Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 12/1/23

Jeffrey Goldberg: The House makes history by expelling George Santos from its ranks. This is the first time a Republican has ever been removed this way.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): In light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the house is now 434.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Somehow, Santos found a silver lining.

Rep. George Santos (R-NY): I no longer have to answer a single question from you guys.

Jeffrey Goldberg: In a more dignified chamber of Congress, Democrats put Senator Tommy Tuberville, who has held up military appointments for months, on notice.

Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY): If Republicans are not able to get Senator Tuberville to stand down quickly, we are going to hold a vote on our resolution to confirm these nominees before we leave this year.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Believe it or not, six weeks from now, Republican voters in Iowa will choose their 2024 presidential nominee, which makes us in excellent time to take a closer look at the coalition Donald Trump believes will return him to the White House, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. We have a lot to talk about tonight.

And here with me are Tim Alberta, my colleague and a staff writer at The Atlantic, he's also the author of the new book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Elizabeth Bumiller is the assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief of The New York Times. Eugene Daniels is a White House correspondent at Politico and a co-author of Politico's Playbook. And Philip Rucker is the national editor of The Washington Post.

Well, it's really an all-star crew tonight. It's like the entire mainstream media is here with us. I better bring my A-game.

So, let's talk about George Santos. And I guess this might be the last time that we're talking about.

Eugene Daniels, White House Correspondent, Politico: Doubtful.

Jeffrey Goldberg: No? Well, after his appearance on Dancing with the Stars, the inevitable appearance on Dancing with the Stars.

But, Eugene, let me start with you. What does it mean beyond its immediate meaning that there's going to be a highly contested race on Long Island for this open seat? What does this mean?

Eugene Daniels: That's one. I think Republicans are still worried about the precedent that this actually sets, right, that someone wasn't found guilty of anything just yet and was expelled from Congress. I don't know that that matters as much because Santos himself was like just a ball of chaos for Republicans and they were just getting sick of it, no matter how thin the margin was in the House.

I think largely what it means is that the folks that went to the Trump School of Lie, office gate, flood zone, have to realize that it only works for him. It doesn't work for everybody, right? He was trying to take a lot of pages out of the Trump book of how to do politics and it doesn't work when you have been caught and you're not as good of a liar.

Jeffrey Goldberg: It helps to have 70 million followers.

Eugene Daniels: It does and a lot of money, and he didn't have either of those.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, right.

Tim, I mean, it's interesting, Eugene mentions this point, Adam Serwer at The Atlantic wrote a piece today arguing against the expulsion and saying, look, the guy is not convicted. He could have been censured, but there's no conviction here. Is that a plausible argument politically or legally?

Tim Alberta, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Sure, I think so. And I think Eugene's point is right about the precedent. Look, if you start tossing out of the House of Representatives everyone who's a liar and a fraud and a conman, well, then we might start working on a list right here. We could do it now.

That's not to diminish or to minimize or to downplay some of Mr. Santos' activity. It's just to say that in the sweep of modern congressional history, there have been quite a few scoundrels and quite a few people who have done any one of the things or multiple of the things that Santos has done. It just seems like maybe because he hit the jackpot and he hit the jackpot at a politically inconvenient time that he's bearing the brunt of it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes. But, Elizabeth, what do we do different than Tim's list?

Elizabeth Bumiller, Assistant Managing Editor, The New York Times: Well, aside from spending $6,000 of campaign funds at Ferragamo and Botox --

Jeffrey Goldberg: What do you have against Ferragamo?

Elizabeth Bumiller: Right. I mean, that seemed to be -- that was sort of the -- I mean, there was a long list of things that the Ethics Committee, you know, led by Republicans, found. And, clearly, there were crimes in that Ethics Committee report.

But I think -- and, you know, just using campaign funds for personal gain, it was -- there was a lot of shocking stuff. But what happened here was politics. The Republicans made the decision that, despite this precedent, he was far more damaging to them in the House and out of the House.

And so, you know, and it was a rebuke to the leadership. The House leadership, you know, begged Republicans to support him, and half the Republicans did not. It was just dangerous for them.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Phil, what does this mean, and this is a -- I'm talking about now a different chamber, different party, but what does this possibly mean for Senator Menendez, who has -- is facing some arguably more serious charges?

Philip Rucker, National Editor, The Washington Post: More serious charges, although not this whole body of evidence about lying and sort of misuse of funds and behavior that's just so --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Fantastical behavior?

Philip Rucker: Scummy and embarrassing for the Republican conference.

