robert: partisan warfare. i'm robert costa, welcome to "washington week." anough and tumble week i politics as the president andof speaker the house clash. esident trump: crazy nancy. i tell you what. i have been watching her for a long period of time. she's not the same per she's lost it. >> i pray for the president of the united states. i wish his family or administration or staff would a have intervention for the good f the country. robert: as mr. trump heads to tokyo where issuesn trade and north korea hover. next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by --

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the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert:president trump issued an ultimatum to democrats this week and congressional investigations or forget about any deals between now and the 2020 election. the president delivered that m bluntsage to speaker pelosi during a brief white house meeting on wednesday. earlier, the speaker accused the president of being related to a cover-up. she did not appreciate the president's walkout which stalled talks over infrastructure. >> the white house has a bag of trks they save for certain occasions. they don't necessarily apply to the occasionut they're distraction, which is his master of distraction. we will all agree on that.

robert: the relations continued to fray as both the speaker and the president made cuttinge remarks, lik this one, about the speaker's knowledge of the latest trade agreement. president trump: she's a mess. look, let's face it.oe she't understand it and they sort of feel she's disintegrating before their eyes. she does not understand that. they want to the have her understand it before it's finished. robert: joining me tonight, nancy cordes, chief congressional correspdent for cbs news. molly ball, national politicfo corresponden "time" magazine and toluse olorunnipapo white house er for "the washington post." nancy, you've been on capitol hill this week, what prompted this escalation. nancy: the president says what prompted it was that word, cover-up. it's a loaded term in washington with connotations of watergate and nancy pelosi uering that just before she met with the president, he said, when he made

that impromptu appearance in the rose garden, that really made him angry and he wouldn't deal with her if she used that language. according to pelosi and many democrats, the real reason he walked out is because he doesn't have the goods on infrastructure and they believe he's looking for aay out becau they were supposed to sit down and talk about ways to pay for this $2 trillion infrastructure package and they know that the white house is goingoave a very difficult time selling a spending package of that magnitude to the president's own party. robert: so what's the power wedynamic, molly, b the speaker and the president? molly: well, it appears the speaker has the upper hand and that's frustrating to the president. i don't know that that's a new dynami s i think's demonstrated her ability to confront the president at least since she prevailed in the shutdown fight back in january. ert itinly marks an escalation, an escalation of rhetoric, particularly on the president's park. he's handled her a little more delicately in the past, which has surprised some people who

are accustomed to his confrontational style. but as nancy said, he had enough, whether it was because he hadn't done hisme rk or because he heard a word he didn't like and flew off the handle and the democrats describe it as a temper tantrum but als a pre-planned stunt. he already had a sign printed out with statistics about the cost of mueller investigation and how long it had gone on and other numbe so he was clearly planning to make a statement that wasn't a infrastructure, but his displeasure about the democrats' oversight of him. toluse: it's clear that speaker pelosi is living rent-free in president trump's head. you look a her comments, talking about praying for the president, her concern for his well-being and earlier she said president trump is not worth impeaching. the consending comments seem to

get under the president's skin, ant the f that she's a woman inow per, something he's not had to deal with before. robert: the word from the white house seems to be calm. toluse: lashed out, rhetorically, he was not angry or yelling but he was supposed to be talking about infrastructure on wednesday and the next day, supposed to be talking about a farm aid package hand he spef an hour talking about how speaker pelosi was a messo he's rattled and knocked off his message, even if he doesn't raise his voice, it's clear she's in his head and he'a ng trouble dealing with a powerful woman who has the leverage of power in the house and is usingt to pursue all of these investigations against him, which is another thing getting under his skin. robert: the speakers calling fo an intervention. what led her there, to couch these things in those terms? nancy: i think it serves her rposes to make the case,

slowly, that he's unbalanced, that he doesn't actually respect the osof-- office of the presidency. in an earlier interview she said she respects the office of thecy presidore than he does. democrats have been making this case for somen'ime, they think he really gets it, and sos the presidency and that's in her interests. but beyond that, thepr ident -- he acted as if this was some great power play that he made by walking out of that meeting and saying he wasn't going to work with democratsbu the next day, the two sides finally signed off on a disaster aid package worth $19 billion. we saw this a few months ago when he walked out on another meeting with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer saying he wouldn't meet with them and then criminal justice rorm got done on both sides so the idea that he will

