robert:a standoff over congressional oversight. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washingtonee" president trump: in the history of our country, there has never been a president that's been more transparent than me or t trump administration. robert: an emboldened president slams the door on congress. president trump: we're fighting all the subpoenas. robert: house democrats won't back down, demanding answers on struction and the president's finances. >> the way we step up is to begin impeachment proceedings. robert: and joe biden jumps>> i. if we give donald trump eight years in the white house, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. robert: will democally behind the former v.p.? or look to a new generation? answers and anasis next.

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station from vwers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert:what a week. in the wake of the mueller report, house democrats have keptp their investigation of president trump's conduct. they want to know more about hia inions with advisers like former white house counsel don gahn. ey want to probe whether the president's actions were obstructive like whe he urged mcgahn to seek the firing ia the sp counsel. it's a process some democrats say should end with mr. trump's impeachment. president trump: i never told don mcgahn to fire mueller. if i wanted toueireer, i would have done it myself. it's very simple. i had the right to. robert: the president has challenged congress'versight authority and vowed to reject all subpoenas to current and former officials. >> we now seek the administration engaged in stonewalling of the facts as an

existential threat, this administration, to our in terms of our constitution. robert: joining me tonightten four rep who have been on the beat all week.e jurschfeld davis, congressional correspondent for the "new york times." jeff zeleny, senior washington correspondt for cnn. karoun demirjian, congressionalf report the "the washington post," and jerry seib, executive editor of the "wall street journal." julie, don mcgahn matters. he's the keystone for obstruction if the democrats move in that direction on capitol hill but will they be able to compel him to testify? julie: listen, it's an open question whether they'll be able to compel him. thers no question they want to hear from him, if he read the mueller report. it'sar c that many of the thestions underlyin obstruction issue were answered for mueller a his

investigative team by mcgahn. so they've issue a subpoena. they want to talk to him. we heard the presidentay he's not only going to try to block that, he's going to block any of thes g requests that he'sng to get from the congressional oversight c it's an open question how they're going to proceed but the democrats are notac going to down here. they really want to the hear from mcgahn. they also want to hear from mueller and other figures in thisut investigation mcgahn is key so they have a few avenues they can pursue. they could try toholdm in contempt of congress. they could try in various ways to enforce subpoenas but it takes a long time and that is a challenge that theacreg. the white house has signaled they're not going to submit to any of this so they're going t have to pick and choose their spots and figure out what makes sense in t terms of arey going to pursue this into a court battle? are they going to try to impose fines? are they going to potentially try to impose prison time fornt

pt of congress? and their options will be t this isy the fact t not the only issue they want to pursue. they have to figure out where the pressurnd points arehe white house is clearly not backing down. rondrt: karoun, you live breathe the house and inside the house judiciary committee. you cover chairman n you just heard what julie had to say. what's his strategy to build this obstruction case about the president? mcgahn's part of it. what about corey lewandowski, former campaign manager? he's mentioned in the mueller report for trying to urge the esident have attorney general sessions limit the probe. at's the house judiciary outlook? karoun: you saw them prepareve subpoenas for mcgahn, for hopeic. this was the opening salvo we were goi to see and he's issued one of those which is for

mcgahn so he'shaed the macro plan for what the full map might be but he said he could go beyond that, but what the opening targets are. if he's going to grow that number of people that will have to go through subpoena processes, potential court battles, he'll have to move tickly to move through enough people to get to stage of the court battles in order to make a decision down the line if this is going to lead to anything that looks like impeachment prothedings because e's pressure on jerry nadler to do that from the progressive left side of the democratic party. of course leaders don't want to go there unless they have evidence but they have to replicate much of mueveer's igation into obstruction on that panel in order to make a dgment call. robert: what about mcgahn? you wrote about him this week, jerry. he's sitting there watching this, the white house possibly

