Clip: 'Retaliation is real': Why Republicans in Congress won't stand up to Trump

Jeffrey Goldberg: Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. There's too much going on, of course, and it's our job tonight to try to make sense of some of it and to try to analyze the broad themes of this administration so far. One issue of paramount concern, conflict between the judicial branch and the executive branch. President Trump quite obviously believes that the executive branch is first among equals, but most judges don't.

We'll discuss this tonight and more with Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times, Laura Barron-Lopez is the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour, Eugene Daniels is a senior Washington correspondent, and next month will become a co-host of MSNBC's the Weekend, and Mark Leibovich is my colleague and a staff writer at The Atlantic, who will not be co-hosting the weekend. Welcome everyone. Thank you for being here.

One week, it's going to be David Rubenstein in the chair, in the David Rubenstein studio. And you guys, your minds are going to be blown. I just realized that at the open. Yes, he has a great show.

Let's start by talking about Lucy Murkowski, senator from Alaska, just for a moment, and listen to a little bit more of what she said earlier this week.

Lisa Murkowski: We are all afraid, okay? I am oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Laura, do other senators feel this way?

Laura Barron-Lopez, White House Correspondent, PBS NewsHour: Yes, they do. And other senators have said it or expressed it in some form. Senator Thom Tillis has talked about the many death threats that he's get, but she is voicing something that many will say more in private than they do in public.

I mean, that being said, this shouldn't really be a surprise to her or to others that Republicans are in this situation because the administration, even before Trump, took office, have repeatedly emboldened extremists and used hate sSpeech to talk about their political enemies. And so this is something that any Republican, you know, you think of the Liz Cheneys, Adam Kinzingers, others of the world, that they've had to deal with for years because they spoke out.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Lisa Murkowski is one of the few Republicans left in on the Hill who voted to who voted convict. What --

Laura Barron-Lopez: She has immense power with that as well.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Yes. Is she the closest thing now in the Senate to a Mitt Romney now that Romney's gone.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I think she is, I think she's one of the few left out of Republicans in the Senate who is willing to vote against the administration, who is willing to voice opposition to things that they're doing. She has also expressed frustration about the actions of Elon Musk and DOGE, and was very vocal about that early on.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Yes. Mark, let me ask you, because something struck me as odd about that statement. Not that it's a reflection -- not that it's not a reflection of a certain reality, but, you know, it's odd because she's like supposed to be a leader and being a leader means not expressing that you're scared to lead. Is there -- what's going on here? Is that just a moment of like honest honesty?

Mark Leibovich, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: I think so. I mean, it is so pervasive what she is talking about. I mean, it was like almost blurting out that like the sky is blue in some ways. I mean, I think just to be clear too, she's not talking about intimidation, political intimidation, like Elon Musk throwing a bunch of money at an opponent or someone being primary.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  So, she's actually talking about physical --

Mark Leibovich: She's talking about physical fear, and, you know, the death threats you know, doxxing, swatting, all the stuff that goes on, or at least threats thereof that goes on.

And just to be clear, I mean, that is a -- you know, that goes on a lot these days. I mean, threats certainly go on a lot, especially since January 6th. It's been a real hallmark of this era. And just to point out, you know, what should be clear, you know, politics, you know, you're supposed to -- governing is supposed to take place by politics, by persuasion, by debate. Authoritarianism is government by intimidation, by threat, by violence in some cases.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Right. Peter, let me frame this out a little bit more. And I'm not trying to be uncharitable to Senator Murkowski. I understand the nature of the threats that we all live with these days. But she's almost talking about the Josh Shapiro level issue we saw earlier this week of physical intimidation.

The question for you, maybe it's a naive one, is aren't senators among the most protected Americans, the most protected critics of --

Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: I mean, they're really not. I mean, the Capitol Police does not shadow every member of Congress, certainly when they're out of town. Only the leadership, yes, and then occasional instances where particular members have particular reasons for threats, they might provide protection. Otherwise, no, they provide their own protection, which they have to pay for out of their campaign funds or whatever else. But that's not --

Laura Barron-Lopez: Which Mitt Romney had to do.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Right.

Peter Baker: He did have to do that. Liz Cheney does that to this day, as far as I know. I mean, a lot of people have had those kind of threats that forced them to live their lives in a very different way than there used to be. And senators don't want to, by the way, live with security trailing around. They want to be open and accessible to their people. It goes against the nature of what our representative government is supposed to be like. But this is the reality today.

