♪[music] >> a missing journalist up-ends the u.s.-saudi relationship in the middle east. i'm robert costa. how wl president trump and congress respond? plus, the midterm battle grows fierce. tonight on "washington week." >> this is a very serious situation andet it's sng we're taking very seriously in mounting questions surround the disappearance of journalist jamal khashoggi, forcing the trum administration to vestigate. despite new reports that the saudi government killed the washington postidolumnist, prt trump is so far resisting pressure from a bipartisan group of lawmakers, to pull out of a multibillion deal to sell weaponso the saudis. >> i would not be in favor of stopping a country frompeing $110 billion and letting russiat have toney and letting china have that money.

>> in the united states, we stand for the free press.e if w do nothing, what do we stand for? >> all this as the president prepares to say goodbye to a memberf his foreign policy team. >> it has been an hon of a lifetime. >> plus... after a volatile week on wall street. leader, republica america is booming, america is thriving and america is winning like never before. >> president trump goes on the warpath against democrats. h>> the radical democratse turned into an angry mob. >> some democratsay they will fight back. >> when they go low, we kick. that's what this new democratic party is about. >> and with the new supreme court justice sworn in, voters in both parties are energized, just weeks ever the midterm -- before the midterm elections. those stories, next. ♪[music] >> this is "washington week."

funding is provided by... ♪[music] >> kevin! >> keve ! >> advr life. life well planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. 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 yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the et journalism foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs statrsn from vie like you. thank you! >> once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. >> good evening. president trump faces a looming

diplomatic crisis due to the disappearance andosble murder of a saudi journalist and washington post w columnist vanished after visiting the saudi consulate instanbul earlier this month. per reporting by the post where i work, jamal khashoggi was lset on october 2, when he walked into the saudi embassy to collect papers for his upcoming wedding. he never walked out. the turkish government has told officials that it has audio and video proof that khashoggi was tortured and killed. there was also evidence that the action wasat ordered. putting pressure on the president and his son-in-law, who had persona relationships with them. and it raises new questions about that multibill the table to sell weapons to the saudis. >> spending $110 billion onme military equ and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others, for this country. i don't like the conce of

stopping an investment of billion into the united states becae you know what they're gonna do? they're gonna take that money and spe spendt in russia or chia or someplace else. >> joining me tonight, katty kay, anchor for bbc news america. peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the new york times. vivian sama, white house correspondent for the wall street journal. and brian bennett, senior white house correspondent for time magazine. katty, you've been on the phone with youres soun saudi arabia all day. when are we going to get a tuclearer p of what exactly happened here? >> they're oiously inviting caution and to wait for the facts to come out. theye also cautioning that the turks have their own agenda in this. what we know so far of what's being alleg so far and that we should treat that with some skepticism. asked about the conference that's being held in saudi arabia in about a week's timed whether there is learn in

riyadh about the number of people who are pulling out of that conference. i've been told that the conference is secondary cosmetic at the point and the important issue is to get to the bottom of what happened to jamal khashoggi. >> and you think about this revealingode, peter, about bin sa salma, his whole international project. >> it has two faces to the world. there's the outside face to the west, where you have very modernized, liberal-minded westernhi seeming leade and executives who, like bin salman, the new crown prince, and americans and europeans, you know, enjoy doing business with th've got the inside saudi them. arabia, which is in fact one of the mosts autocratic plan the world, where there's no dissent and where there's no toleration of the kind of things that jamal khashoggi was writing. and i think that this brings home, again, he west and particularly to president trump the real t trade-offs

policy of friendship with this kingdom. >> when you think about the friendship, wha are the consequences for the region good this u.s.-saudi relionship got rattled? >> this case is potentially really destabilizing. it's going t put a l of pressure on the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia. there's going to be a lot of pressure on trump t take some sort of punitive action against saudi arabia, which he is resisting. more than that, saudi arabia and israel have takenet a q alliance against iran and have been cooperating behind the scenes. and so that has been changing the dynamics of the region. and if saudi arabiaes bec isolated, because of this case, that could ups that balance that has started to emerge in that region. also with turkey. turkey is trying to take advantage of the swrieghts now. ht now.st -- r they just released the pastor, andrew brunson, to try to cozy up to the united states t ats moment where they've been estranged, and try to push a

wedge between saudi and the united states. >> are they thinking about this at all on capitol hill, republicans who control the congress, when they talk about possible sanctions, knowing the sruption sanctions could cause? there seems to be an a the g.o.p. to take action. >> it's weighing heavily on republicans, especially on theie hill, who b that they really cannot justify any kind of deals, political, business deals, whatever you want to with the saudi government, if this indeed proves to be t worst case scenario, which many are fearing. so right now, there is a lot of pressure internally with the hill. a lot of discussions, trying to find out exactlyhat took place and whether or not the saudis were involved. obviously they see the saudis as a very strong ally in the region.so one that they can use for political stability in the region, with the palestinian sue, with the syrian issue, to get the turks to come to the table on the syria and iraq issue. so many different factors. of course, the big one, which is iran. if that element, like brian was