asserting executive privilege.e could h say the heck with it, none of this is privileged, it'n he mueller report, i'm going to testify? jerry: he could. and it's notny privilegedre because the white house didn't assert privilege before the mueller investigators. they have decided not to invoke privilege so he could say that but i find it hard to believe he would, though, because i don't see don mcgahn acting as if he wants to get cross-ways with the presidt. he'sept his mouth shut so far. if you step back from this and look at the posturehe president has taken, it's got to be sending signals to mcg pn. thesident could have said, after the mueller report was in, vindication is mine, the's no collusion and walked away. instead, he's saying vengeance will be ours, we're going to go after the people who started this investigation and that's the tone set and i h find itd to believe don mcgahn would go in defiance of that. i thi more likely we're heading into a suborn in which

the president demands the white house defies subpoenas, democrats inng congress pus the case and both sides going to the courts to sayou have referee this. all three branches of the government on the battlefield this summer. robert: jeff, the president said the white housen't made a final decision on asserting privilege. is it to block everything and send a message to mcgahn, sit tight? and: it seems like that first and foremost it is to slow things down, stall things.er s 18 months before the re-election, basically. if you look at the history of the president bore he came into office, his strategy oftenl as many l strategies are, to use every ability you can thugh lawyers and theourts to slow things down. so i think first and foremost, he's trying to buy himself time. he loves a fight. he loves an opponent. one wouldha think he could

have embraced -- he's already tried toe def the mueller report has no collusion, as you said, vindication. why not acckt that and t about the g.d.p. numbers today? becaore that is not the of what he is. he is fueled by a fight. sohi that's part of but the question is how long will this go on. i don't think we know the answer to that. but it's conflicting his ability and constraining him from really using this summer as a timetu to the page and move on beyond this. people outsi o washington aren't following all the ins and outs of this but they know there's a fight gng on and he's in the middle of it. so he's trying to fire up the hse. but we'll see this works for him. but he has not declared victory and gone home. robert: certainly not you mentioned the president is not moving on. he's playing to his base. he's ratcheted up this fight. if you watch the president on friday, he amplified his attacks on the probe and trained his

fire on democrats during the national rifleoc ation's meeting. president trump: corruption at the highest level, a disgrace. spying, surveillance, trying for they tried for a coup. didn't work out so well. robert: julie, that's strong language to say the least, a coup. the president was on sean hannity's show on f thursday night talking about this was a possible overthrow of the u.s. government.ot this is just a president attacking the investigation. he's saying they were trying tom une our whole country. what's the play here for the president? he already fee like he was, quote, exonerated by the mueller report. why do this today? julie: i think the answer is doesn't actually feel like he was exonerated. he wants the public to believe that he was exonerated. robert: is that what whit aides are telling you? hlie: yes, when you talk to

people at the whitse, he still feels this investigation and all the stuff that has come out since the redacted mueller report has come forward has undercut him so, yes, he may legally exonerated but he doesn't feel vindicated by it. he feels threatened by it and as much as he likes personally and it's his personal history and history in business, loving a fight, he also, i think, believes that it's politically important for him to fight as much as he can to be seen by voters as fighting back against democrats. they're trying to take me down, i'm not going to let them. in that regard, having a prolonged legal fight with the democratic house of representatives over all the subpoenas andue oversight rs is exactly where he wants to ben karoun: it just a fight against democrats, right? it's a fight against the soitem at this which is where he can lose some of the republicans so it's a risky move because the whole g.o.p. has to decide to go along with him. robert: are theyoing along with him on capitol hill?

karoun: they may. lindsey graham saying let'sook into abuse on the senate judiciary committee. you have enough people willing to support him and he feels it plays to his base. it's like a rally around me as the flag mentality as you're heading into the election cycle putting everybody on the defensive. not just the democrats who have alwa been critical of him but the law enforcement agencies that lefa lot o bread crumbs out there that people could choose to follow either through rhe congressional process other legal processes if he's not in office for a second term. that's a weakns he's aware of. jerry: and this may be fight he wants because not only does it help him with his base, it helps him say his supporters, what i told you about the democrats from the beginning has been provenorrect. itas a conspiracy against me, a hoax, a completely trumped up thing to gete out of office and to destroy the legitimacy of my presidency. i'm going to prove that to you.

