seeing so much political violence, political violence rising as well as violent political rhetoric, particularly on the right. And we'll have to leave it there for now.

So, thanks to our panelists for joining us and for sharing your reporting. And thanks to all of you for joining us.

And don't forget to watch "PBS NEWS WEEKEND" tomorrow for a look at the rise, risks and benefits of robotaxis.

I'm Laura Barron-Lopez. Good night from Washington.