resident trump at odds with his own white house and a supreme court nomin moves step closer to nomination. i'm pete williams. robert costa will join us from the road. welcome to "washington week." president trump: the so-called resistance is angry because their horrible ideas have been merejected by the acan people and it's driving them crazy. pete: but the resistance is oirmenting from inside the trump administration according to a blistering op-ed said to be from a senior official. they said the root of problem is the p aresidentrality. president obama warned that a resistance inside white house, even with good intentions, should concern all americans.

president obama: the claim that everything will turn out ok because there are people inside the white house who secretly aren following the president's orders, that is not a check. i'm being serious here.as pete: the president urges "the new york times" to each the writer, the white house braces for similar revelations in journalist bob woodward's new tell-all book "fear." it quotes senior statue and cabinet officials tng about what he describes as a nervous breakdown of the executive we cover it all, next. >> this is "washington week." funding is provided by -- >> newman's own foundation. allrofits to charity and nourishing the common good. o and patricia yuen and are the you yen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

the excellence and ethics in journalism foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> oncein alive from washington, substituting r robert costa, pete people of nbc news. pete: gooesevening. ent trump says the justice department should investigate p-o wrote this week's devastating in the "new york times." described as a senior governme official. the author claimed to act with others in the administration reing in the president's worst impulses out of a sense of diet -- duty, writing this. the bigger concern is not what mr. trump has done to the presidency but ramp what we as a nation have allowedim to do to us. on friday former president barack obama spoke out on the controversy, attacking his predecessor and the state of american politics. president obama: the threat to

our democracy doesn't just come from donald trump or the current batch of republicans in congress or too much compromise from democrats or russian hacking. the biggest threat to our democry and indifference. pete: as the white house prepares for the release o veteran reporter bob woodward's tell-all book, "fear: trump in the white house," which quotes current and former senior officialab andet members as being alarmed by the president's kick. joining me, robert costa, who's on the road. kristen welker, who's on the road. seung min kim, congressional correspondent at the "washington post" and ed ed political correspondent for cbs ns. the president was said to be futuring over the anonymous opd, which was a single source anonymously. you among us the only person who's read the woodward book. it quote people on the record.

how explosive is this book going be? >> what a week for president trump, to'd this report about woodward'sook and to see gary cohen, his former economi advisor, taking documents about tradeoff the president's desk. jim matusz, the defense secretary ignoring the president's orders. then a day later,"n thi york times" op-ed by someone inside the administration in a sen r role. talking to white house officials today they say this problem goes back to thens tion. this administration is full of republicans who aren't really aligned with president trump or the traditional republican party and thatllnce, which has lasted for about a year, someone is beginning to fray. pete: it's more about a concern about the president's governg style, sit not? >> it's about his behavior, his

conduct, his alarm. there are certain aspects in this administration that have relativelyuted as the president has taken this administration in a different direction. some advisors are try to push the president away from make quick decisns or decisions they think are totally out of line of -- in the traditional ens. they think thepresident is isolated inside of this white house. pete: you covehod the white e. did you read this book and say wow, i had no idea? >> we had known about the concern around presidentru. what makes this book important is that people insidere taking action and woodward in meticulous detail, dates, nt scenes, he p a bleak picture of people taking action reatedly to rein i president trump. that's the difference. it's the aides and thewitesors

and officials now stepping at times over the line to try to pull h back. pete: kristen, you covered the white hoate too. whas the president's response to barack obama picking up these themes in th sech. >> he tried to laugh it off. he said i fell asleep watching this speech but the reality is, this was a striking political split scre today. on the one hand you had former president obama taking on condemning president trump in personal terms, saying that op-ed that you were discussing with bob was not a check on the president's power and calling voters too to the polls not just to get democrats into office but to really defeat what he casts as a rangerous b of politics. one he said was born out of fear and divisiveness but he also attacked presidentrump personally. for example, he took on what happened at charlottesville saying how tough is ito call out nazis? so it's a preview to come and