ju saying, if that element disappears, then so many things are in jeopardy. obviously so much pressure on capitol hill. there's also the business element. defense contracts. you know, a boeing contract. so many different things that could be in jeopardy right now. >> it's a reminder for and for the rest of the country, that when you become tlose autocrats like saudi arabia, you run the risk of finding yourself in the position of being on the wrong side of an event like >> playing with fire. >> this is not new. america has wrestled with its arabianship with saudi through multiple presidencies. there's always been this attention of nding the saudis, whether it was because of oil reserves, whether it was because of the relraionship with or whatever the issue was, and having to deal with the more distasteful side of saudi politics. you've hadpl p on capitol hill who have been concerned for a while about the war inemen and the civilians being killed

there and america's role in supporting saudi arabia in that war in yemen. i think when nbsame in, this new crown prince, there was a hope that there would be a o breathf fresh air. tt actually you don't have to scratch far to st he hasn't been that much of a reformer. he smooths people in hollywood and the saudis love that. they let women drive, on the front pages of every paper. a week before, they locked up a bunch women activists. i think there's been skepticism about whether this was rlly the reformed saudi arabia that policy makers would have hoped it was, because it would have made america's relationship so mu easier with saudi arabia. >> how is this president going to ha hdle it? his son-in-law has in many ways embraced the crown prince. but the whole world is watching, on human rights and other fronts. >> you saw the body language in theaslip. what the president doing? he was like this.

right? doesn't want to deal withoehis. he't want to get in the middle of two allies, turkey and saudi arabia. he doesn'tesant to things up. >> and you were with him in saudi arabia. >> i was with him. it was the fir place he went to visit outside of the united states as president. he meant that as ahetatement. told them specifically we're not going to tell you how to live. in other words, human rights is not going to be our numbe one priority, even our number three or five priority. as katty said, we've been dealing with this for years. plenty of presidents have made ade-offs when it came to saudi arabia, because they are good with us on intelligencnd terrorism and iran and energy. but rarely havou seen a president be so overtly willing to say human rights doesn't matter to us. he's not even bothered to pay lip service to that. and he says -- what he saidut today a in the last few days, about arms sales. otherresidents would have thought the same thing. they wouldn't have said it out loud, quite so openl they would have said, well, we'll take a look at that. they would have p it off,

put it off until later. they wouldn't have been so dendid the way pre trump is about it. >> we talked about a diplomatic showdown. also a crisis for jrnalism. a washington post columnist at the center of this.s journalihroughout the middle east, you've all reported, lived in the middle east.nd youstand global politics. you've seen it up close. what does it mean fors journalistshey watch this all? >> i can speak for myself. ywas based in the middle east for 12rs as a reporter. fearing for our lives is not something unusual. throughout the arab spring, we were always looking over our shoulders, worried that someone could come after us, that would be targeted because of the work we were doing. totally this has a different dynamic in the sense that this happened on foreign soil, in aasl way that we've really never seen before, where they essentially just walked into the saudi consulate ande then h allegedly disappeared. that is what we're grappling with now, is just the casual nature of thiseg a incident.

and the mystery surrounding it thee we just don't hav answers yet and no one is really coming forward. >> and other autocratic regimes are watching the u.s. reaction. there are plenty of other countries like china that crack down on the press. they're gonna be watching how the world reacts to this case, as a guide post for how farn thy go to crack down internal dissent and freedom of speech. c >> te extent, this is more than the case of one journalist d one man, and even more than human rights in this instance. it has become a test for american leadership in the trump era. and for the past 70 years, america has led the world in a way that was not transactional. of course, they did things that were, transactional t but there was some sense that america was led by example, led by moral values. good the president is only going to put -- if $110 billion worth of defense contracts is what it is, that is a change of america has d the world for the last 70 words.

>> nikki haley, u.s. ambassador to the united nations, surprised many officials when she announced she'd be leaving herhe post at end of the year. the u.s. moved its embassy to jerusalem and u.s. conducted storic nuclear talks with north korea. haley said she was not planning to run for office0. in 2 but she did have high praise for the's preside family. dina powell, the former deputy of national security, bowed out here. proce but we see with the departure of haley, an establishment republican, talking about those norms katty just mentioned, now leaving the administration. n?at does that m she's a fascinating figure. she has managed to straddle a really tough line where she has from time to time spoken out in ways that seem contrary to the president, yet stayed more or less on his good side, seems like.he remember, talked about tough on russia. he didn't do that.

he actually undercut her at one point. but she was never in the doghouse theay rex tillerson was or h.p. mcmaster and so forth. the timing allows it to be on her terms, not after the election, when it might be lumped together with a post-election bloodbath if the voting goes blad -- badly. she's managed to leave a lot of options open to her. >> nikki haley may be one of the aople able to leave this administration i clean way. she's leaving with high approval ratings. she's popular. and she leaves her pitical ambitions intact. >> but she also found herself crowded out with secretary of state pompeo. >> whether the next american ambassador to the united nacions ally will still have a cabinet post, which i suspect both mnde pompeo john bolten

would be quite happy if it didn't. >> bolten, former u.s. ambassador, advising the president, maybe this whole rolf .n. ambassador to be pulled back. >> both have tried to streamline and size down essentially the operations around him especially. and so this wouldn't be a rprise, if he wanted to have someone reporting to him versusp a kind ofate element to it. but in general, nikki haley has been --as someone that wanted her own voice in the early days of her term as t ambassador. and she really spoke out as peter was saying, sort of opposite to what the president was doing in a lot of cases. and it really made her stand out and have her own voice ch she she was trying to establish herself on the international stage. she kind of checked that box with this job. on.it's time to move >> even at times saying is, i don't get confused. a mareent of somebody pushing back against the white house and surviving. i

>> a she does want to run for president some day, she has thisoreign policy experience. >> and most people are talking about people who woulde more subordinate to the white house. ft from foreign policy to the campaign trail. president trump was in ohio, this friday night. that was the fourth campaign ntent for the presi in less than a week. brian wrote in this week'sve tie story that the elections will test the strength of president trump's hold on his party and show just how lasting an imprint his unique mix of populism and nationalism willhe make on republican party and america for years to come. we're just weeksan away, b he's on the trail. he's in iowa. peter andn were i erie, pennsylvania, with the president this week n a rally in-to. can the kavanaugh nominee come back to 2016 levels? >> republicans and donald trump are banking on it. donald trump has made this midterm about him, referendum on him. he's embraced that. the polling that the republicans

are doing are showing that unlike the a thinking few months ago, that the economy would be mobilizing, no. f what they'ding is that talking about kavanaugh and the judicial nominations, that's mobilizing the kavanaugh fight and talking about democra potentially obstructing donald trump's objectives and policy decisions goingorward, if they get to control one branch of the house. that alsosobilizing the base. that's why you hear donald trump talking about the demrats being a mob and using words like obstruction and bringing up the kavanaugh fight. >> he said that brett kavanaugh actually tid a servi the republican party, because of the controversy surrounding his confirmation. >> i'm sure kavanaugh doesn't see it that way. >> i'm sure hebu doesn't. he said that he did a service and he's mobilized publicans like never before. that is something that he's going to be using in the next couple o weeks, to say get out there and vote, so the mob, in

his wor doesn't come out. >> polls tell a complicated in erie, we saw a congressman running in the keystone state. republicans in wisconsin, running behinhe democrats. you see the enthusiasm at the rallies, but polling shows that in the states the president won in 2016, republicans aren't exactly having anasy time. >> and you see a disparity between the house and senate. the house were to go democratic and the senate not only not go democratic, it could en pick up republican seats, because the way the seats are arranged this year in these te, there happen to be more democrats who are vulnerable than republicans. but youe right, the energy has been for many months on the democratic side. the presidents tryin to duplicate that on the republican side. but people go to the polls because they'rery a because they want to protest something, not because they want to say thank you. they would go to the polls and say, hey, we don't like brett kavanaugh, we're going to go and

he's trying to get them to look at this as a protest againsthe left-wing mob. it's hard to see if you can maintain that kd of anger for that many weeks. >> how long is three and a half weeksri in an politics? >> it's a year! in american politics n the trump era. i'm trying to remember what happenrs three and a half h ago. >> that's what the democrats are banking on. you take mccaskillnd the confirmation process, for her, a crisis. her approvalmo ratingsst independents went from plus 10 to plus 4. she saidha even after kavanaugh was confirmed, she already started to see them ck up again and stabilize. so democrats are desperately three and a half weeks is a long time. >> and most of the networks n e not covering these rallies anymore, which is so fascinating, including fox news, who apparently it's a ratings issue, where there have been so many. it's just not getting the pullse that it to. obviously this hurts the local

candidates that he's going there to endorse but it also makes you question whether it's gotteto the point that it's too much. this is something that the white fuse is now grappling with, trying toure out how -- what the strategy should be moving forward to keep people interesting. >> he's out there everywhere. he's on 60 minutes this weekends, doingvi ints. >> he's making it a referendum on him. what about suburban m and women, especially suburban women? where are they tilting, based on the data? >> it's really interesting to go out and talk to people who are supporting trug and think about voting for trump. we found a really interesting mosaic you have people who love his harsh rhetoric and love wha he says. then you have people who like his policies and are uncomfortableith his harsh rhetoric but are willing to overlook that. that interplay is playing out in the suburbs, among higher educated,ore wealthy voters. you have more people who like his policies, like the judicial nominees andhe deregulation

and it's just whether they're willing to overlook that destabilizing and harsh -- withe they catching o those voters? the democrats are playing health care hard now in thesi c chapter. >> they feel like it mobilizes their base. we're going to have to see if that pans out. >> the president and republicans are trying to push back on that, trying to make the case that the democrats will actually destroy medicare, not strengthen it. you hear them say,ng'm g to protect preexisting conditions, because he knows they're vulnerle on it. >> when you talk about sugar high for the democrats, a congressman inexas raised $38 million this quarter. yet the polls show he's still nine points back. i think there only been one poll -- am i right -- that has actually shown him ahead of ted cruz. thers been a huge amount of interest in him, not the least from amongst us. and this unicorn idea of the fact that texas maym switch f

being red to blue. my sense would be that it's plstill a c of cycles out. it may be that the press has been more interested and is also looking for somebody for 2020. i'm sure if he were to win, he would very quickly be talked about in the press as somebody foris a potential contender 2020. but the polls just don't bear out that he is somebody who is gonna fmp that seat f red to blue at the moment. he could do it and maybe this money will help, butal there's a lot of other money coming in on the republican side. >> what matters is who goes to the polls on election day. and if he can gethe momentum and come from behind, that's what his campaign is banking on right now. >> and i wonder about that enthusiasm, because down -- up in erie,a, pennsylvaome i spoke to said trump hasn't gotten the funding he deserves from congress. you just wonder, are they t actually goi come out for the republicans? >> this is the question, in the sext couple of weeks. president trump ultimately making this a case about him,

that you need toupport m yes, you're going to be voting for members of the house and senate, which will ultimately carry out my legislation, i but th ultimately about getting me re-elected in 2020. a lot of its if you wan your wall and you want all these other issues that i have struggled to gethrough with a fragile majority in the senate and house, you need to come vut ane. that's what they're really pushing right now. >> it's complicated by tradeoc the dts are echoing the president on trade instead of countering him. >> trade is one of those issues that just crosses lines all over the place. what's interesting, he has had experience i these special elections, most of which have ved more democrat in the last two years. yet he's gone in, at the last minute, clear made a difference for republican candidates who otherwise were in trouble. so ae does haven ability to shift things in select places. he's not going allver the map. it's still a very select map for him. he's going to erie, pennsylvania, not philadelphia, not pittsburgh, right? >> well, he's also getting back to the trade issue.

he's coming and tryin to deliver these accomplishments, i just signed a deal with canadad xico and i'm bringing you all these deals. but we also have tariffs in placehich also hurt a lot of the farmers. so it's a mixed bag. >>e had interesti discussions with farmers, particularly in missouri, who don't like the tariffs or are already anticipating the tariffs are going to hurt their bottom line, maybe by 10% or more in the next cro season. but some of those teamers, they like his --he farmers, like hisir deregulation, emental rollbacks. >> and the economy is relatively strong, but he's nervous about how the interest rates are moving. >> he's clearly nervous, because his barometer, his favorite is state of the stock market. it closed up today. but we've seentock market declines of about 2% during the course of this week.'t that doe play into his narrative of all the things he has achieved. it's unusual for the president to bash the fed.

but clearly, a stronma stock et is something that the president has used throughout his term. >> i mean, it's dangerous if a president wants to use the federal interest rates for political purposes and that's why thats firewall been in place for so long and trump, like all these other conventionh ths shattered as president, he's shatter na -- >>a! >> we gotta leave it there. when i was on air force one as a reporter, the president made sure he came and talked to edreporters about theal reserve to wag his finger. before we go, we want to send our heartfelt thoughts to everffected by hurricane michael. the pictures of the devastation are incredie. we wis you strength as you rebuild your lives down there. i'm robert costa. thanks foroining us. ♪[music]

>> funding is provided by... financial services firm raymond james.wm 's own foundation. donating all profits from newman's own food products to charity and nourishing the coon good. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in oures communi the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers likean you. you! >> you're watching pbs.

crew: okay, turning over, please. action! julian fellowes: i enjoy writing downton abbey, an li suppose i've made mying out of writing about fictional country houses that are occupied by fictional characters. now we're to be turned out of downton. cu thank you. julian fellowes: but britain's great houses are real, and inhabited by reale. "charlie, i have been very wicked "with lord cole, sir frederick johnstone, the prince of wales, and others." in this series, what i'm trying to find is the real lord grantham, the realady mary. that's great. i love jewels, actually. presumably, thot the countess. (laughing) the real bates, the al anna. my eyes absolutely fill at thehought of this. oh, look at that. do you think harriet clarke