Menendez has a long history in the Senate, was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and yet you have not seen the Senate move forward with the kind of action that they took on Santos. He is under federal criminal investigation, Menendez is, for his allegation, for the allegations against him. But it seems unlikely that Schumer and the other Democrats in the Senate would turn on him the way House Republicans have on Santos unless it becomes really politically inconvenient more so in the New Year.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Know that Senator Fetterman was already called for a similar action, but I guess, Eugene, he's still an outlier in this.

Eugene Daniels: Yes. I mean, Cory Booker has talked about wanting him to resign as well, right? So, there's that question. They want him to have autonomy in this, right? They don't want the precedent that we're having with Santos of everyone else telling you have to go, right, that this is especially the upper chamber where we make our own decisions and people, when they want to go, they have to go.

Will there be this groundswell against Menendez? Doubtful, like you're saying, it's unlikely to see that. And he doesn't seem like he's going anywhere. He's made it very clear that he's going to wait this out.

Tim Alberta: Well, you know who doesn't want Menendez to resign is the entire Republican Party, because Menendez is extraordinarily useful to them in an election year to help muddy the waters.

Jeffrey Goldberg: He's a great mascot for what they think of him.

Tim Alberta: Of course. You want to talk about Trump's corruption? Why don't we talk about the Biden crime family? Why don't we talk about Senator Menendez? How about the gold bars in the jacket, right? I mean, this is a very useful thing politically for the Republicans at this point. So, they'd like to keep him around the Senate as long as possible.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Elizabeth Bumiller: But what it means for the House, though, is that going through -- there's now one less Republican in the House, so they've got a three-seat majority now. And after there's another senator -- member of the House who's going to step down and become president of the University of Ohio. So, we're going into potentially next year with a two-seat majority for House Republicans. And they've got to pass the budget and try and keep the government open, and it's going to get harder and harder and harder.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, further proof, my theory that speaker of the House is the worst job in Washington right now.

Let me talk about Senator Tuberville. We've been following this for months, this hold. It's a different manifestation of a kind of peculiar, I don't know, flamboyant autonomy. I don't know what you would call it. But there's a -- in the old days, you would never see a freshman senator basically paralyze the entire Department of Defense. But here, this is what you've had.

This seems to be coming to some kind of conclusion. He's -- apparently, the pressure is now too much to bear.

Elizabeth Bumiller: He let up to yesterday and said that, yes, maybe he's going to relax his hold. I mean, they were going to -- Chuck Schumer was moving -- the Senate majority was moving, to have 350 nominations that Senator Tuberville has held up in the military, some very senior positions. He was moving to have them all confirmed en masse.

And so Tuberville was seeing the writing on the wall, and he said yesterday, well, you know, I guess maybe we have got to get these people through. But he still wants to look at them -- some of them individually, because to see if they have any woke characteristics. I'm not exactly sure what he's looking for. Perhaps he said it might be like people who were endorsing diversity programs.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Which, of course, is an interesting charge because those diversity programs are federally mandated. And if you don't -- as a senior serving officer, if you don't carry out the law, you're in violation of the law.

Elizabeth Bumiller: I'm not saying it makes any sense but --

Philip Rucker: I think there's virtue in leaders of the military who support diversity and inclusion. So, he's turning against the will, I think, of a lot of others in the Senate who support those programs and want to see more of that in the military.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Stay on the subject for one more minute. What is the damage that's been done to the Department of Defense and what's the damage to the Senate, if any?

Eugene Daniels: I mean, I think you have heard from military officers -- my dad was in the army -- the anger that they feel about this and the frustration they feel that the military has continued to be more politicized than it ever has been before, right? It used to be above that. And that is not the case.

You know, you have the senator saying he is doing this to protect the military. They do not feel that, right? They do not feel protected, whatsoever.

And so at this point, if it was just Democrats, as it was at the very beginning of this, who were angry at him and telling him to stop doing this, but then you had all of these Republicans coming in. That is what that pressure is.

And does it change the Senate? Unlikely, right? You know what I mean? It might change his own personal relationships with folks. But at the end of the day, 100 senators, every one of them can be king or queen at any day.

Elizabeth Bumiller: We have to say why he's doing this, which I think we forgot to mention, which is his stated reason is that because the military allows women to travel out of state and pays for --

Jeffrey Goldberg: Women who are serving.

Elizabeth Bumiller: Yes, active duty women who are serving to go out of state for abortions if they are serving in a state where there are no abortions allowed, and he doesn't want the military to pay for that. So, that is what he's objecting to is that military policy.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right, and noting, of course, that that policy is not made by serving officers whose promotions are being held.

This brings up a larger question that I want to get to, especially given Tim and his book.

Tim Alberta: That's good placement right there.

Jeffrey Goldberg: There you go. Put it right in front of my face. There you go.

No, it's always interesting to see what gets an elected official into trouble legally and in public relations and what doesn't get an elected official into trouble. And Tim has been writing about this subject for a while, written about the changes in the Republican Party.

