Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 9/29/23

Jeffrey Goldberg: A government shutdown is nearly upon us again.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY): The bill is not passed.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The House of Representatives, paralyzed by Republican hardliners, fails to pass a short-term funding bill. This makes a government shutdown all but certain.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): Shutdowns have been in the DNA of my Republican colleagues for the last 30 years or so.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The House's top Democrat has hard words for the GOP, and Kevin McCarthy's speakership is in jeopardy thanks to his hard-right adversaries, next.

And welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK.

Tonight, the federal government is about to shut down thanks to a group of hardliners House Republicans. Right now, it looks like things will grind to a halt Sunday just after midnight.

Not all Republicans are thrilled by this.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): Shutting down the government doesn't help anybody politically. It doesn't make any meaningful progress on policy.

Jeffrey Goldberg: We'll explore who the shutdown will affect the most and why it's happening in the first place.

Kevin McCarthy is still speaker last time I checked, but it seems as if he's not actually in charge of the House. And if his detractors have their way, he may not be for much longer.

One putative cause of the shutdown is a dispute over Ukraine funding. Russia's invasion of its neighbor has become a corrosive political issue on Capitol Hill. The results so far of Ukraine's counteroffensive on its southern and eastern fronts are mixed, and it's unclear if the Ukrainians will ever be able to make the battlefield progress Joe Biden, among others, wants them to make.

Joining me to discuss this and more, Anne Applebaum, a staff writer and my colleague at The Atlantic, Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Leigh Ann Caldwell is a Washington Post live anchor and the co-author of the Early 202 newsletter, and Asma Khalid is a White House correspondent for NPR and the co-host of the NPR Politics podcast.

Okay. Leigh Ann, you're up. What is happening and why is it happening?

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Anchor, Washington Post Live: Very good question.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Thank you very much.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: And I will try to explain, if I can, if I even understand.

So, you're absolutely right in your lead. Kevin McCarthy has lost control of the House of Representatives. So, this started with him trying to placate the hard right members of his party to accommodate their demands of lower government spending, of more border security, in order to keep the government open.

But he has tried again and again, including today, to pass a short-term spending bill for the next 30 days to keep the government open. And today, 21 members of his party rejected it.

The thing is he has an option. He can try to work with Democrats to pass something, but he refuses to do so. He is trying to do this with just Republican votes, even though most of these Republicans have never voted for government spending, have never voted for a short-term government spending bill. So he's negotiating with people who are never going to come to the table.

Jeffrey Goldberg: What would be the political consequences of him working with the Democrats?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: The consequences are the threat he faces on a constant basis of being removed from his speakership position.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But he faces that anyway.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Anyway. And so what he is doing, he has made a choice of self-preservation over governance. And he is trying to get these people to agree to something that they're never going to agree to. They don't even like Kevin McCarthy. They are not loyal to him. They think he is insufficiently conservative. They have no desire to see -- watch him succeed. And so -- but he's still trying to placate them, hoping that they don't bring up this motion, this procedural motion on the House floor, to remove him from his speakership.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Peter, to quote T. S. Eliot, sorry, the giving famishes the craving. And it seems as if -- it seems as if the more Kevin McCarty tries to placate this band of right wing Republicans, the more they feel contempt for him, the more they are demanding. Can you explain McCarty's strategy?

Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: I'm not sure McCarthy could explain McCarthy's strategy at this point, right, because he has in fact tried to placate them. He gave them the impeachment inquiry, even though I think he thinks that's probably not going to go anywhere, because right now, there are a lot of Republicans who would --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, it's the Seinfeld impeachment. It's not about anything.

Peter Baker: It's not about anything. It's about the fact that he didn't --

Leigh Ann Caldwell: And the Seinfeld shutdown too.

Peter Baker: Exactly, exactly. And so what is his strategy? By doing that, by the way, he alienated the Democrats, who might have come to his rescue had there been a motion to vacate, had it not been for impeachment, but now what would be their motivation for doing that? So, he's got no friends on the right, no friends on the left. He's got substantial support among the Republican caucus. We shouldn't forget that. But because it's a narrow majority, any small group of people can really torch him.