i think that's a fight he would like to have at this stage.be : what's fascinating, thursday night, rod rosenstein, oeputy attorney general, to the yale club in manhattan and he shows that he, inside the department of justice, is taking shots at h own department, daying the f.b.i. mishand things, the media mishandled things. so you had thede pre making broad attacks on the investigation but complicated by the deputy attorney general muddying the waters with his o comments and "the post" has a story out friday saying that cording to people inside d.o.j. rosenstein at times seemed to nt to support the president while the probe was happeninlo of factors starting to emerge in the wake of this jeff: a lot of factors and the speech in new york you mentioned by rod rosenstein, it me face-saving as he's going out the door. but also that excellent story in "the washington post" on friday evening about how he was trying

to save his job. the quote was, "i can land this plane" or somethingid mr. prt. so the reality here is he's always been at least to me one the biggest mysteries in thisua whole son. him standing behind the attorney general, william barr, the other day, without basically blinking. he sort of looked like a hostage in that moment. t i think we'll hear more from him i'm sure after -- robert: and the attor general, bill barr, has used the term "spying" talk about the investigation. jeff: he started that whichy is he president is talking about it now. he was delighted by that. i think theanguage we heard on the sean hannity interview on thursday and the n.r.a. speech, attempted overthrow, coup, that is dangerous and inciteful language. i think without question, the president is try to scare, fire up his base and everything else

leading to 2020. we've not heard language likeef thate. robert: we have not heard language like that. it's severe language, to say t leas and it puts democrats in a real arner and they have to make decision. do they move toward impeachmentr ot. that was the debate when you watched the presidential field, when you wched what was happening in congress. the majority of americans s they oppose calls for congress to launch impeachment proceedings against the president according to a poll on friday. currently 37% of americans favor starting the process, a slight dip over the past month, while 56% say they oppose t idea. that's about the same as a month ago. how does speaker pelosi, julie, look at that poll and the president's language andake a choice on impeachment? julie: i think the reason we've heard speaker pelosi talk in the way she has about impeachment, very cautiously, is because she understands both of those things. she understands that the

president is sort ofetting this trap, daring democrats to look as if they're trying to overthrow the pre they have some sort of agenda beyond protecting the constitutionnd the prerogatives of the congress when a president engages in behavior that coulde impeachable but she knows the ectorate isot there yet. she sees these numbers and she hasressure from progressives to go in that direction and i think she's been strategic in trying to tamp down on that and somewhat remarkably democratsct havelly been following her lead on that. of course, you have people like maxine waters talking about impeachment but they've made it clear they're not agitating for otherso join them yet. robert: people in the 2020 field, senator elizabeth warren, she's clamoring for it. julie: that's the problem for democrats. some of their presidential contenders are aggressivelyg talkout this.

and secondly, the mueller report is so full o these crumbs that would allow someone to potentially make the case fen impeac but don't actually present an on-and-shut case. it presents a real dilemma for them. you don't hear many democrats saying there would be no foundation for us impeaching him. it's all aolical question. robert: and they know what happens inhe senate? republican controlled senate. >> they've seen this movie before. nancy pelosi lived through this in the 1990's. the republicans in tha case impeached bill clinton irethe house w they controlled and it did not succeed in the senate. republicans lost five seats in the house,idrm elections. newt gingrich, republican speaker of the house, lost his jo bill clinton survived and exits office with 66% job approval rating so nancy pelosi has seen this moviedo and in't have a happy ending. >> and someone who added h

voice this week is hillary clinton. she wrote for "the washingt post" and said she was in the 2016 elections and sat across vladimir putin and touches elery ci and she said, no impeachment. in a sense, impeachment is too easy. robert: secretary alinton talkinut senator warren on the campaign trail. 2020, more and more becing a cloud that's looming over all political discussions and this week was former vice president joe biden jumped in and took direct aim at president trump.he called out the president's handling of the deadly white supremacist rally in charlottesville. >> that's when heard the words, the president of the united states had stunned the world andhocked the conscience of this nation. he leads it were, quote, some very fine people on both sides. robert: on friday, mr. trump