And, you know, on the one hand, you have George Santos and, yes, there's some crazy circus-like characteristics of that story, but Donald Trump is facing 91 felony criminal counts and has -- well, I mean, you don't have to rehearse the long record.

Your book is fascinating because it's part memoir, it's part confession, it's part kind of a plea of a believing Christian and it's obviously a great part analysis of why evangelical voters, an extraordinarily large and powerful voting bloc, have went to Donald Trump and stayed with Donald Trump.

So, I mean, I guess the big question for us to discuss is how does he maintain their loyalty given everything that we know about him and given that we know that many voters find this kind of behavior, these kind of behaviors in other politicians unacceptable.

Tim Alberta: Eugene said it well at the outset when he talked about how there are almost two standards here, that there is a Trump standard and then a standard for everyone else, and that nobody else can seem to ultimately get away with the things that Trump can get away with.

But I would take it a step further and say that not only does Trump get away, not only does Trump survive despite these things, but I would argue that Trump thrives because of these things. What I mean by that is much of the modern evangelical movement is sort of predicated politically upon this idea that the barbarians are at the gates, that America is in rapid decline, that the country is under siege from secularists and leftists and people who want to eradicate Christianity from public life and persecute Christians and they're coming for the church, and look what happened during COVID, they closed down our sanctuaries, this is what's coming for us in America unless we fight back.

And Donald Trump, it's so strange in so many ways that he would become the champion of this movement because, obviously, morally, behaviorally, it is inconsistent and yet Donald Trump has convinced many of these people that the way to preserve Christian virtue is to first do away with Christian virtue. You need to enlist someone who doesn't play by your rules, who is not bound by your norms. It's sort of like when George W. Bush said that in order to save the free market, he had to first jettison free market principles. It's a similar type of --

Jeffrey Goldberg: I mean, you're describing him as a godless mercenary working on behalf of Christianity.

Tim Alberta: That's exactly what I'm describing him as.

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's quite a thing to describe someone.

Tim Alberta: And, Jeff, here's the thing, whereas in 2016, a lot of evangelical voters were willing to assess this as a transactional relationship. They were willing to give Trump their votes, and in return, he was willing to deliver them policy victories, that relationship has now morphed into something else entirely, and it's very similar to what you just described today.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want you to watch something. Listen to a clip from a very, very powerful evangelical leader who's very, very pro-Trump, and I want you to analyze it in a second.

Robert Jeffress, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church Dallas: Eight years ago, our nation was in a downward death spiral as we moved further and further away from the truths of God's word. But then came a man descending the escalator at Trump Tower. His name was Donald J. Trump. And Donald Trump did what nobody thought he could do. He turned this nation around.

Jeffrey Goldberg: One of many, obviously, and really impervious to the factual narrative that people like Phil have spent years building, the question is why doesn't Reverend Jeffress there, and many others, why doesn't he look at Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley and say, well, they stand for the same principles?

Tim Alberta: This will be a part of Trump's enduring legacy, and not just in terms of his relationship with evangelicals, but I mean his entire legacy politically, is that Donald Trump, in some sense, conditioned much of the American evangelical movement to demand something pugilistic, something belligerent, something militant from their political leaders. Mike Pence can no longer pass muster. Ron DeSantis can no longer pass muster.

In other words, one of the great ironies with Robert Jeffress, the pastor in that clip, who I've spent a lot of time with, I spent a lot of time in the book with him, Robert Jeffress back in 2012 was fire and brimstone talking about how evangelicals needed to decide once and for all whether they were going to elect a president who reflected their biblical values.

Almost four years later to the day after Access Hollywood, he went on the radio and he was asked about his enduring support for Donald Trump, and Robert Jeffress said, essentially, look, we're not electing a Sunday school teacher, we are under siege and we need the biggest, baddest, meanest SOB we can find to defend Christianity in America. And that's the whole ball of wax.

Jeffrey Goldberg: So, is there anything that could break apart this coalition between these evangelical leaders and their followers, and Donald Trump? Is there anything that Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, et cetera? I mean, obviously Mike Pence couldn't do it. He spent his entire life trying to build up to that point. But is there anything or do you -- is this done?

Elizabeth Bumiller: Well, I assume that the evangelical voters are not a monolith. You're talking about a majority of them. But I don't know. You should know. But I still remember - there's this story that Elizabeth Dias did in 2020 about going out to see -- talking to evangelicals in Iowa who had first heard this speech that Trump made in 2016, where he said Christianity needs more power. I will -- the same thing. I will protect you. I will lead you this way.

And I know you know this was a very powerful moment for them. And it's exactly what you have just said. And there's no one else that's emerged who uses that kind of language with evangelicals among the Republicans.