walk ay and the won't be bipartisan conversation anymore hasn't played out and even within 24 hours of him saying'te waoing to work with the democrats, he did. robert: the speakerin is thr punches rhetorically at the president. or still trying to hold caucus together on the impeachment question. where does tha stand inside democratic ranks? molly: so far she's been successful at least at suppressing outright rebellion. there arensertainly divis within the caucus between more moderate members who don't believe the should ever go down the impeachment route and more beral members who think impeachment ought to start now. what they haven't been doing i publicly criticizing the speaker's strategy. they've beenoicing opinions but they haven't said they think she's wrong and haven't tried to start something on their own so they're pursuing the process of going thugh the courts, trying

every possible avenue to get witnesses and documents and information from the white house before they, then, potenally go that next step. robert: on that point, is she able to keep them in line, in part because the democrats keep winning in federal court to get documents from places like deutsche bank and capital one about the president's finances? chlly: absolutely. if it r a point where all the other avenues have been frustrated and they're not getting that information, that's when you would have a more vocal potential majority of the caucus saying now impeachment is the only w to hold the president accountable but so far anyone who's covered nancy pelosi kno she's very good at keeping her caucus together. but at this point she's able to do it becau they mostlygree with her argument that there are still avenuesuroe. nancy: those court victories, a pair of them in federalk,ourts this wade a huge difference for democrats, as molly mentioned. democrs were coming out one after the other this week, saying we may need to pursue an

impeachment inquiry after all, we're frustrated. they said the white hou is completely stonewalling, they can't get the documents or witnesses they want and this is the only way to do it. but oncehey started winning in federal court and judges were sayingut that he bank and capital one need to turn over the president's financial records, they said, wait minute, a, that didn't take that long. they were worried it would take years to get a judge to rule. and b, he ruled in their favor. so that made democrats more confident that they actually have theta legaling to do this and that they will win victories like this in the anure without resorting to impeachment inquiry which opens up a can of worms polanically that pelosi would rather not open now if she doesn't have to.l robert: this debate over impeachment on the democratic k to the b infrastructure point. the talks fell apart this week. is thatecse, toluse, republicans, at the end of the day in congress, don't want to raise taxes and taxes would have

to be part of any deal? toluse: infrastructure has always beenue a difficult i in congress because no one wants to raise the gas tax, no one wants raise taxes to pay for the billions of dollars that need to be funded. presiden trump came out and said i'm for $2 trillion in infrastructure but he didn't say anything about how to pay for it and once the rubber hits thead on figuring out whether or not he'll raise taxes, that's where the idea of a deal fell apart.pr it seemeident trump was not in favor of raising taxes but wants a big infrastructure hpackage he can put name on and not having a way out, he decided to walk away. robert: back to the disaster relief bill, $19 billion for disaster relief. what greased the skids for that? nancy: democrats have been pushing for money for pcorto or some time. this bill was five months overdue. there was something for everyone -- western wildfires southeast hurricane relief. so this was something that everyone acknowledged washe

necessary but were a couple of things holding it up. number one, democratic demand for more money for puerto rico than the president wanted. and the president's insistence that it include humanitarian aid at the border andl a way to d with overcrowding. at the end of the day, he backed off o. that requireme he said he would put it in another package and that sort oo opened the to bipartisan agreement and it was almost over the finish line. the senate passed it almost universally but the house it left town which meant that the house, every member ofhe house would have had to agree in order for it to go through. one republican from texas had a problem with it, he said it was too much money, it wasn't offset by anything. robert: but it's expected to pass. nancy: it is going to pass. if not next week during congressnal recess, then when they return in 10 days. robert: molly, was going back through some of y articles for-time and you wrote earlier in e year that america's new political reality

is a nonfunctioning government each insisting the stakes are too high, have retreated to their corners. so the escalationee in the fighting between the white house and congress, but has this moment changed that much since back in the days of the shutdown earlier this year? molly: it's improved because the federal government is up and running again but what we have to lookrd for to, as we have many times in the past several years, are a series of high-stakes congressional deadlines that require bipartisan agreement in order to meet and not cause disaster. and that's going to be a real challenge. it's a challenge for speaker pelosi, a challenge for the president and the senate and the congress. but they've got appropriations bills to pass or at least some kind ofontinuing resolution that will have to be done as a stop gap.go they'v to raise the debt ceiling, raise the spending caps. there's a lot that has to be done and given the state of partisanng warfare, it's go