And the question is, Leigh Ann broke the story, I think, this morning saying that they are planning to push for his ousters as soon as the next few days.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Leigh Ann, give us an update on that.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes, so the same group who he's trying to placate are talking often about this motion to vacate and trying to remove McCarthy from his speakership. And they're even talking about people who they would nominate to replace him, including one of the people -- one of McCarthy's deputies, the number three in House leadership, Tom Emmer.

Now, to be fair, Emmer says that he is not initiating this at all, but there are members of the hard right who have spoken to Emmer about this.

And so this is -- you know, Emmer might not be the person, he might not be the consensus candidate, but it shows that they are very serious about trying to get McCarthy out of there.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. And I wanted to ask you, you've studied the American conservative movement for quite a while, what motivates this furthest most right faction within the House Republican caucus?

Anne Applebaum, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: I think it's something that we're not used to in American politics, and that's nihilism. Their real interest is in undermining the institution, undermining the system, change -- you know, what they would call business as usual, what the rest of us would call normal life. They want to smash it up and break it.

And, unfortunately, my worry is that by doing what they're doing, they will increase disdain for Congress and disdain for government, you know, when people discover next week that they're not being paid or services they expect can't be delivered because, you know, some people are fighting in Washington about things that most people don't understand. They will -- that will be the effect of this. They'll create more disdain.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, in other words, if you're in government and don't like government, the best way to advance your cause is to have other people not like government?

Anne Applebaum: Yes, just throw the whole thing up in the air, smash it up, and then let's see what happens next. I mean, that's kind of, you know, Bolshevik attitude to governing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Asma, I want to hear what they're saying in the White House. You were just over there.

Asma Khalid, White House Correspondent, NPR: Yes, I mean, there's been a tremendous amount of frustration with what's been going on., And ultimately, what I hear is that they feel that they did strike a bargain. They struck a deal, a bipartisan deal just a few months ago to both solve the debt ceiling situation but also to further fund the government.

I sat down, had an interview actually with the chief of staff yesterday. And what he told me is that, ultimately, he feels like this is a problem that House Republicans have to solve, that there is really limited role for the White House to solve this problem because it's an intraparty fight.

One question I did post to him, though, is, are you concerned that as this problem goes on and the government does potentially shut down next week, does the public -- does some of that spill over to the president? Ultimately, what he said is that they feel and they're going to try to continue to show that Biden is governing while House Republicans are engaged in this shutdown drama and this impeachment.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But we've talked -- go ahead.

Peter Baker: There's one of the big differences about this shutdown than previous ones, right? I mean, I think a lot of Americans think, okay, here we go, again, we've had this shutdown and that shutdown. This is the first one where it's really, as you said, about Republicans versus Republicans. It's not Clinton versus Republicans as it was in the 90s or Donald Trump versus Democrats as it was just a few years ago.

Jeffrey Goldberg: This is internecine fighting.

Peter Baker: Democrats aren't even part of this. It's the old Winston Churchill line. If your enemy is busy shooting himself, don't get in the middle of it. But they, on the sidelines, are watching this happen and there will be consequences for them.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But let me ask you about this question. Can -- and we've talked about this. The Biden administration is sometimes not excellent at taking advantage of political situations.

Asma Khalid: Conveying.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Is there -- yes, conveying a message. Is there something that, from almost a cynical political perspective, they should be doing?

Asma Khalid: That they should be doing. I mean, one thing I did ask the chief of staff is, will the public expect and will they actually hear from the president about what's going on? He didn't very explicitly say how but he said you can expect absolutely that the president will be out there communicating.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Even just to make fun of them?

Asma Khalid: Right. I mean, I think to some degree regardless of whose fault the shutdown is, I think the challenge for this White House is managing the shutdown actually falls on them.

And that is a problem that this White House that the chief of staff was dealing with in the midst of our interview. I mean, he was on a Zoom call with cabinet secretaries right before we talked. I think he then got on a call with Biden right afterwards. I mean they have to manage the problem.

And I guess I mentioned this in part because I do wonder to some degree as a shutdown continues, if it continues kind of for who knows how many weeks, does -- is there a spillover effect to the White House if they cannot effectively communicate whose fault this was?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Well I was going to say the difference between this shutdown and the 2018 shutdown is that this is now a full government shutdown because no appropriations bills have been passed. And so no federal worker will get paid.

Jeffrey Goldberg: No federal worker.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: No federal worker. The military will not get paid.

Peter Baker: Congress will, won't they?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Members of Congress will. Their staff will not.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Well, thank God for that.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: But paydays, we're watching paydays. That's mid-October for the military. It's October 21st for the Senate and the House of Representatives and federal workers are somewhere in that stage too.

And so the interesting part is that McCarthy, getting back to McCarthy here, he has all these Biden district Republicans who are serving in Congress.

Jeffrey Goldberg: There are 18 of them, right?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: 18 of them who are terrified and do not want this government shutdown. They think that they are going to get blamed for it. They say this privately, very openly. And meanwhile you have McCarthy who's trying to save his job but not thinking about the others, his members, who might lose their jobs when they face voters.

Peter Baker: That's constitutes its majority.

Leigh Ann Caldwell: Yes.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Do the Democrats in the House care who the Republican speaker is? Do they -- would they prefer McCarthy over someone else?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: I feel like I'm dominating this conversation.

Asma Khalid: (INAUDIBLE) expertise.

Peter Baker: Yes. I mean, well, of course they do, right? Obviously, McCarthy is different than, say, Matt Gaetz, but it's not going to be a Matt Gaetz. The question is, is there anybody who can actually govern in this circumstance? And there's not an obvious choice out. There's not some legislative wizard who can make the pond still again. And so I think that they're -- they have to let the Republicans do it on their own.

Asma Khalid: The majority is so narrow that whatever and whoever is in charge on the Republican side ultimately has to work with Democrats.

Anne Applebaum: So, there's a weird way in which the closeness of the last election, the fact that Democrats did so well, is bad for the current situation, because there's no room on the Republican side.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Leigh Ann, let me ask you one more question on this subject. How much of this is about the fact that Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy can't stand each other? I mean, is the country grinding to a halt because these dudes don't get along?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: It's a big part of it, yes. A lot of this is personality-based. Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz gets under his skin. He cannot stand Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz cannot stand Kevin McCarthy and he's doing whatever he can to ruin Kevin McCarthy.

And so that is a big part of it, but there's also others. He alone cannot cause these problems. There are others who feel similarly. And like what I said at the beginning is that he, you know -- a lot of these conservatives have never trusted Kevin McCarthy. And that is ultimately a problem and they have not -- he has not gained their trust.

And the thing with Democrats is one of the things that they're worried about is that no new speaker will ever -- will be able to be elected in this Republican majority and that there's like chaos. And so they are really having lots of conversations about weighing their options, about what to do if a motion to vacate comes up for a vote, because, ultimately, it's going to be in their hands because it needs a majority of House of Representatives for it to be successful.

And there is not 218 Republicans who are going to oust McCarthy. So, it's up to Democrats and there are lots of conversations happening among Democrats about what do they do, do they save him or not?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. I was going to say let's pivot and talk about the state of American democracy, but we already are talking about the state of American democracy.

But I want to talk about President Biden's speech at the McCain Institute yesterday. It was quite something to behold in part because he really hasn't spent a lot of time going directly at Donald Trump and his record on democracy issues.

Peter, you were there with the president. Give us a brief encapsulation of what he said and then I want to ask Anne what it all means.

Peter Baker: Yes, you're right. I mean, look, he has talked about the fate of democracy several times last year. He really hasn't done it this year. And he's basically, you know, been spending the summer trying to promote his own economic record, Bidenomics, as he likes to call it now, and hasn't gotten them anywhere.

The approval numbers haven't changed. The poll numbers suggest he's still tied with Donald Trump in a rematch if it happens next year. And so they need to draw the contrast. They need to scare voters, in effect, that a Trump election victory would be bad, not just because you don't like his policy, but be bad for the country and the very tenets of democracy that we have subscribed to for 200-some years.

And so he gets up there yesterday in Tempe, Arizona, and he says, look, this isn't just I disagree with him. This is a guy who talks about the death penalty for his own former top general. This is a guy who threatens NBC by saying that they are guilty of treason. This is a guy who promotes violence and nihilism to use Anne's great word. And he is a threat. He doesn't believe in the Constitution. He believes in retribution. Of course, that, again, is Donald Trump's word.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Before we go to Anne, I want you to watch something. This is from General Milley's retirement ceremony today, where he went a bit off script, but right at this subject. Let's listen to what General Milley said.

Gen. Mark Milley, Retiring Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That last line.

Anne Applebaum: Who could that be?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, no. I was going to ask you, who's he talking about? It seems overly harsh toward Biden. But it was interesting because in the last week or so, Donald Trump has attacked Milley directly and incited violence against General Milley. Talk about this moment where you have the former president actually demanding in a kind of way, almost demanding the death penalty for the now former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and what it means and why Joe Biden is so worried about this.

Anne Applebaum: So Millie is a symbol or a spokesman, if you will, for a broader group of people, and that is the group of neutral civil servants, public servants, members of the military, people who serve the United States no matter who the president is. And it's this sort of layer of people with kind of bipartisan loyalties or loyalties to the Constitution.

I mean, they may vote one way or the other, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter to them who's running the country, they're still loyal to the country. And that idea that there is such a group of people, we've all come to take it for granted, you know, that those people exist and they'll always be there and they'll always be people who are measuring the pollution and the water and the person who does that job is someone who knows about pollution. It's not somebody's cousin, you know, who's a kind of party member and that there is this neutral, you know?

And an attack on that group of people is really what Trump is beginning to prepare. You know, it's whether it's Milley, whether it's, you know, the bureaucrats, whether it's --

Jeffrey Goldberg: The head of the FBI.

Anne Applebaum: Whether it's the head of the FBI, you know, it's a series of institutions. You're also hearing this on the farthest right part of the Republican media as well.

And this is unbelievably dangerous. And this actually puts the U.S., I think, in a different world actually, even from other democracies that are challenged right now. Because the idea that you would replace that group of people with partisan hacks or with, you would bring back the patronage system that we had here in the 19th century is, it would be unbelievably damaging. I think that's important.

I think also the fact that Biden chose to make that statement about Milley and about democracy more broadly at an event in honor of John McCain was really important. In other words, he was saying, this idea that I'm talking about isn't my partisan view. It's not that people who are big D Democrats or small, you know, we're all Democrats. We all believe in the country, us and the Republicans. And he -- you know, he clearly doesn't want the idea of democracy to become something partisan, you know?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Leigh Anne, I wanted to ask you something. We're talking about Ukraine a lot this week. And, obviously, Ukraine plays into this shutdown issue in some ways. But I want you to gauge the depth for us of anti-Ukraine feeling in the House Republican caucus.

I was interviewing Secretary of State Tony Blinken yesterday at The Atlantic Festival and I asked him this question how worried they are that they're going to lose bipartisan support for Ukraine funding. And we'll listen to what he had to say.

Antony Blinken, Secretary of State: If you look at polling, which is not what's driving things, but at least some of the polls I've seen recently suggest that there is strong, enduring support for our support for Ukraine.

In Congress, yes, there are some loud voices that are taking a different tack. But if you look at the majority in both parties, the support is there and it's sustained.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Are you as sanguine as the secretary of state on that issue?

Leigh Ann Caldwell: So, several months ago there was an amendment vote to stop funding Ukraine. About 70 Republicans voted for it. Just yesterday, there was an amendment vote on the House floor to strip Ukraine money from a defense bill and a majority of House Republicans voted for it, more than 100 House Republicans voted for it.