Eugene Daniels, Senior Washington Correspondent, MSNBC: But, Jeff, I think there is -- what you're trying to get at here is that if this is what senators are feeling, if they're this scared and they're willing to tell that to people, how should the normal American feel, right? How should. It's the normal American that is watching what's happening in the country and doesn't like it and feels scared for different reasons? They're looking to those hundred senators and those members of the rest of the members of Congress to say, you're the leaders of our country, help us, right?

Those Republicans that are in Alaska that are talking to Lisa Murkowski who are fearful for whatever reason, they're looking to her for some kind of like for her to be sturdy and sure of things. And so that, sure, be honest with folks and talk about how scared, it's clear, things are, but there's another element to this. So, where it doesn't ensure that the people around you feel more confident in you as a leader.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Right. I mean, does this lead to other senators1, Republican senators saying, you know what, Lisa, you're right, we should ban together?

Eugene Daniels: No,

Jeffrey Goldberg:  We should ban together like the law firms have banded together.

Eugene Daniels: Yes. No, I think like you're not -- one, you're not going to see that because, as we were just saying, there's less and less members of Congress in general who are not a part of the Trump train, who aren't excited about the things that are happening, who aren't going to go out front and do what Lisa Murkowski's doing, she's part of a dying breed of members of Congress and Republicans willing to do the thing. So, no, you're not going to see a bunch of people get up and stand outside and do the -- talk about how they don't like what Trump is doing, how they don't like what Elon Musk is doing because they're scared and whether they're scared of the physical violence or the political violence.

Peter Baker: On the physical violence part, and that has also been seen on both sides too, of course. President Trump was the target of two different assassination attempts last year. Just this last week, I think the would-be assassin of Brett Kavanaugh was sentenced, I think, in court, Steve Scalise number of years ago. It does seem at times that Trump and his people seem to be more willing to use words like traitor and treasonous that might excite people to take action. And I think that's the worry, what level of responsibility you have as a president, as a leader of this country to try to tamp down the kind of passions that arise rather than stoke them.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  You know, something I've been curious about on the Josh Shapiro attack, which is a serious attack, a serious arson attack, obviously we're understanding now that it was an anti-Semitic attack in its nature, the kind of a muted response generally to it. And I'm wondering if you think that if it had been a right winger and not some anti-Israel guy or something, it would've been a louder outcry.

Peter Baker: That's a good question. J.D. Vance did express his concern for Governor Shapiro, said that was an awful thing that had happened, but president talked about it much? And I think that, you know, what you would've seen under a lot of different presidents is a reckoning, a way of like let's talk about why our society is like this today and what we can do about it to come together even as we argue, as we should, about big and serious issues. That's just not Trump's nature as a leader. And like --

Jeffrey Goldberg: That he would set the tone.

Peter Baker: He set the tone.

Laura Barron-Lopez: I mean, President Biden often tried to do that, the former president. You know, he ran on that, saying that he was trying to tone down the rhetoric, but I think what you're seeing from President Trump is whether it's in the type of language he uses by calling people a traitor or treasonous, he puts a target on multiple people's backs when he specifically names them, when he repeatedly attacks people by name, be it judges, be it lawyers, be it any political enemy that he perceives to be,

Jeffrey Goldberg:  I don't know anything about that.

Laura Barron-Lopez: Yes, you wouldn't know that.

Jeffrey Goldberg:  I'm not familiar with this phenomenon.

Laura Barron-Lopez: You never experienced that in your life.

Mark Leibovich: No. I mean, I remember well Mitt -- I'm sorry, no. Mitt Romney himself told me, he once said, you know, your, the first job of a president is not to say something that's going to inflame the random nut, and Trump doesn't have that. And I think he went farther to say something to the degree that he actually will sort of possibly, you know, try to communicate in some way to incite, you know, things that will make people who he disagrees with scared. And that is -- you know, that is out there.

Peter Baker: And Romney has told people that he was told by other Republican senators that they voted against conviction in the second impeachment trial specifically because they were afraid of their families, for their families.

Mark Leibovich: Absolutely. Well, that has a real impact beyond just, you know, a nervousness on a part of elected official that seems to be impacting their votes.

Eugene Daniels: And I think part of the muted response from on the Shapiro of the situation that happened this week is also that we're unfortunately getting used to a lot of this, right? It was a part of the news for a little bit, but, you know, five years ago, ten years ago, this would've been the only thing we talked about as reporters or be the only thing -- it would be the only thing that other members of that members of Congress were talking about that the president's talking about.

Laura Barron-Lopez: And normalizing the populist to political violence is a trait of authoritarianism.