robert: crisi and confrontations across washington. president trump signs a bipartisan spending bill, but not before a shutdown showdown. rattled markets are and the white house faces tough questions over conduct. i'm robertos. we'll discuss the numbers and the decisions, the fallout and what's next tonight on >> we are in a terrible state as a country. $20 trillion in debt is bigger than our entire economy. robert: republican senator rand paul takes a stand against rising spending. l >> i can'tk the other way because my party is now complicit in the dicits. robert: house minority leader nancy pelosi gives a marathon eight-hour speech seekiot to t undocumented immigrants known as dreamers.

>> membe of congress are trustees of the people and our nation. why are we here if not to protect the patriotic people who are determined to contribute and strengthen america? robert: by friday, president trumped sign a spending package, coffers. we explain what's inside the two-year deal. plus, damage controlou the white chief of staff under scrutiny for his handling of abuse allegations against rmer top aide r porter. the timeseine rai questions about who else was aware of rter's past and troub with his security thearance. e president weighs in sing he's very sad about the departure. >> well, we wish him well. he worked very hards you probably know, he says he's innocent. and i think you have to remember that. robert: and a market correction.

the dow dropped more than 1,000 oints not once, but twice. what's driving market turmoil? g we'lt highlights from kristen welker of nbc peter baker of the new york times.ls and snell of n. >> this is "washington week." funding is provide by -- >> their leadership is insince the active -- instinctive. they research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans.al we them part of our team. >> on a cruisn with ameri

cruise lines travelers experience the m and culture of new england. our fleet of small cruis ships explores american landscapes. seaside villages and historic harbors where you can experience local customsui andne. american cruise lines, proud sponsor of "washington week." announcer: additional funding is provided by neumann's own foundation, donating all profits from neumann's own food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation, ku and patric ewing, committed to bridging c our communities, the corporation of public badcasts and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

once again from washington, derator robert costa. robert: good evening. president trump signed a bipartisan $400 bi budget agreement friday ending a brief government shutdown that began at mid night. it faced oppositiohe from right and the left. block the ied to bill with a procedure move. but he was denied. the two-year budget will lift the debt limit until march 2019, increase military spending by il $165on. plus, tick up domestic spending by $131 billi and to add $90 billion for disaster relief. senar paul isn't thenly conservative in the house and the e who considered package fiscally irresponsible nd house democrats their attempts to protect young documented immigrants brought to

this country as children also failed just weeks ahead of arc 5th deadline. peter, when you look at this budget deal, it's a tick up in spending, a maj increase in spending. you have to wonder is this republican party which controls the white house a different republican party thandet was president obama when it comes to being fiscally conservative and trying to maintain the budget caps? peter: they can solve their partisan differences by spending other people's money. we're spending money what we want and it doesn't matter if it leaves a debt for our kids down the road. given how much a fractured relationship we had it may be the only wayo get through it. what was interesting was who was in the sideline, president trump. he said let's have a shutdown. i wan ahutdown so we have an immigration deal. they said we are not going to

pay attention to that. the president signed it. buit wasn't his deal. he said he was going to restore fiscal sheity. as going to eliminate the entire demet eight years. now we're heading the other direction. robert: the question of whythe presididn't get what he wanted, kelsey, it comes down to who controls congress. we hear on the right they wanted to be more fiscallyesponsible. yet, it's the middle, the appropriateators. s a nd now the middle h little bit more power because they're the only people who can seem to come together. when you're trying to cobble togeer 61 votes and 218 votes in the00 you're absolutely not going toeteng that by trying to court the far right and the far left because they're together. to come that's part of the problem on immigration. on spending at leas when you put together a big package like

the one that just past,here's a little bit something for everybody. it's not going to be that way for immigration. >> the debt limit was extended until 2018. the markets may likehat. >> the federal reserve moves to increase the interest rates the b.o. says this is going to cost $100 m billione in interest alone. the word that i keep hearing an experiment, a fiscal experiment because inimes of a healthy economy, a strong economy, rip roaring growth, job growth, you don't see spending like this, a tax increase of $125 trillion, a bipartisan spending plan to the tune that eek, people d this don't have a historical precedent for how this is going to playmi out in eco times just like this. >> well, what i think is interesting about this, tt presids saying, hey, this

is a victory because we did increase military spending. but it has infuriated the two bases. if you talk'so president tru base, there's no funding for the border wall? when are we g dng tol with that campaign promise? and the deficit is on the way up. we have democrats saying we didn't deal with the one issue we wanted to deal with which was dreamers. th's why you had nancy pelosi trying to block this she wasn't able to. i anhink there was a sense that she wasn't going to be able to ultimately. but still you see the two sides of this and h far apart they are. and it raises a lot of about how do they get an immigration deal done by that march 5th deadline? they want to get a deal on border security and dreamers. are they going to be able to do 't. robert: you deally have a debate in this congress about military spending. it goes up $65 billion in this agreement. what's happened in this country

hat's changed the debate where there's really little debate on how much the military gets. >>in it's str because the president wanted to retreat a little bit in his view early in his eagements overseas. he did agree to some smallde oyment that the generals asked him to make. we're not currently in iraq or haria in large numbers. so the idea we're going to ild up in a time where we're pulling back to some extent is striking. but the military felt constrained by these sequestered caps. they've complained vigorously. it's one that democrats feel on e defensive about. it's an easy pass on that way. robert: they extended the children's health insurance program. even more, $131 billion f domestic spending. $90 million for disaster relief. senator cruz got behind that. jon tester of mt. got behind the

extension of community health senators. there's a lot in this. what's most important? >>hey locked in the parity. that's the thing you hear them talk about. why do you hear them talk about pari tmbs y. domestic programs are worth e spending the s as the military. they were worried that republicans were going t get some longer ention tension of mill -- eyxtension of milit funding and it would forever change the domestic programs that most people interact with asis. aily the thing that you got out of this is not having to talk about spending until after the election they don't want to be in charge of having a spending or shutdown fight. every couple of weeks. robert: they kicked that down th road, cayla, but they haven't addressed immigration. what's your read on the nextep or a possible dreamer's package? willakhe moderates crole? will this be another leadership deal?

>> we hea senator jeff flake saying there is a deal even though we haven't seen the contours of that actually get agreedo. but what struck me this week is you heard mitchcconnell and paul ryan say that they would move toward an immigration debate and regular order on immigration, but not guaranteeing any outcome. it seemed that they were hedging their bets because they didn't c want tomit to actually agreeing to a package because they don't know what the president will support at this time. that's something that speaker ryan said again and senator majority leader mitch mcconnell doesn't know where he can get the vot. robert: can they have leader schumer and mcconnell hatch another plan on immigration? >> i think top officials at the house are going to be deeply engaged. e vice president and as well as john kelly. although he's had a rocky week. we've seen this president take a step back to some extent and sort of allow his team to take

the lead and trying to get some legislative victories. we saw that during tax reform. we let his team take the ld there. tes proposal would g $2 million dreamer as pathway to citizenship. that's something that has earned him the nickname of amnesty don for his base. this is something that he's willing to compromise on. he's willing, i thi to take a couple of steps toward the left to try to get something don q thstion is, to what extent is he going toweet, maybe s something that could royal the sen active negotiations. >> they still have to figure out what they're going to on immigration. thtoe are other f that play in these debates. and one of them is wall seet, the wall street volatility. the stock market it took a nose dive twice, going down more than

1,000 points on monday and thursday. if the economy is strong with its fundamentals acording to some analysts then why t market so volatile? >> the first initial trigger wao the jobs report. and the idea that jobs are increasing. maybe you would seenterest rates go up faster. and that spooked people atl l bit. jay powell is not in his first week at the federal reserve. heny hasn't made public statements. there's really nothing that happened to spook pple except that they're starting to figure, ok, the market has gone 35%. corporate earnings are strong but there has to be a pullback. and what happens here? afetyresident's enjoyed a net of sorts from the stock market that has been able to absorb all the headline risk that has come out of the white house. we've seen fractures. we've seen some of the slip-ups.

