tv Washington Week PBS October 21, 2017 1:30am-2:01am PDT
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>> two federal investigations are under way into the isis attacks on u.s. troops. i'm robert costa. we get the latest reporting from the pentagon, tonight on "washington week." >> the loss of our troops is under investigation. we'll certainly update you as we have information, accurate information, not speculation. >> the pentagon launches an investigation into the deadly isis attack. the retired four-star general defends the president's conversation with a gold star widow. >> there's no perfect way to make that phone call. >> and two former presidents speak out about the political climate in america. >> our identity as a nation, unlike many other nations, is not determined by geography or ethnicity. this means that people of every
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race, religion, ethnicity, can be fully and equally american. >> we've got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry. to demonize people who have different ideas. >> plus, president trump praises, then shuns a bipartisan deal to restore funding to the affordable care act. >> i won't do anything to enrich the insurance companies. >> we think it's a good solution. it stabilizes the system. >> meanwhile, republicans shift to the president's sweeping tax plan, after pushing through a budget framework. we cover it all with yamiche alcindor of the new york times, molly ball of the atlantic, nancy youssef of the wall street journal, and jeff zeleny of cnn. >> celebrating 50 years, this is "washington week." funding is provided by... >> their leadership is
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instinctive. they understand the challenges of today and research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. >> additional funding is provided by newman's own foundation. donating all profits from newman's own food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you! once again, live from
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washington, moderator robert costa. >> good evening. the f.b.i. is now assisting the pentagon with its investigation into the ambush in niger that targeted u.s. special forces. it was the deadliest attack on u.s. troops since president trump took office. yet so far, much of the focus has been on the president's conversations with the families of the fallen soldiers. four u.s. service members were killed in the isis-led gun fight. staff sergeants dustin wright, jeremiah johnson, bryan black, and sergeant ladavid johnson. on friday, defense secretary james mattis met with arizona senator john mccain. the chairman of the armed services committee threatened to issue subpoenas to get more details about that october 4 attack. the fallout has rattled the military, congress and the country. but it was the president's calls and what he said that ignited a national debate.
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florida democratic congresswoman frederica wilson said she heard the president tell the widow of one of the soldiers who was killed that, quote, her husband knew what he signed up for, but i guess it still hurts. end quote. mr. trump denied saying that and his chief of staff, john kelly, a retired marine general whose son was killed in afghanistan seven years ago, defended the president. >> he called four people the other day and expressed his condolences in the best way that he could. and he said to me, what do i say? i said to him, sir, there's nothing you can do to lighten the burden on these families. >> hours later, president trump attacked wilson, who criticized his call to the widow of sergeant johnson, insisting she lied about what he said. let's begin tonight about what we know, nancy, about the mission there. just a few weeks ago, most americans didn't even know we had u.s. forces in africa, fighting isis. now u.s. service members have
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been killed. what is our mission in niger? >> so there are about 800 troops in niger itself. and this mission is part of an effort to train their nigerian counterparts against a multiple number of threats. there are various jihadist groups, for control of snuggling routes. so the goal is to create a force that can contain that threat and stop the expansion of islamic jihaddist groups in that territory. >> nbc is reporting that there was a massive intelligence failure in this operation. >> well, one of the challenges is that the u.s. is depending on nigerian forces. and the nigerian forces are compromised. some are demoralized. some are using these smuggling routes themselves. and the villagers will tell you that they are fearful to provide
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information to those sources, because those forces leave at night. the jihadi groups do not. should they be found out to be giving intelligence, they fear for their lives. so it makes it very hard to have strong intelligence. and you find that, with such few u.s. resources there, that they're depending on alternative sources of information. >> as we try to answer all these questions and the government tries to look for answers, why is the f.b.i. involved. >> so the f.b.i. investigation is separate from the pentagon investigation. the pentagon is trying to answer, what happened? what are changes that need to be made in terms of techniques, tactics and procedures? the f.b.i., on the other hand is trying to figure out two things. one, what kind of intelligence can they gather? and two, if we can find out the actual individuals who were involved in this ambush, that their plan is to then bring evidence force to then charge them potentially in federal court. >> did president trump authorize this mission? >> we don't know the answer to