be very difficult for them to get there. robert: and bob mueller hasn't even testified yet. house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler announced this week that bob mueller would prefer to i testi private and allow the transcript to be released. a new cbs new pollhows that 58% of americans say they have heard enough about theueller probe, while 37% want to hear more. we're heang from the white house that now the president's complaining on friday, en route to japan, he may not want bob mueller to testify. is thehite house going t try to block that? toluse: they haven't taken the p stepsvately to do that but publicly the president is making the case that democrats are just trying to do a do-over of theer long mue investigation which took two years and $30 million and 4-00 page report. the president is trying to block efforts to revisit information that damaging to his ministration and the idea of

bob mueller who would be a television spectacle if he were to appear before cameras, the prtident does not w to see that happen again. robert: who decides whether me we is or not? bob mueller or congress? nancy: witnesses don't usually get to dictatein the forma which they testify but he has leverage. as toluse w pointing out, democrats absolutely want him testifying in public, talking as much as possible about how difficult it was for him to decide whether to recommend charges of obstructionf o justice against the president, going through all the evidence he laid out. democrats want the public to see nkat. they t that's very powerful, especially coming from someone seen as this independent arbiter, someone like robert muler, one of the f genuine non-partisan actors in this town. robert: isn't that powerful if the cbs news poll shows soms americre moving on? molly: americans are moving on

but they also do not believe the president's argument that he'sen exonerated. in the politics of this, the president falsely states that n collusion, no obstruction, that that was the conclusn of the report when no such conclusion was drawn. he insists he was exonerated by the report which the report pointed oute was not tonerated and the public, robust majority public, have seen that and do not believe that the report cleared the president. so it is tru that this has never been the public's most important issue a the democrats are anxious about the appearance that they are disregarding bread and butter kitchen table concerns in favor what the president considers a persecution. however, whe t it comeso the substance of the charges against the predent, of t argument against the president, the public does not support the president's view and the democrats are on safe political

ground. robe: the president is launching a counter offensive to the possible mueller testimony granting bill barr new powers to declassify documents related to the start of the russia investigation. what started this movemen to give the attorney general these powers? was it congressional republicans who have been scrutinizing the events for months? trumpt -- toluse: the president said people have been calling on to declassify documents related to the mueller investigation. he has an attorney general who has shown himself willing to pull out alltohe to defend the president and back up the president's assertions thater were improper spying on his campaign in 2016 and this attorney geeral will h power to about through the intelligence community and declasfy documents. robert: is that intelligence community worried about methods beingxposed? nancy: they are, the dan coates, voiced that concern,

saying some of the material is very sensitive. it's unusual to see one in the intelligence community telling another to put on the brakes. but that's the message he's sending because there is a worry about whe this goes. molly: it's pretty incredible. the democrats' whole argument is that the president is disregarding thel constitutio checks and balances and undermining the rule of law and in order to predent the crats from investigating oose same allegations, he's simply doing mor that. he's doing more and more to undermine those checks and balances and to potentially extend executive power in ways that many experts find disturbing. robert: what's the institutional cost to the department of justice when allse of t methods and sources about the counter intelligence side get expo olly: it's potentially huge. and that is the worry, is that he could throw the balance of power how the -- out of whack permanently and that could have

lasting consequences for theid prcy, for the congress. what holds a president in check if the oversight responsibilities of the congress are vitiated, if the dependence of the department of justice no longer exists.d toluse: he broader argument that we should not have a president using the full power ofen the federal gover to investigate his political perceived enemies is a anument that's sometimes lost in the discussion but it is a powerful argument that the president shouldn't necessarily be organizing and ordering the investigations. robert: turning our eyes abroad, the president is traveling to japan, the first foreign leader to meet japan's new emperor. mr. trump will meet with prime minister abe.g joine now is david sanger, our friend and "new york times" national security correspondent and author of "the perfect weap,, w sabotage and fear

in the cyber age." dan:., thanks forng joi us. david: great to be with you. robert: what's the importance of the u.-japanese relationship as president trump confronts china on trade? david: it's pretty vital right now. and the reason is, that the president's relationships with almost all of his other major allies are sotrained. obviously, we're in the midst of a big trade war with china and much longer issues over chnology. iran and north korea are both mping up as confrontations, particularly in iran, the europeans feel alienated, and even south korea has got a lot of differences wit president about how he's been dealing with the north. so he's going to e of the safest territories he can. he's nurtured a really great relationship with prime minister abe.

and he is going to be the first foreign leader to meet the new emperor and empress, a change in generation. in the case of the empress, masiko, american and british educated. likely a feel-good meeting. robert: is prime minister abe encouraging a hard line on nokoh a? john bolton, the national security adviser, was over there todayeeting with him. david: yes, and the reason he is, politically, at home in japan, the big issue, apart from the nuclear t question, i question of abductees, when the north koreans toor a numf japanese, they would come over eople, bringdnap them over. they've never fully accounted for them. theapanese are demanding their return. many of these are people who have lived in north korea, now, for 10, 20, 30 years. that is an issue on which prime minister abe hasad to hold

extraordinarily tough. and he has been urging the president to be much tougher on the north koreans, as well. and i'm sure you'll hear a bit of that, although, as you know, president trump blows hotcond about whether or not kim jong-un is a great dictor or his great friend. robert: the u.s. recently delayed the auto trafs -- tariffs on japan. should we expect a trade deal between the u.s. and japan? david: certainly the president wants one and i think thene ja would like to get there, as well. it's not h ash stakes as it was 25 years ago when i lived in japa and you'd see american presidents show up every six months with a different kind of trade deal on autos or access of americans to the market. obviously, china has eclipsed japan as the second largest economy.

nonetheless, i think it's highly likely that you see one. the question is whether you'll only see it after a deal is reached with china. robert: but, david, is a deal with china going to be reached an time soon? we saw this week, chinese telecommunications companies being black listed by president trump. has that rattl beijing? david: it certainly has. the action you saw was against huawei, the state champion for telecommunications equipment. the united states has bannedaw from building the new 5g networksd here, desigot only to speed up your cell phone but also to allow machine-to-machine communication over cell. but the other thing they did was cut them off from american technology. and i think there's a very good chance that this may, not only poison the well some, but force the chinese to speed up their own t planso go produce their

own chips, their own material, their own software independent of the united states. it certainly raises the question of whether the president is helping push the world, as the chine have bee into an authoritarian internet run by china and free internet run by the west. robert: what has this black-listing meant for the chinese question, having huawei affected in this manner? vid: it hasn'tet much yet. there's a 90-day stay on this ts allow compao sort of sort their way through. but the main thing to remembert is t huawei is the world's second largest producer of cell phones. they've eclipsed apple. and th t weeky learned they won't be able to load google maps and google search and all that on huawei phones thatre sold around the world because it would be a violation of the esident's orders. so google has begun to pull back from them, asthaves. the question is, is that just a temporary blip for them or a

permanent and truly hurtful one? robert: we know this is all a previe of that g-20 meeting next month. this isuite an exchange between abe and president trump right now to give us a presue of what's going t happen then. david sanger, thanks so much for joining us tonight i appreciate it. david: great to be with you. robert: before weeo, let's pao remember a long-time "washington week" panelist. georgian guyer. she authored 10 books and was a regular guest on this program for many years. she died earlier this month at her home in washington at 84. thanks, everybody, for being here tonight. much appreciated. the "washington week extra" is oming up next. watch itn our website, facebook or youtube. i'm robert costa. good night. >> babbel, a language program that teaches real life

conversations in a new language such as spanish, french, german, italian and more babbel's 10 to 15-minute lessons are available as an app or online. more information on babbel.com. announcer: home adviser.er kaermanente. financial services firm, raynd james. additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to briing cultural differences in our communities. the corporatiofor public broadcasting, and by rsntributions to your pbs station from vieike you. thank you. [captioning performed by ton national capg institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] >> you're watchi pbs.

last week, we did cake. who knows what paul and mary have got up their little sleeves this time? i'm at sure i'd like to ething that has been up paul's sleeve. no way. no. ,yway, inside that te we have 11 bakers raring to go and 3 fantastic challenges ahead of them. last week, 12 new bakers entered the tent for the first time. man: we know how to bake, do we? woman: we do. only thing we know. while there was success for some... that tastes fantastic. there was misery for others. oh, no! it's split. uh! nancy executed exemplary miniature cakes. what perfection-- a sheer joy to look at. sand was crowned this yea first star baker. [applause] re but clai had one disaster too many... absolutely no idea. and she was the first to leave the tent. you'll be very missed, love. you're aeal cracker, you are this week, it's biscuit wk. please can you say to me, "that's a cracker"?