discussing the dollar. u saw the market really go into a tail spin when that happened. and so if the market starts to control showing cracks, the white house is going to have t be more thoughtful about how it addresses economic policy and how it controls the headlines. >> cayla mentioned that jay powell is raling market. in your piece, peter, you mentioned in 199 when greenspan comes in he rattles the markets. there's a political angle with all this youreadline the time was live by the dow, die b the a memo to president trump. >> look, this is a president who like his predecessors touted the rise in the stock market. he did it 25 times in january alone. that's something presidents don't do becae what goes up can come down. if you want to take credit oi you're to be blamed for the bad days. the president tried to put that aside. he said it makes no sense that the stock market went down since

everhing is good. but that's the way the markets work. they don't respond to dictate p of asident. you have to be careful of the president to be too outout robert: will the white house change its tune about the market? >> i think we're starting to see that already. you said sara huckabee sanders say look the fundamentals are strong. you have unemployment coming down. you have other strong indicators in the economy. but i thi a weo saw something striking which is that president trump wasn't tweeting a whole lot about the stock market this week.r one wayhe other. when you talk to officials onto cahill they say this is a big problem. he's got to pull back. so he's not j gtting from top officials who are telling him it's stop to weigh t in o stock mark. i think he's getting it from a alli outside the white house as well. robert: the higher the deficits rise the more likely it is that interest res will surge, stock

prices consumer spendsing and the overall econoat. do they do on capitol hill mattersr the economy. >> it absolutely do. we saw rand paul saying that in the b og of the show. it's something that house republicans had been screaming y is that te worried that they we're talking about huge deficits here. they weren't 34ri9ically -- politically. but they worry abo you know, the political outcomes and the the mic outcomes of policies they've made. s that some of the irony they've taken the deficit hawks. four separat democrats raise it is issue of deficit spending where money for infrastructure is coming from. it's tradional for the minority party to take the opposition for any policy that's in place. but the irony is that dems have become the deficit hawks. >> a budget fight, the stock markets going here and there. it was a big week already. but there was more.

more staff turmoil at the white house this week. staff secretary rob porter resigned after allegations of domestic abuse from two former wives. porter had worked in the west wing for more than a year it serving his house staff secretary. his reputation it was similar to john kelly's. a smart steady member, but reports that he abuse bot of he is ex-wives led to his resignation. john kelly took no action and did not advise the president. and don mcgan news about the allegations about physical and emotional abuse at least a year ago. shareday president trump his thoughts on porter. president trump: he said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent. so you'll have to talk to him about that. but we absolutely wish him well. did a very good job while he was

at the white house. robert: you spoke wit one of his ex-wives, jennifer willowbee. put a human face on this story. >> well, i spoke to jennifer. he has quite a story to tell. she says that her relationship was abusive mostly. emotionally abusive. sh does describe an incident when she was in the shower, she was pulled off aggressively by rob porter. she filed aer resthraining o and during that time he crashed in a window. she was tealrified. shed police. but what i also found very significant about what she said is that she told all of this to the f.b.i. she shared her sto with the f.b.i. as did rob porter's first wife. andhe was very detailed, she says. when they asked her if rob porter coulde vulnerable to blackmail? maybe because he h had all these volatile relationships. the white house was made aware

of this. white house council don mcgan and we belief th the chief of staff was made aware once againe f my colleagues had the chance to actually ask him in person, when did you find out? general kelly, he sa look, he knew that there was ahold-up in terms rob porter getting his security status b he doesn know. robert: when it comes to security process and also credibility questions, how he handled it. this is supposed to be a no-no sense general. if he didn't gethe details, why didn't he go after the detail because rob porter is and was a right-hand man or aids to the president. it's raised questions and among others around president trump wh has been on and off on john kelly. you add that to the daca comment about how some immigrants were too lazyly to a under the daca