one of former president obama's main points was he is going to be heading to aeas that are not just democratic stronghold. he's gng the be trying to rally independent swing voters as welte before we leave this anonymous thing, how obsessed is thin president with tto find out who wrote in column? >> i think it's a good word for it. we are told that he resulted ith volcanic anger when he first read this is -- and now there is an effort under way to try to find out who wrote the column. there were a list of about two dozen senior officialsai who it wasn't me. and i think they're trying to determine who this is and how many people are trying to thwart or block the president. you aske bob how dissimilar to what he was damaging in thee whuse, what was so damaging about the op-ed is that it echoed the fundamentals of

the woodward book, which hat there are people within the administration trying to work agait him. he has a lot of staffers who don't agree with him. pete: bob, what will the white house do? >> they're trying to figure out theepper but they're lost, talking with some of the president's closest advisors today. they say they don't know what to do. the president is urging the department of justice to get involved but they know that's a maze that's not going to go anywhere. they're trying to figure out who could be disloyal but k theynow that so many people have been leaking inside of this administration since january of 2007 as much as people are coming out with their own lists they have as much of an idea in the white house as we do on this show. pete you're a current number reporter, you're a former one. do you think we'll ever know who wrote this? we might. we were reminded this week but for almost 3years, mark --

wrote "deep throat" and yet he s deep throat. it may not be tomorrow, it may be years from now but i spect one day we will. one thing to keep in mind, the term "senior official" could conceivably apply to as many as 4,000 confirmable positions and hiredolitical guns across the federal government. this could be some deputy assistt to the assista deputy of the commerce department, somebody frofom the ce of management budget next door. it could be somebody in the west wingt's possible that this is somebody that is not so senior yet gets away with that because in washington there's a lot of titlela ion. pete: if it is some sub, sub, sub cabinet official, wouldn't "the new york times" have a lot of explaining to do? >> i think they might and e fact it remains anonymous reflects on some of the

congressional republican reaction. a lot of the senior republicans my colleagues and i talked about were dismissive of look, they need to put their names on their criticisms. we can't take it seriously but i nt to go back to kristen's point earlier aboutraow the ge concerns that were related, both the op-ed and the woodward book, theth overale was not a surprise and that was not an exception for congressional republic i was very struck by comments from is senator from nebraska this week. a trump critic but he told a radio show, look, this is t same kind of message we hear from people at the white house three times a week. at s pretty remarkable that senate republicans are freely related they opey hea this seven times a week and they're used to it by now. >> and they've told us similar things off the record as well. >> i also think, to your point,

pete, how obsessed is the president. some of his osest allies saying the "new york times" is not giving us any idea of what senior official means but they'red a mering -- a the very traditional sense of that term so they thi this might be just a couple dozen people. that's why the president lashed out trying to get pete sessions to get going o it. pete: let me ask you about what e journalistic either i said behind what the times did. normally speaking, something limo this anoly would never be published without some attribution. is there some resume for criticism of what the times did or are these extraordinary times for the times? >> it's going to be uto the "new york times" editorial page to speak for itself but if it' not a cabinet-level official, if snis i someone who's really

goes close toot president. it's not going to be as explosive and the president my not s much of a political cost. the "new york times" may get ti qus, tough questions about inether ed was saying, was the title fully exp as it really should have been in the editorial. i don'tla want to spe too much because we really don't know who in person is. the whithouse is saying even if they never figure out who the person is they don't think they're going to have to pay too much of a political cost because republican voters are paying too much attention to thisthey argue. this is another move to ph skitti suburben independents away from the republican party in fall. pete: about the obama speech, why now? >> because it's campaign time and he has b un callen by eager democrats across the country to show up either for fundraisers or to give speeches and campaign. he'll be withat s casey. he's going this weekend to

california to help sre up support for as many as seven tdemocratic candidates f house out there. democrats have to win at least seven or eht of those seats to get over the 21 in the house. they feel going doing it now for the sake ofgi encoung and building up democratic support but also clearly a need to speak out for what's at stake for the democracy. only he and george w. bush as he did athe mccain memorial speech last weekend feel they can explain and kresse their -- express their concerns. the risk, of course, is if he overplays this, it bomes a midterm election about two presidents and not about congressional and gubernatorial candates all across the country. pete: is there concern some places where he might do damage? >> exactl

we are already hearing some say we welcome obama as aharacter, as a person in the 2018 race and while the house, a lot of the territory is favorable to the mocrats, particularly a lot of the districts that hillary clinton won in 2016. we've talked for the last year and a half about how difficult this senate map is for the democrats. 10 states that trump one, some in double digits in 2018. n,nator manhe democrat up in november won't even say whether he voted for obama in 2012. if obama does become a larger figure in the 2018 race,t could become difficult for a lot of democrats. >> obama will focus on house and government races -- governor races. where the president i going is primarily senate races. >> why? >> because the hot senate races are that states that he won. the 10 vulnerable democrat seats are in states the president one in some cases by double

differt. >> i think part of what you saw president o peter: -- obama say today is that democrats have traditionally sat on the sidelines in the mid selection -- elections and that's part of what he's trying to change. he's making the case you can't just get engaged in presidential election, this eletion is j as critical. pete: we talked about what a terrible week this was for the present but didn't he have some pretty good economic numbers that came out friday? he says no matter what you may think of me, the economy is doing great. does he have a point there? robert: that's the case the white house is going to continue to make and th're urging members of congress home running -- rung for house and senate to talk about the kavanaugh nomination and the economic numbers and to use the media as a foil and notaybeollow the president rhetorically in every way but to follow the president at least not focusing on the

white house chaos stories that we're reporting out of the woodward book or from the "n york times." it's going to take a steady message from republicans to ro break h on that but they feel confident that president trump, inis disruptive way has somehow kept a grip on the g.o.p. and the base withs- i with him in poll after poll even though his disapproval numbers nationally are ticki up. pete: what are the chances that the mocrats could take house or the senate? >> the house certainly looks like it's going to happen, if you believe the forecasting that's done by various organizations. cbs, nbc and others. the senate still seems to tilt towards republicans just given the fact that there areo many uphill battles for democrats in states that the president was able to win. best case for democrats, the 51-49 margin probably flips from republican to democratic control but that criers a really strong

night for democrats in a part of the country they haven't been trong in this years. pete: the only way impreach --ism peachment could happen is if democrats control out house. is that true and how much of a motivator is this? >> it's surprising to hear how much nancy pelosi has turned away about talking abo t impeachment sup. but it is an issue we've sn that excites the base and we've ian soon in our polling that there is a large swath of voters who thin impeachment is a valid issue but the president sees that one of his best political opportunities is to run against adversaries and a democratic house threatening impeachment i a great adversary, he believes, for hitem. one of the highlights for the president this week was the nomination hearing for his

second supreme court nominee, brett kavanaugh. he was peppered with questions about his position on the roe v. wade ruling and presidential power. and the democrats revolted over the lack ofccess related to his work in the george w. bush s white hous how big a deal was this document access thing? it seemed at times this was a hearing about documents, not kavanaugh but is it going to make any difference? >> ion't think so at the end of the day. i do think it raises issues o transparency because effectively we're not able to see about 60% of his history and records in the georg w. bush white house but setting that aside, can he still get 51 votes? after four days of the hearing, he did what he was supposed to do. basically his challengedoas to no harm. i think he largely did that. there were a couple of times

where he did get flustered under questioning. with harris of california. i don't think he saw that ti qu with whether he had any conversations with the president's law firm. pete: he said have you ever had any conversations with mark --'s law firm and she said be careful how you answer that. implying something you don't know. what did he say? >> the most evidence that senator harris us was that she had "information." so we're wdering, what did you really know, if anything? pete: bob, do you thinkythat ng that happened in these hearings is going to peel away any of the support for any of the replican senators? robert: the abortion issues remains important for some moderate republicans but the republicans are banking on red state datemocrats like s joe