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that. he was asked in the oval office today. he heard the question and did not respond. the white house press secretary was asked that, did not respond. james mattis was asked that. he did not say. it's very likely that a type of mission like this would not need presidential sign-off, because it was, in many respects, a routine mission. obviously there was some type of intelligence failure, because this happened. but it was actually more of a routine or seen as a routine operation. this is something -- it happened on the day the president was flying back from vegas. he went out to visit the victims of that horrible shooting there, and he learned news of this when he was flying back to washington. the striking thing, though, was the utter silence from the white house for 12 days. they did not say anything at all about this, with the exception of the press secretary, sarah sanders, but the president did not. this is a president who talks about a lot of things very often. so the political side of this, which is very separate from the substantive side of this, all
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started on monday, when he was asked by my colleague, sarah murray, in that rose garden display, why haven't you said anything about this? and then it touched off the firestorm. >> and you've been on capitol hill all week. congress seems to be on edge, senator mccain in particular, about the lack of information about this mission. and they're threatening subpoenas. >> yes. and senator mccain is essentially saying, i want to know what happened, why we were there, what happened. was there an intelligence failure. did they have the right support? i mean, there are so many questions that congress wants to ask. i should say that i've been talking to some democrats about this, including representative wilson, and she essentially says, and the talking point is, that this is trump's benghazi. they see it as a political opportunity to question what his effectiveness as a commander in chief. i think there's republicans also wanting to know more. and i think democrats generally want to know more as well, but
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it's also whether or not they're going to use it to attack the president. >> and the most jarring moment for some, the most powerful moment for others this week, molly, was when general kelly came to the podium in the briefing room and it was powerful to hear from a gold star father, but even that moment, hearing from him, was a flash point. it generated as much praise as it did criticism. >> well, and it was, on the one hand, a very different presentation of the sort that trump gives. and so i think that affected a lot of people, to see someone who had such seriousness and who really projects that air of authority. and speaks for emotionally about his concern for the lives of those killed in combat, including his own son. on the other hand, there were parts of it that were very disturbing. the story that he told about representative wilson was a very trumpian tactic, of turning something into a political attack on a perceived enemy, rather than what keeping it a
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de-politicized zone, the death of soldiers. he's been doing exactly what trump does, which is turn it into a personal, political fight. and then he wasn't telling the truth about what she said, whether it was because he mis-remembered the encounter or deliberately he didn't tell the truth about this speech that he attacked her for, that apparently didn't happen. and then, you know, he made these comments attacking the press and saying that -- essentially saying if you're not, you know, flesh and blood of a member of the military, you're not qualified to have an opinion about this. or even to cover it. i mean, i happen to be related to a member of the military. but i don't think that makes me any more or less of an american citizen than anybody else. and so it was a very remarkable presentation, i think. >> and i think what's interesting about what you said is that it's a trumpian tactic. so you have general kelly saying this. at first, as a reporter, i think
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a lot of people heard this and said, okay, frederica wilson, she's very well known as being bombastic, someone who wears her decorative hats, so at face value, they would say, okay, general kelly wouldn't make up a story about this congresswoman. but then local reporters in miami have been doing a phenomenal job and they come out with this nine-minute video that shows the exact opposite. general kelly said she was basically bragging about getting $20 million from president trump. so you have said saying she was using this as a political moment, but also invoking president trump. neither of that is true. in the speech, she actually thrangs a lot of -- thanks a lot of republicans for helping her get this building named for these fallen f.b.i. agents. i think that's where the problematic thing is. when i was speaking to representative wilson all week, she said i don't even understand why he would say this, because it's so easy to trace that this would be a lie. she called it a lie. but also she said essentially, that she felt there was some
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racial charge there. this is a president, of course, that's had all sorts of issues with race. when i asked her, what do you think is going on? she said the white house is full of white supremacists. that's really interesting, because there are people in miami who said they feel this way. so you have this president, even when he's trying to do the right thing, people are seeing it through this prism of race. >> we heard from the former president obama. they're talking about the ugliness of this national debate, this messness, this infusion of race, gold star families. they stepped forward to not criticize president trump by name but to criticize the kind of week we witnessed. >> no doubt. i think as we take stock of weeks and we've done this often, this was an extraordinary week in that respect. to hear from president bush specifically, because president obama has been out there a little bit more. but to hear president bush talking about this, we basically know how he and his family feel.