program. it creates an impression of a chf of staff who is on the bubble here. now the president has talked to some of this advise ors -- advisors well, mull vainy might chief of staf he has a way to play personnel off each other. but it's certainly a hard week for him. >> from heaunters and from people who are considering joining the administration, you want to know who the chief of staff will be, who you'll be reporting to. so especially now that we are just beyond the one-year mark op the trump administration, a the arlot of people who are returning to the private sector nd the white house is going to have to do a again. ng surge yet and having situations like that continue to go unresolved are not helpful. >> we had david senn, a speech writer for the white house, he resigned agamid

alons from a -- i believe it was his former wife. these are everywhere. >> yeah, the think that i think is important to think about with the hill though, they want to see more of this stability. all of this instability makes them feel like they can't trust the white house. they trust kelly. they have relationships withm. and it makes it so much harder to strike a deal. they would rather work with somebody they know, dderstand rust than to be put in a volatile situations where they don't know we president is going to do and who the chief of staff is going to be. >>hat i found striking is that you had rob shaw from the podium acknowledging that this situation had been mishandled.hn elly put out a statement when the first news reports came out saying that he had absolute faith in rob porter and then the very next day essentially walking that back. and so the president was very

frustrated by the way that this was frustrated. and so you have publicl and privately these frustrations boiling over. ai have to say beingthe white house this week has to be one of the most volatile weeks because of this rob porter upheaval since the very early days when people were leaving. on friday we had resignations and ousters. it felt very tense. robert: rob porter wasn't jus another aid. he was someone who controlled the paper flow. clean cut. the senior advisor to the president. close with general kelly. his removal is not just an embarrassment for the white house, not just a troubling situation but he was part of that knew clouse that runs -- nucleus that runs the wushite >> the truth is he was given the benefit of the doubt in part because h seemed very professional. he seemed very reliable, very competent, mature in a white

house that is kind ofna dysfunct so onkelly relied on him and -- john kelly relied on him and was willing to overlook some things because they need him. we got before air, rachel brand just resigned today. she wod be the person who would step in if rod s rosenen were somehow fired which we spent a lot o timwondering about. so another big blow to creating a coherent team that can move forward on all these big priorities. >> don mcgan, what's his status with the talk about the time line? >> based on my conversation with sources outside and inside, the president is very frustrated about it. he was toldbout this a year + ago. why wasn't more done? why was robll portered to serve in the white house without full security scleerns th close to the -- clearance that close to the president? i'm told that the president was

frustrated that he wasn't alerted about this earlier. will doug mcgan go? he has moussed about a nber of top officials leaving his administration. there's no indication that that's eminent. but certainly the president feelle he misha this. >> do we expect a hearing? >> the republicans wanty to s as far away from the white house as they can. ough democrats would like to make a public show of asking for hearings particularly aut the process of getting security clearances and the role of the f.b.i. robert: thanks, everybody. great nversation. i appreciate you being here. and our conversation will always as ever continue online on the "washington week" extra. we will discuss a late breaking story as peter mentioned that sudden resignation of the number three official at the justice department. and how north korea is handling the olympics which opened today. if you mised the show or the extra you can always watch it online lateright and all

weekend long on pbs.org/washingtonweek. i'm robert costa. enjoyour weekend. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.visit ncicap.org] announcer: funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today. and research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans.we

call them part of ourm. t >> american cruise les proud sponr of "washington week." announcer: additional fundg is provided by -- neumann's own foundation, donating allrofits from neumann's own food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the excellence in journalism foundationle ku and patricia ewing, committed to bridging culture differences in our communities. the corporation for public oadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. .

narratmb: 2:00 a.m., sep 26, 1918. ady the great war was by far the most destructive conflict in human history. nine million soldiers were dead and six llion civilians. president woodrow wilson had committed his country gg to this st in the belief that the united states could lead the world to a better future. but if wilson was to shape the peace, amer pan troops would have y a decisive role in winning the war.