And so that sentiment is growing in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, it is there. It's a much smaller faction of Republicans in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing whatever he can to keep his party in support of Ukraine. He talks about this in their closed-door meetings, their closed-door lunches with his leadership. But it is definitely an uphill battle in Congress. And the more this goes on, they're bleeding Republican support.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Asma, could you talk about this? This is a huge challenge for the White House. Are they doing anything to future-proof support for Ukraine?

Asma Khalid: Are they doing anything to future-proof? I don't know that I have seen any indication of them really doing anything to future-proof. I mean, they're routinely asked if they believe the support is there and they'll speak to the fact that there, thus far, has been bipartisan support in Congress.

But, you know, I'm sort of struck by the divisions that you see between Congress and where the American public is because I do look at polls and you see that support for Ukraine funding, financial support for Ukraine is lower than where it was at the start of the invasion. And some polls do show a majority of the American public does not support continued financial support.

So, I agree that, thus far, there's been bipartisan support, which is what the White House says, but the public does seem to be trending slightly, ever so slightly more towards where Republicans are.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And I asked Leigh Ann at the beginning to explain Congress to us and --

Anne Applebaum: You want me to explain Ukraine?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, thank you. Thank you for intuiting where I was going. Can you explain where we are in the war effort and if Ukraine, just based on your own study of this, if Ukraine is going to make progress at a pace that Americans, comma, and impatient people, comma, find pleasing? And what are the consequences of not getting continued support?

Anne Applebaum: So the polling that I assume Secretary Blinken is talking about often shows that support for Ukraine goes up when Ukrainians seem to be winning. Americans want to support Ukraine to win. Where we are now is that they have made some progress in their counteroffensive and their attempt to take back territory, but not as much as they had hoped, and we had hoped, by this point in the calendar.

And what you're beginning to see is them beginning to do new kinds of things. So, they're now striking Crimea more often. They hit the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet a few days ago. You saw once again yesterday or the day before these Russian commandos who are the sort of anti-Putin Russians are moving again in the northern part of the country.

Jeffrey Goldberg: They're taking the fight into Russia?

Anne Applebaum: They're taking the fight into Russia.

And remember that this war is over when the Russians leave, and it doesn't matter why they leave. They can leave because the Ukrainians have taken back territory. They can leave because they've lost too much in Crimea. I mean, there are a number of ways in which they can be encouraged to leave.

And what you'll see over the next few weeks is the Ukrainians trying a lot of different things. They're as aware of the American political schedule as everybody else.

Jeffrey Goldberg: They are maybe more aware of the American political schedule than they are because they have a fear of a Donald Trump presidency. Is that fair?

Peter Baker: This is why this fight is actually really important right now, not just because they need artillery and ammunition and guns and so forth for the near future, but because in Moscow, Vladimir Putin is watching that clock and he is playing for time.

He understands that diminished support by the public will only encourage more Republicans to vote against funding. And in November of 2024, there is at least a decent chance that Donald Trump will be returned to the presidency, and that will be it as far as American support for Ukraine. So why not play for time?

And that's why the next year is so critical for Ukraine, because unless they make a difference on the battlefield between now and then, it's very up in the air starting, you know, 14 months from now.

Jeffrey Goldberg: And the last word to you on this. Is there a chance, based on what you see, that Ukraine will have dramatic gains along the American electoral calendar before that? No, it's a serious question, right?

Anne Applebaum: So, yes, there is a chance and there are people who are planning for that and they hope it will happen. You know, the Russian defense was greater than they expected. The minefields were wider and broader than actually anybody has ever -- anything anybody has ever crossed. So -- but they do think so.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's a fascinating conversation. I wish we continue. But, alas, but we need to leave it there for now.

I want to thank our panelists for joining us and sharing their reporting.

And before we sign off, I just want to note that today marks the six-month anniversary of Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich's captivity in Russia. And tonight, as every night, his colleagues across journalism are thinking of him and hoping and working for his release.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.