donnelly here in indiana who already embraced the president's position on immigration. could they now be pressured to vote for kavanaugh? even know familiar some wary republicans like the moderate republicans from alaska and maine and senator rand paul has hat concerns about kavanaugh on the national security policy. i think they'll get them and even pull off some of the vulnerable red state democrats. peert pete : these hearings seemed especially yeasty because of the fact that brett kavanaugh had itten before he became a judge about whether the president should be beyond the reach of a civ lawsuit or a criminal trial. many of the senators wanted to ask him what about that? does the president have to answer a subpoena? what did you make of his apses? >> i don't think he had any ss ps. he was very artful at stepping around them.

not sayingeferent actively, for example, when -- whether a president can paon himself. i don't see any major stumbling block to him getting confirmed. i do thinkhat we witnessed were these political moments potentially the beginnings of presidential campaigns. harris and have overstepped, saying -- making a big is documents that are clear and released. asked ot when he first about hem this -- them. the next day they were. >> i don't think he had anymi teps answering thorny questions. pete: cory booker said this may be the closest i ever come to any spartacusen m. >> there are three on that committee who a openly thinking about run for president. >> who is that? >> amy of minnesota. she was raising a lot of

questions on behalf of her ummocrat colleagues about access to docts and whether this was a fair hearing. you're the court guy. pete: go f it. >> i think what we're on the verge of we've had the warren court and the rehnquist court. we are entering the era, i would argue of the mcconnell court. the two seats that have now been confirmed under continued trump is that mitch mcconll held up the seat that would have gone to merrick garland. and now there are two reliably conservative justices or going to gfment mcdonnell today, to gh hewitt, the same guy we talked about earlier sai yes, this is my most significant accomplishment as a s ienator. ans true. and at this point having done that, he may have cemented american political and legal history for the next several decade.

people: one of the in that was interesting about this hearing were the continued protests -- protests. were you surprised that chuck grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee decide to let that happen and what difference us the -- does it make for the hearings going forward? >> i think senator grassley was pret patient in letting the protesters have their couple minutes ofg. zreem at the end of this week there were 227 arrests b capitol police of protesters throughout theseris. pete: that has to be a record for any congressional hearing >> it is. and there were at least a dozen or two dozen today when kavanaugh wasn't even in the room to hear them. an interesting contrast i noticed about all 227 protests, if you listen to what they were protestihey were protesting the substance of issues. abortion, gun rights, voting rights, disability rights and at times to me, it was sh a

contrast with what the bomocratic senators were arguing which were again documents and process and i'm wonled forget sometimes the division you see betweenoflected cials and what the voters and the base really care about. pete: although, if you are watching the hearings on pbs or anywhere else on television, it was very hard to hear what they were actually saying.ev though the audio engineers sort of brought the sound you could see what was going on when everyone stopped. but basically you all agree, no. misstretch did you also think that programs he was a little overprepared? >>we know he prepared a lot before the hearings. i had talked to some sources who we very filiar with how he had done even 10-hour mock hearing sessions. he was doing that on a day before the confirmation hearings four ere were at least senators who played the role of

democratic senators to throw questions at him. he was getting questions that he expected such as what do you think of roe vs. wade. you got the same answers over .nd over. pete: thank you before we go, bob has a special announcement about next week's broadcast. robert: thanks, people. we have a fun show next week. bob woodward, the veteran reporter, the author of "fear," coming out next tuesday, he's going to sit down with me one-on-one on "washington week" to go through his book and talk about his mhod. it's going to be confinement a conversation. pete: and we can all woer how you managed to land that interview. thanks, eb and everybody h tonight. our conversation continues on the washington week extra at pbs.org/"washington week." great e williams, have a weekend. we're all still on and thank you ve g much. this wat and we're going to make a copy of this music

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