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but to hear him articulate this, in a more optimistic way really, to say that the country is essentially better than this. we can overcome this. it was all tied together. this speech was long planned. but i think the timing of it is, you know, really interesting. back to the chief of staff for one second. i was in that briefing room on thursday. just to -- i mean, you could see the emotion on his face, you could hear it in his voice. as he wore his three hats, his chief of staffs hat and his father's hat, he is eminently qualified to talk about all of this. but the reality is he has a political job. his job is politics. he was defending the president. but i think it highlights how all of this has been politicized by him, by the president, by the congresswoman. it shows how low our discourse has sunk, i think, and how there's no trust or credibility, even a phone call can become controversial like this. it was pretty unseemly, i
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thought. >> and the context of these phone calls, nancy, is really a subject of debate, interpretation. you've spoken with gold star families about what it's like to get that call. >> i spoke to families who had received a call from the president. i spoke to families who were told they would get the call and didn't. what struck me, the connector thread, is that call is not the thing that sustains them in those early days. it's not the comfort that carries them. it's the support of local communities, of families, of friends. i talked to people who couldn't even find the letter that they'd gotten from the president, because at the end of the day, as they describe it, when you lose a loved one, it's flattering to have that acknowledgment by the president, but in those horrific early days in particular, what carries you through are the people who loved your loved one as much as you did. and that's what they remember in that period, not the v.i.p.'s who may or may not have called. >> molly, you covered senator lindsey graham of south carolina
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for some time. he said today we don't want the next 9/11 to come from niger, to come from isis in africa. are we witnessing on the republican side a willingness to have more intervention in that part of the world, to fight isis? >> no. there's never been a lack of willingness on the part of lindsey graham. he's one of the most ardent interventionists in the congress. he has taken on one version of trump, the america first vision that he has sometimes espoused and sometimes not, because the president was all over the map on everything, including foreign policy. so i think lindsey lindsey is -- lindsey graham is always willing to go there. this administration has been so all over the map that we have no idea. there has not been a coherent ideological push to reorient the united states in one direction or another. it's just been things here and there. it hasn't added up to yes, we're going to, you know, push
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forward, or yes, we're going to pull back. we're going to fulfill some of those america first promises and really get the troops out of all these foreign countries, where candidate trump was so critical of the efforts. i do think that one thing the niger incident highlights is that that is a very significant unfulfilled promise, that the president has basically done nothing to scale back the american presence overseas, even though that was the signature plank of his foreign policy platform. >> do we see a strategy emerging, isis in africa? >> we could see potentially two things. we could see a more aggressive approach in an attempt to go after the islamic in the sahara. alternatively, we could see a retreat, that the u.s. simply doesn't have the resources, particularly in africa, to have enough intelligence, enough drones, air support to protect those troops such that when they're in harm's way, they can be safely taken care of. in this instance, it was the french that evacuated u.s.
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troops, because the u.s. military did not have air assets in that area. >> as lawmakers evaluate what happened in this niger attack, they're also dealing with a lot of other issues on capitol hill. where president trump's agenda has been stalled for months. this week, there are a few sparks that could reshape how americans access health care and who pays what in taxes. all of this doesn't mean anything is a done deal. first, the possible overhaul of the tax code. the senate passed a $4 trillion budget overnight, clearing the way for the republican tax revamp. >> passing this budget is critical to getting tax reform done. so we can strengthen our economy, after years of stagnation. under the previous administration. >> at the same time, two dozen senators have signed on to a bipartisan health care deal, sponsored by lamar alexander of tennessee and patty murphy of washington state. the alexander alexander proposal would -- alexander-murray proposal would reinstate the
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subsidies for low-income families for two years, stabilize individual insurance markets and give states flexibility to customize health plans. president trump announced that he would stop paying the cost-sharing subsidies, because he said they were nothing more than a bailout to insurance companies. looks like there was some progress in the budget, tax reform and health care, but many obstacles remain. >> there are a lot of obstacles remain, mainly because congress has this long laundry list of things to get done. if you think about health care, essentially senator lamar alexander said we just want to avoid chaos. i thought that was striking, because essentially republicans are making the case that we can't do anything about health care. we have to do something about it. because essentially we'll be blamed for it when people's premiums skyrocket. they have this bipartisan deal that would allow people to do all sorts of things and would help premiums go down or at least stay lower than they would be. the problem is whether or not that's actually going to pass.
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only a couple of senators support it. sources that i've gotten say the president is the one who wanted to have a bipartisan deal on health care but then you saw him kind of back track. >> that was so interesting. talk about the old frayed, i was -- the old phrase, i was for it before i was against it. on monday, he spoke in favor of it, in the rose garden. then there was -- by the time he walked back inside, i was told by an advisor, there was already alarm from conservatives coming in, including some house republicans, who aren't in favor of this plan at all. the president is sort of out there supporting it. then he dials it back the next day. then on thursday, he says he's for a bipartisan plan. he's been on the phone with senator alexander repeatedly this week, urging him to keep going. so i think this is a sign that the president wants some type of deal. he knows that the ownership of health care will eventually be his. i think that's a worry of his. but i do not see any agreement in the short term on that. perhaps at the end of the year,
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after the tax plan and other things. but the president is sending mixed signals. and, again, he does not always have the grasp of all the details. >> molly, when i was at the capitol hill the other, i was talking to senators and they say they're moving on tax reform. is that really going to be the priority for the next few months? if you're worrying about what is going to happen first? >> you know, they're both sort of up in the air. this health care thing is sort of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. they actually managed to work out a bipartisan deal. then they left poor lamar alexander essentially all alone, out on a limb, and sawed it off, with the president dramatically undercutting imhad. the republican caucus is never going to sign on to something that they don't know president trump would have their back on. if they feel like they would be instantly unpopular, they are never going to do something that puts them at that kind of
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political risk. because plum president trump hat these mix signals, they are terrified of it. >> do they also feel like they could easily own tax reforms and cuts in a way that they could not own health care? >> it is an encouraging sign for those who want to get this done that the budget did pass. i think much faster than a lot of people expected. but all that does is open the door. and they still have to actually, you know, make a bill. ha ha! so, like, there is no agreement that this is something everybody wants to get done. but the devil is in the details. the details don't exist. and this is not a congress that inspires a lot of confidence about its ability to work out details. >> i mean, i think that it all comes down to the president's credibility on capitol hill. and from what i can tell, from all the republicans that i talked to, even if they're on the record saying, yes, i support this president, in reality, they don't really trust him. they don't really trust that if they pass this bipartisan deal or they pass something that may
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be repeals parts of obamacare and then everybody gets mad, and people's premiums go up and the base doesn't like it, that president trump is going to turn around and say, look, it's not my fault. this is what congress gave me. i passed what i could. you can almost see the argument that he would make from the rose garden. i think that's why health care is so hard. i think tax reform is one of those things that republicans have thought about it for so many longer, it's closer to their brand as a party, i think that's why. >> and they need it more than anything else. they need a victory. that is one reason mitch mcconnell was at the white house this week. they need some type of an accomplishment, i think, if they want to, you know, not face the wrath of their vot voters next . >> and the white house is involved in trying to yank this murray-alexander bill to the right, because they probably feel they need something for 2018. >> that's right. but i'm told that these principles that they're talking about is basically repealing obamacare, which makes this --
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>> that's right. >> which makes what was a bipartisan plan no longer a bipartisan plan, so we're sort of back to square one, because the problems still exist in the republican conference, not among democrats. >> you can always feel the tug-of-war that's happening internally in the white house. different staffers with different priorities, different positions and a president who doesn't really have one, and he gets tugged in different things and so there isn't a coherent line. >> such a smart point. the president seems to want a bipartisan deal. they're talking about getting rid of the individual mandate, the employer mandate. that seems to be the possible tweet. you're looking at a president being pulled in both directions. >> i don't think donald trump himself wrote those talking points, right? it's a faction in the white house. they're competing factions in the white house, always. >> i also heard that the president possibly himself or at least people in his administration have literally
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been making the pitch to democrats, why don't we get a bipartisan deal to repeal and replace obamacare? like using that actual language. and democrats are like, of course i'm not gonna do that. so i think there's a real problem, because you had a president who was wildly popular enough to win the presidency, but never has a firm grasp of what actually policies he wanted passed. >> that's why the president made a move on those subsidies, to try to get the democrats to the table. >> he did. look, the reality here is that health care -- no one that i talked to think it's going to happen this year. tax reform might. >> we'll leave it there. before we go, we want to take a moment to acknowledge judy woodruff and the late gwen ifill, who were awarded the walter cronkite award for excellence in journalism this week. gwen's brother said the coanchors were so successful together, because they shared the same commitment to the truth. that's what so many of you saw
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every week, around this table, with gwen. we miss her very much. and judy said it best during her speech, that we need good journalists now more than ever. i can't think of any duo we'd rather have, holding leaders' feet to the fire, than those two wonderful ladies. our conversation will continue online. you can find that later tonight and all weekend at pbs.org/washingtonweek. thank you for watching! i'm robert costa. have a nice weekend! >> funding for "washington week" is provided by... ♪[music] >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today and research the
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technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. >> additional funding is provided by newman's own foundation. donating all profits from newman's own food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you! thank you! >> you're watching pbs.
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