Eugene Daniels: And when they try it, it doesn't sell as well, right? You have Ron DeSantis, who -- not talking, you know, not in the evangelical sense but trying to be a tough guy and they don't buy it as much, right?

Jeffrey Goldberg: It's interesting that they find Trump authentic.

Eugene Daniels: Yes, because --

Jeffrey Goldberg: That's not a word that a lot of people associate with.

Philip Rucker: One thing that could cleave these voters away from Trump is the thing that Trump fears the most, which is weakness. If he is exposed as being weak or failing at something, or they somehow get the sense that he's not the strong, mean, SOB fighter that Tim was just describing, you wonder if that is what could pull voters away from him.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Could a conviction do that in one of these cases?

Eugene Daniels: I mean, he spent so much time telling people that they're coming after me because they're coming after you, that I'm the only thing protecting you. So, it's hard for me to see -- and you tell me, but it's hard for me to see a conviction, him even getting arrested and thrown in jail and them running away from him. Because the people that did that have been going after you, the voter, this entire time.

Tim Alberta: It plays right into the persecution complex in many ways. I mean, it's worth noting that the first real dip we've seen in Trump's support among evangelicals in the entire sweep of the last six or seven years was immediately following the 2022 midterms when Republicans underperformed at the polls and then Trump threw pro-lifers under the bus.

And there was a real moment there where we were questioning what was the future of this relationship. Shortly thereafter, Alvin Bragg delivers that first indictment in Manhattan and his numbers go right back up, and that's where they are today.

Jeffrey Goldberg: We're going to keep visiting this subject, obviously, as we move into 2024. But let's stipulate that the evangelical vote remains the linchpin of the Trump coalition.

There's another phenomenon going on that's really interesting. We've talked - you've written about this. We've talked about this. Trump is making inroads with black and Hispanic males in ways that are surprising to the mainstream media, or surprising to other people. Could you talk about that for a minute? You've studied this.

Eugene Daniels: Yes. I mean, part of it is, in 2020, he won 8 percent of the black vote overall, 6 percent in 2016. So, it's going up. One in three black men voted for him in the Midwest in 2020. So, something is happening there.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the strongman aspect of it, right? Like as my family is from Bucksport, South Carolina, and Christian all the way. And what you're taught is that it is about the strong black family and the strong black church. You have to be a strong black man. And you see someone who is saying, I'm going to let you do that.

Sometimes, Democrats speak to black voters in a paternalistic way, right? You should like us because we've done this for you, right? And that is not the way that Donald Trump speaks to them. Obviously, there's the other stuff that he says that turns off and should turn off black voters. But those things are in conflict.

Now, I think part of it is also less that all of a sudden black voters, black men voters, Hispanic men, are going to run to Donald Trump, but they might just stay home, right? I think it's largely an issue with the Democratic Party and their messaging to those groups and what they have done and not done for those groups, not so much that Donald Trump is going to get. I think, in polling, we're seeing like 20 percent of the black vote. Sometimes people, when they talk to these pollsters, they're doing a protest. They're saying, no, I'm letting you know I'm pissed off.

Is that how they're going to vote next November? It's unlikely. You know, it would be shocking and earth shattering if 20 percent of the black vote went to Donald Trump and Republicans.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I think in just the last minute we have, I think I've asked Elizabeth and Eugene this question already on this show. I'm going to ask Phil and Tim because I haven't asked him yet. Any possibility that Donald Trump is not the nominee?

Philip Rucker: Yes, there's a possibility.

Jeffrey Goldberg: How big a possibility?

Philip Rucker: Historically, things change fast in Iowa, and I think it's a very slim possibility, but I think there is a possibility.

Tim Alberta: Keep an eye on one thing. Ron DeSantis is young, and he has a political future. And at the trajectory he's on right now, he's going to get embarrassed in these first three states. If he decides to try to salvage his future by pulling out and not getting embarrassed electorally and Nikki Haley gets a one-on-one shot against Donald Trump, it's still a very long shot.

But stranger things have happened, and I think that she would finally have the opportunity to paint the contrast with Trump that she would like to have, but it's hard to do in a crowded field. And so if she gets a one-on-one, you have that chance.

Jeffrey Goldberg: All right. Fascinating and it's -- I can't believe -- I mean, I said at the beginning of the show six weeks to Iowa. It's incredible. But we will continue talking about it, but unfortunately we need to leave it there for now.

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

And to read an excerpt of Tim's new book, this book right here, you can go to theatlantic.com. I'm doing a lot of work here. I'm doing a lot of work.

And tune into PBS News Weekend tomorrow for the latest from the U.N.'s COP 28 climate conference. I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington