Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 9/1/23 | Washington … – PBS
Trump’s trial date provides further proof the 2024 presidential race could be the most unusual in history. Plus, McConnell freezes again and a new poll on President Biden’s age raises new concerns about America’s leaders. Join moderator Jeffrey Goldberg, Kyle Cheney of Politico, Asma Khalid of NPR, Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic and Susan Page of USA Today to discuss this and more
Jeffrey Goldberg: A trial date is set for former President Trump and concerns grow over America's aging leadership.
Unidentified Male: And if you're president again, will you lock people up?
Donald Trump, Former U.S. President: The answer is you have no choice because they're doing it to us.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Former President Trump promises revenge if he's re-elected after a judge schedules his election interference trial to start the day before Super Tuesday.
Plus–
Unidentified Female: All right, I'm sorry, you all are going to need a minute.
Jeffrey Goldberg:– the Senate's top Republican freezes again and a new poll shows President Biden's age has voters worried, raising new concerns about the advanced age of America's most important political leaders, next.
Good evening and welcome to WASHINGTON WEEK. This week, we got further proof that the 2024 presidential race could be the most unusual in U.S. history. On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan set Trump's Federal election interference trial for March 4th, 2024. The collision between the political calendar and Trump's trials was described in a Wall Street Journal editorial entirely accurately as a, quote, spectacular mess.
It's possible that Trump, the runaway leader in the GOP polls, could already be his party's de facto nominee when jury selection begins, but it's unclear if a conviction in any of his criminal cases will influence voters.
Trump also pled not guilty in Georgia to charges that he tried to overturn the state's 2020 election results.
And for the second time in as many months, the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, froze at an event while answering questions from reporters.
Unidentified Male: That's okay. What are your thoughts on running for re-election in 2026?
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): What are my thoughts about what?
Unidentified Male: Running for re-election in 2026.
Mitch McConnell: Oh, that's —
Jeffrey Goldberg: This episode sparked bipartisan concern for the 81-year-old senator's well being.
Joe Biden, U.S. President: I spoke to Mitch. He's a friend. I'm confident he's going to be back to his old self.
Jeffrey Goldberg: McConnell's health issues have highlighted age as a national political issue. A new poll shows three quarters of the public think that President Biden, who is 80, is too old to serve another term as president, and 69 percent of Democrats agreed.
Joining me to discuss this and more, Kyle Cheney, he's senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Asma Khalid, NPR White House Correspondent and Co-Host of the NPR Politics podcast, Mark Leibovich, a staff writer and my colleague at The Atlantic, and Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. Thank you all for being here.
Susan, let me just start with you and ask you this. I mean, are we just kidding ourselves? Do we already know who the Republican nominee for president is?
Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today: Well, I think that we know the likely nominee. I think it's increasingly clear that his rivals are not going to keep him from getting the nomination. The only person who costs Donald Trump the nomination at this point, I think, is Donald Trump maybe through some health problem. I mean, he's 77.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Though it makes him young in this context.
Susan Page: He's got these unprecedented legal problems, including a trial that we think will start as the primaries are going on. So, I think it's possible Trump has donned the nominee, but I think that is up to Trump's actions and the consequences of what happens to Trump, not to his rivals that we have seen debate on stage recently.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Mark, is this — are we in a situation where the Republican race is actually the race as sort of an addition to be Trump's vice president?
Mark Leibovich, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: It certainly looks that way. I mean, that's how the debate last week in Milwaukee played out in some ways. I mean, Rick Scott, I mean, there's been some speculation that he was sort of running for that position for a while. He didn't disabuse anyone of it. He didn't do particularly well. Nikki Haley got a lot of immediate sort of speculation around her. Also DeSantis might have been.
So, yes, I mean, I think, clearly, there is a hesitation on part of most of the people on stage to take him on in a seat.
Jeffrey Goldberg: What about Vivek Ramaswamy? Is he count as a possible vice presidential?
Mark Leibovich: I mean, I would say he'd be a decent — I mean, in this sort of day and age, he could. I mean, sure. I mean, Trump would see him as a complete sycophant, which is great. He would see him as a younger version of himself, which would probably appeal to his narcissism, and there you go.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Asma, any thoughts on whether Trump is already the nominee, in fact?
Asma Khalid, White House Correspondent, NPR: I mean, if you look at historical precedent, I don't think that you can see any Republican primary where an incumbent, and I would say Trump has the benefits of an incumbency, has been in the lead at by as much as Donald Trump is and anybody else catch up with him. There's just no historical precedent for it.
You know, I know that everybody keeps looking at the other candidates in this field thinking somebody might have popped after the debate. I didn't really think anybody popped. I mean, the clearest indication to that was how they responded to the question about Donald Trump. Very few people were willing to take him on. You had a lot of them kind of tussling with each other. Nobody really shined.
Susan Page: But I disagree with you, Mark, in saying that Nikki Haley was trying out to be vice president. I think she has decided presidency or nothing because she's called Donald Trump the most disliked politician in America. That does not seem like an application kind of phrase that you would hear.
Tim Scott, I think, could really give the Democrats some problems to put a black man on the ticket. The Republican ticket could draw black voters and it could give permission to swing voters, to suburban voters that this is a ticket they could vote with some confidence even if they feel a little uncomfortable with Trump.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Kyle, I want to turn to you and ask — you've been covering in a deep and granular way the many, many different court cases that are coming. Can you tell us — give us your sense of this last week. What are the things that we should remember about this past week and what are the things that maybe aren't so consequential?
Kyle Cheney, Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, Politico: Sure. I mean, I think right now we're seeing a lot of minutiae play out in these court cases just about timing of trials and sort of just who's going to be tried with who in the 19 defendant racketeering case in Georgia. These are things that we're all going to forget in a matter of days or weeks when the next shoe drops.
I think the biggest thing we're seeing now is what developing in Georgia with people like Mark Meadows, who are trying to bring that case into federal court. I think that's going to define the way that trial moves forward and whether Trump again faces a federal judge in that case or goes into Fulton County. And that affects the way the jury is selected, that affects the way the defendants are tried together or not. So, I think that's more significant.
And what we saw was kind of a mini trial of Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff. I mean, he essentially had to take the stand, which is remarkable at this stage in a criminal proceeding, and it's just starting. And we may see that actually play out with other co-defendants, like Jeffrey Clark and others, who are supposed to be on trial with Trump.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Could you go to this question of the federal trial, the Tanya Chutkan trial? What are the chances that this trial actually starts in the beginning of March?
Kyle Cheney: I think the conventional wisdom is trials always move. I actually think that that date is likelier than people expect to hold. And I think that's because in a normal give and take of the legal process, trials get moved all the time. There's delays, there's issues with evidence. But I think here, there's this conflicting schedules. Here, this should be everyone's top priority, every single person involved.
There's no reason to say, oh, well, I have other trials coming up, so can we please move the date? You have a former president standing taking a criminal trial for the first time in history. There's no reason why anything else should take precedence over that.
So, I think she seems intent on sticking to that schedule. And I don't see why any of the parties would get any leeway to say, oh, things came up so I couldn't meet the deadlines.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. And just walk us through this. How long would a trial — a typical trial like this go? When would we know the results of this trial? When will we hear a verdict?
Kyle Cheney: So, the government, the prosecutors have estimated that their case, just the prosecution case, would take four to six weeks. And so you factor in generously like one week of jury selection, could take two or even three weeks to select a jury, beginning on March 4th. If you don't start a trial until late March, you could be talking early to mid-June.
And the issue there is you have another criminal trial scheduled in Florida on May 20th. So, if this trial doesn't move along at the pace the government expects, and who knows how long Donald Trump's defense might take, will he put on a defense case? Usually, defenses end up shrinking over time. They say, oh, we'll need a month, and it ends up taking three days. But he may want to call 100 people to the stand.
And so you've got this collision course happening with multiple cases, but I don't think you'd see a verdict in that March 4th case until at least late May, early June.
Asma Khalid: Then you've got the political challenge too that you're running into a summer where there's an RNC convention scheduled in Wisconsin, and Donald Trump is the likely nominee.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. And just keep on this granular issue because of the mechanics of next year. If he's on trial in Washington, he has to be there because it's a criminal trial. He can't choose to not attend.
Kyle Cheney: Now, even if, in theory, he would want to, the judge would never allow that. And that's partly because you have a jury. You have a jury that develops certain impressions of people, and the defendants have a right to be not prejudiced by their absence in a criminal case.
In a civil case, and Donald Trump has several of those going to trial in the next few months, potentially, he doesn't have to be there, and he probably won't be there. But in his criminal cases, he'll have to sit in the room and be present potentially for several months.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Susan, I'm asking you to imagine the future, and it hasn't happened yet, so it's a problematic assignment. But May, June, imagine that there's a conviction. Imagine that he's the putative nominee. Is there anything that could happen to keep him from getting the nomination at that point?
Susan Page: Well, I'm sure there are things that could happen, but I think he intends to be the nominee. I think his legal strategy and his political strategy are one and the same. His legal strategy is to get re-elected as president to give him protection during at least during his term of office, to have the possibility of pardoning himself in the federal trials.
But before we imagine the future, can you imagine the present where we are sitting around talking about the former president's trial, and will it prevent him from getting the nomination again? And, by the way, what will voters think about electing someone who's a convicted felon? Would that bother any Americans?
Jeffrey Goldberg: We're obviously in a simulation on Earth 2 right now. Yes, that's clear to me.
Susan Page: I think we shouldn't lose sight of these extraordinary times that are just about anything that the founders ever could have imagined.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Well, I mean, we've spoken about this, actually. There's no protections for some of this built into the Constitution, because the writers of the Constitution never imagined this. Is that fair?
Kyle Cheney: No, I can't imagine they did. I mean, as we talked about, the mechanism of impeachment is the way you deal with a president who presumably has violated his oath or the law while in office or done something unforgivable. And impeachment as a tool seems kind of like a broken process in the modern era. So, even if you were convicted and somehow elected president, I don't think that tool would be — Congress would avail itself of that option either.
Jeffrey Goldberg: The main tool America has is the vote every four years. That's how we choose who becomes president, and that's where we're heading.
Asma, I'm very curious. You cover the White House. How is the Biden administration, how is the campaign thinking about how to run against someone who may very well be a convicted felon?
Asma Khalid: Well, I will say broadly, I mean, the White House will publicly never touch Trump. So, let's put that they're sort of trying to create this division where whenever I asked, they have they don't want to talk. Yes, he's the nominee. I think that becomes very challenging.
But in terms of the campaign and the advisors, I mean, one thing I have begun to notice is throughout this summer, you saw Biden, you often saw V.P. Harris out on the road extensively talking about running to preserve freedom.
And freedom means a whole bunch of things. It means Donald Trump. I would say, in some degree, it means abortion rights, it means voting rights. They equate it with guns. And that messaging is something that this administration, that this campaign is going to continue with.
I think it's an interesting message because other things — you can talk about the economy, you can talk about issues of age, which we'll get to, could be bigger challenges for this White House.
But on democracy and freedom, they look at the fact that they had success with that message in the midterms and they think it will continue to be a potent issue for them, especially if they can point to Donald Trump being the Republican nominee on the other side. There's no one like Trump who really galvanizes Democrats when it comes to enthusiasm.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Mark. I mean, is there a strategy? You can imagine no president has had to devise a strategy to run against the convicted felon before. Can you imagine what they're going to do?
Mark Leibovich: I mean, you would think it would be an asset, right? I mean, it's certainly — you would think it would be a fine position to be if we were not in a weird simulation. I mean, there's an apples to oranges component to this, which is that we're dealing with a primary landscape right now versus a general election landscape.
I mean, I do want to point out, and this didn't get a lot of attention, but at the debate the other night, Christie and, to some degree, Asa Hutchison were kind of going after Trump, and there was this big wall of noise from the crowd, like these boos, and, immediately, they were coming to Trump's defense.
Because I was covering the debate, which means I was in a media center with access to T.V. sets that had feeds that showed the crowd, there was actually a fair amount of support in the audience and a lot of nodding heads for this not being a good thing. So, these are hardcore Republicans.
And I do think that it is kind of important to try to place ourselves in the spring 2024 mindset of what this actually could look like in real-time.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Do you think that there are Republicans out there who will — supporters of Donald Trump Trump who will, if he's convicted, just change their minds?
Mark Leibovich: Not supporters of Donald Trump. But I think that we're talking conservatively, maybe 50 percent of Republicans who Trump is not their first choice. And it could have a chilling effect, certainly as you get closer to an election.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Let's talk about age, because we've mentioned Mitch McConnell. This is the second time this happened. There's an odd thing that happens when Mitch McConnell has a health scare in that Washington begins to talk about Joe Biden's age. It's not necessarily fair to Joe Biden, but here we are.
Susan Page: Mitch McConnell, who is having all these serious health problems.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Serious health problems. And, obviously, everybody wishes him well, and Joe Biden, in a kind of almost archaic move, given how Washington is, wished him well, doesn't happen in a cross partisan way anymore.
But talk about this. Is there a chance that he steps down? And what would that mean for the Republican leadership in the Senate and possibly negotiations over budget issues and government shutdown issues?
Susan Page: I mean, is it possible he doesn't step down at some point? It seems unlikely to me that he serves the rest of his term as the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. And there are several people, all of them named John, who would like to succeed him as a Republican leader. And all of them are respected.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Can you name the Johns?
Susan Page: John Thune, John Barrasso, and John Cornyn. So —
Jeffrey Goldberg: You win a prize.
Susan Page: Yes. Thank you. Can I take the mug home? You get to take the mug, possibly.
Susan Page: But it's bad news for Biden in two ways. One is it spotlights age as a risk factor, which Biden doesn't need. The other thing is Biden needs a McConnell for governing in the next couple of months to fund the government. The government is about to run out of money at the end of this month and could shut down. The aid to Ukraine is something that Mitch McConnell has been very helpful with for the administration.
So, this is bad news for McConnell. This is bad news for Biden, too.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Interesting. Asma as someone who covers the White House and also covers the Democratic electorate, is this the explanation for Biden's difficulty in the polls, his age?
Asma Khalid: It could be one of the explanations. You had the poll numbers out there earlier, and the cross tabs will show you that a majority of Democrats are concerned about Biden's age. There's no doubt. I heard this. I was out talking to a bunch of young voters at the NAACP convention this summer. It is one of the reasons.
But I also think that there are other reasons why Biden has struggled in the polls. You see a lackluster support when you talk about progressives, young voters, folks on the left, who don't feel like he's delivered on certain agenda items.
Again, I'm not saying that these voters will turn towards Donald Trump when there's actually an ultimatum of whom to vote for.
But, look, I think the age question is one that you hear from a lot of Democratic activists who are concerned. It is kind of an unspoken thing amongst Democrats who will whisper it and say it very quietly that they are concerned. A health scare could pop up anytime between now and next December.
You know, I think that this White House, you could say, is aware of that, and I think you don't want to say that there's necessarily a cause and effect. But if I look back in June, you'll remember there was this moment where President Biden tripped over a sandbag when he was delivering remarks in Colorado.
Ever since then, I've been out with him. He tends to use the lower staircase in going up Air Force One. That was not a routine thing that he did. Prior to that, at least that I recollect. And, look, is it a cause and effect? Who knows? But nobody within the Democratic circle really wants to take the risk of a president tripping as he's going up on the plane.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Mark, you've written a lot about this issue of age, and you spent some time recently with Governor Whitmer of Michigan, everybody's idea of a future Democratic presidential nominee. How bad is this for Biden? Is there any possibility that anyone in the Democratic Party is going to challenge what is now the status quo, that Joe Biden is the nominee and Kamala Harris is his running mate?
Mark Leibovich: This could be wish casting. I think it gets less possible every day. But it also — look, the opportunity is there for a Democrat to, I think, give Democratic voters a choice.
Now, I will say that Donald Trump has not only made Republicans terrified of him but he's also made Democrats very risk averse. And when you're risk averse, you don't want to sort of go for a fresh face. You don't want to try your hand at something that hasn't worked before. I mean, there's nothing more conservative than going with the guy who won the last time or with someone who's as familiar with him.
Look, I think I could make a case, and I'm not going to bore anyone with this, but I think that people — I think a Democrat who is ambitious and savvy and respectful could make an extremely compelling case for him or herself.
Jeffrey Goldberg: What are the chances of that happening?
Susan Page: I don't think it happens unless Biden opens the door to it. I don't think it's going to happen without Biden saying, I'm stepping down for whatever reason. But if Biden did that, I think there would be a big contest, including Vice President Harris, including a Midwestern Democratic governor. That could be a formidable candidate. Amy Klobuchar ran a respectable race last time. I mean, I think there would be a lot of competition for that.
And it would be pretty messy because are you trying to deny the first black woman to be elected to national office, deny her a chance to move up a slot? And, yes, there are Democrats who'd be happy to challenge —
Jeffrey Goldberg: Kamala Harris has problems with popularity, but the base is with Kamala, yes? Is that a fair statement?
Asma Khalid: Yes. I mean, I went out with her quite to a number of stops this summer, and, really, the campaign sees her as being specifically able to court black and brown voters, young voters, and these are base voters that the Democratic Party needs. She has been out there a lot more on the campaign.
But to your point, I think it would be very messy if Biden, for any reason, were not to run or even frankly and say he wins a second term and doesn't run. And if Kamala Harris is not — if a lot of other Democrats contest her, I think it could be messy for the party. And I don't know that there's a clear answer of what would happen.
Mark Leibovich: Yes. I think what's happening now is pretty messy, too. It might just be quieter and less polite to talk about in public.
Jeffrey Goldberg: What do you mean by that?
Mark Leibovich: I think these massive poll numbers against Biden largely because of his age and the age itself. I mean, look, he's 80 years old. I mean, we cannot sit here and make him any younger, unfortunately.
So, to me, that is central here. And, again, it's a little too clear cut to talk about, but it's very, very messy.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Could you just talk for one more minute just from your reporter perspective? You're watching him incredible closely. You've studied the stairs of Air Force One and which staircase people use. Do you feel like he's noticeably slowed down in any form or fashion?
Asma Khalid: Look, I went out with Biden a good amount during the 2020 campaign. I think there is an attempt by the staff to manage him more closely and carefully than there was during 2020.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Physically?
Asma Khalid: Physically, but also even I would say — I mean, this is no secret, right? I think that there was an effort to kind of — he doesn't do press conferences as often, right? He'll take questions here and there under the wing, but he was just more off the cuff as a candidate, speaking to reporters at different stops where he would go.
Look, I think, ultimately, no matter how fit or unfit somebody is at the age of 80, potentially being 82 upon inauguration, that raises questions for anybody of any health.
Kyle Cheney: I kind of wonder too how much of this is driven. Republicans on the other side have spent four years almost kind of weaponizing Biden's age against him. Trump is not that much younger than him, but we don't ever talk about Donald Trump's age.
Asma Khalid: You don't see it in the poll numbers either.
Kyle Cheney: Right.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Why is that?
Kyle Cheney: I mean, that's a great question in part because I don't think you've had this years of concerted effort. I mean, Donald Trump, they're running ads showing Biden tripping every five seconds. And I think that creates an aura that has sort of stuck with Joe Biden. Donald Trump has always been very good at branding his opponents in ways that they can't shake, and this seems to be one of those examples, is just to talk about Biden's age and his health. And every time he coughs we're going to put that in an ad.
And they don't do — there's no counterpart to that aimed at Donald Trump, who has a different demeanor than Biden, but certainly has things you could point out about his own age.
Mark Leibovich: Can I just actually just point out, though, that, I mean, it's not just making an issue of Biden's age, it's lying, it's saying he's senile, saying he's demented, saying he's out of it. I mean, I think it's important to sort of state for a fact that a lot of these are just —
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. Mentally, he's quite acute.
Mark Leibovich: It seems like it.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes. Susan, how did we get to a point where in a country of 330 million people, we probably have a 77-year-old running against an 81-year-old, 78-year-old?
Susan Page: And, by the way, the two people who ran against each other last time around.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.
Susan Page: And where a majority of Americans say, please do not nominate these two people, we would like to vote for somebody else? Yes.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Right. This is an essay question. You have 40 seconds to answer.
Susan Page: It's because we have two incumbent presidents. Incumbents have a lot of advantages when it comes to running again. This is incumbent President Trump against incumbent President Biden. And the likelihood — and, I mean, things change, it's more than a year away, but this is the most likely scenario, the most likely choice Americans are going to have next year.
Jeffrey Goldberg: And there's no off ramp, you're not seeing any off ramps to this contest right now?
Susan Page: Well, not at the moment. But should we say that given the age of both these candidates and the fact that that this — one of the candidates is about to go on trial? So, things happen.
Jeffrey Goldberg: Things do happen.
We have to leave it there for now. It's a fascinating conversation and will continue. Thanks to everyone on the panel for joining us and for sharing your reporting. And thanks to all of you for joining us as well.
And tune in Saturday to PBS News Weekend for the lessons learned by Hurricane Idalia and the future of disaster response. That's Saturday on PBS News Weekend.
I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.
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