defended his response. trump: i was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to robert e. lee, a great general. whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals. robert: one of the great generals. the president defiant as ever but can biden's message about returning to trational values be compelling in this modern 2019 democratic party? >> it's almost likeirr image of make america great again. i think the president helped biden by doubling down on the charlottesville comments. but think that just generally the question for biden i is,s he the steward to make that happen? is he the person to carry this mantle given that he's had half a century in public life in

which he's been part of all of the mistakes and chapters that everyone wants to a corre this time. maybe the answer is yes, there's a faction of the party thates belihat biden having been through that is the only pson to legitimately say here's what we came thrregh, here's w we can go. and yet there's others, other geanrations ofdates waiting in the wings for their turn and they appeal to the diversity of the democratic party now and maybe it's better to run someone like that. >> we have been anticipating joe biden jumping in all year but i think how he did itas so striking this week, really by taking the bull by the horns ant sayis is a serious race, people focus on the matter at hand here, not the new deal, not inmates voting. this is about deating president trump so there's a strong electability argument. i thought it was a ver good and

successful rollout on thursday. when you take it all together, though, the last three months or so, i'm not sure it's as successful. but the vice president was able to do something that i don't know that we've seen before, to pull trump into the conversation. other way's the around. so the rollout continued when the president was talking about charlottesville and even republicans findan that -- republicans find his defense of that bizarre and unacceptable.yo robert mentioned the challenges facing vice president biden and therelyre certa many challenges. he's faced criticism over his conduct with women a his role in the anita hill hearings during the confirmation of suprem court justice clarence thomas. the former veep called professor hill this week before announcing his bid but she told the "new york times" that he was lt deeply unsatisfied and not convinced that mr. biden t truly accept harm he caused her. how does the vice president deal with this?

his history o statements a actions on capitol hill, the question about his conduct, does it haunt him? or can he overcome it? julie: i think it can be overcome potentially but i think it wl continue to hang over him and as you saw from my colleague's piece in the "times," anita hill is not satisfied with his explanation a lot of other women who were involved at the time still harbor a lot of anger about -- not just about whatd happe but about biden's handling of it and what we saw on friday on his intervw when he was asked about this on "the view" is he, for whatever reason, n i willing to make a direct, "i'm sorry, igi apo," not to the women who feel he may have crossed a line, not to ata hill directly. robert: why not? julie: i don't know why. robert: when you talk to top democrats, what is the sense of his thinking?

julie: i think that if he apologizes, a traditional straight-up apology, that makes him vulnerable, a weakness trump would seek to exploit and he doesn't want to showess but also i think he genuinely feels, if you lteno him, that he didn't do anything wrong so it's all about, i'm sorry if you felt offended. >> i think he thinks he mishandled anita hill's moment but that he didn't do anything abuse her himself. i think the key for former vice president biden is as suggested, he has to establish and maintain the idea that he's the most electable democrat, that being the center left, not the far left, is the ticke to defeating trump that wins you the voters in michigan and wisconsin and ohio and pennsylvania, that donald trump has stolen from us and we need back. robert: he's got a real base, jerry. i was downso ih carolina at a historically black church inar

ston, asking older black voters who they support -- biden, biden, biden. he has a legacy, seen as a supporter of preside obama. >> and having the supportn of afrimericans in the primary is not a bad thing to have, for sure. and across the party, there's a deeper rir of affection for joe biden and a lot of moderate voters who don't get heard from as much early in the primary season b who come to the polls at the end. we'll see. there are big obstacles. robert: a generation gap could confront him, as well. >> it will confront him. if you look at the age range from 37 -- peteutgieg. joe biden would represent some change but not the barack obama

variety of change. i think that is his challenge wre. butn it comes time to pick a president, will democrats go for someone who's experienced and wiser someone who's new? we don't know the answer to that question yet. robert: ande won't know for some time but we will keep covering it all. thanks, everybody, for being here. coming up on the "washington week extra," we will talk about the "she the people" event which hosted several presidential candidates. join us for that o ourebsite, on facebook or youtube starting at 8:30 p.m. eve friday nigh and all weekend long. i'm robert costa, have a great weekend. announcer: corporate funding is provided by --

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