robert: house democrats at a crossroads. and republicans face pressure on election security. i'm robert costa. ngwelcome to "waston week." democrats debate impeachment. following robert mueller's testimony before congress. >> we did not reach a determinion as to whether the president committed a crime. robert: speaker pelosi pledges to move forwa with investigations and their battles in the courts. >> it's based on the facts. the facts and the law. that's what matters. not politics. not partisanship. just patriotism. bert: the president wants to move on. president trump: this whol h thing been three years of embarrassment and waste of time for our country.b rot: but foreign interference remains a pressing issue as the senate

intelligenceommittee releases new details. next. announcer: this is "washington week." funding is provided by --ev >>. >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice fe. l life well planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> babbel. the language program that teaches real life conversations in a new language. such as spanish, french, german, italian, and more.0 babbel's to 15-minute lessons are available as an app or online. more information on babbel.com. anuncer: additional funding is provided by through the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. 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: this week, the former special counsel a respected nonpartisan investigator stepped int a partisan wildfire on capitol hill. robert mueller testified before two house committs about his probe of russian interference during the 2016 campaign and possible obstruction of justice by president trump. mueller's remarks were seriousd concise and underscored his report's conclusions. the mueller hearings leave house democrats led by speaker pelosi intensely deliberating whether to impeach the president. well, se democrats are calling for impeachment raoceedings to begin, the speaker says dem will not make a final decision until the courts decide whether the white house must comply with congressional demands including the call for testimonyrom

former white house counsel don gann. cnn's mann asked the speaker about her -- manu rchu ask the speaker with. >>ry trying to run out the clock on impeachment? >> i'm not trying e run out clock. we proponent proceed when we have what we need to proceed. not one day sooner. and everybody has the liberty and the luxury to espouse their own position and to criticize me. robert: joining me tonight, mark landler, london bureau chief foryo "the ne times." rosalind helderman, political enterprise and investigationsrt re for "the washington post." and co-author of the analysis in the post's best-selling publicion of the mueller report. and andrea mitchell, chief correspondent for nbc news, and of course manu ranchu, senior congressional correspondent for what's next for house democrats? >> look, i think that impeachment is suddenly on the ble in the house which is a

big shift. this has -- the speer has en very reticent about going down this path. she has said it's not going to happen. she's saidat he president simply goading us into impeachment and says the senate's controlled by why would we go down this route? because there's simply not going to convict the president. her messaging has changed. she has said after the mueller report let's see what tco ts do. let's figure out the courts, the situation with the courts. i asked erher directly a the mueller hearing about her concerns about -- it would die in the senate. concern hat's not anymore. my concern is what's going to happen in the courts. she said this is not going to be end and that very significant development today, they added -- they put language in this lawsuit to get this mueller grand jury inf mation that says the house jewish committee needs -- y judicimmittee needs that information because they are considering articles of impeachment against the presidentnnd she signed off o that. does that mean they'll pull the trig senator not necessarily. but it means it's seriously on the table. robert: ros, wt's the outlook in the courts about getting

that grand jury information? >> yes. so grand jury material is secret. it is sealed. t is very hard to get. there was actually just a court ruling in the past year from the d.c circuit saying that a judge can't release grand jury material just because it's in the public interest. so one exception that allows you to get it released is that there's a judicial proceeding under way and what the house democrats are going to argue is that impeachment is that judicial proceeding. it brings them under an exemption in the law and allows them to actually make up potentially persuasive argument to a judge th this stuff. get robert: what about don mcgann's testimony? can they compel him to >> that's also going to be a legal battle and interesting they said they're going to fter the courts but they haven'ted that lawsuit yet to try to compel the -- to force him to comply with t. ir subpoe that will be a big executive privilege battle that's likely to go to the supreme court. robert: you've covered speaker pelosi. what's her calculation here? doeshe want to move on or are there cracks in the ranks even at the highest levels?re

>> tre cracks in the ranks. we saw the vice chair caucus also coming out now. it's close to 1 or maybe just over 100 members. i think she wants to not admit that she's running out the clock. but we are running into the clock. they say they're going to work during this six-week recess. but there's no sense of real urgency outside of the judiciary committee and adam schiff from the intelligence committee has said the only way to remove him from office now is to defeat him at the polls.ha i think that is the logic of -- we're going into this more t of debates a debates in september. the tempo of this campaign, this primary campaign is increasing. g they're runnight into the 2020 election. and that timing really puts a dead end, i think,s,o t if the courts don't move quickly. and the courts have not been moving quickly. f and s at least, the department of justice, william barr, has held all he and the white house have delayed this to take this sense

of immediacy away from it. it's been months since the report was released, since barr put his own stamp on it, misleading the public, i think, by most accounts. anhe mueller testimony did not rise to the dma of expectations even though the and and bolts were there the hard facts were there that could support impeachment. robert: whate about inse white house? walking away from mueller's testimony, what's their next step? >> well, i mean, the president continues with what he's been doing which is tohe discredit investigation. you know, while at the same time claiming it totally h exonerat. so he's followed the same strategy. it was sort of interesting h watchi in the days and hours leading up to the look ony because he di like he had genuine anxiety about what was going to come out.nc he wasdibly critical of the fact that robert mueller brought one of his leading legal advisors to sit next to him and advise him. so there was this sort of sense of slight panic on the

the president in the days leading up to it. i think when it ended up being as undramatic as it was, and bob mueller stuck as closelys he did to the report itself and refused to speculate, elaborate, offer any conjecture at all about the white house's motives, the president breathed a sigh ofre relief and tas that note of i triumphalis his tweets the way after we saw attorney general barr delivered his first highly misleading take on the report itself. i think the president, i think andrea is right in saying that thealendar i rushing forward so quickly. you'll probably see him pivot a little bit now to sleepy joe biden, the squad, the political enemies that he's already been making hay with over the past few and my own view is in a way donald trump mirrors the american public f mueller ends up being this story that quickly recedes into history i think you'll watch the president move on to the next chapter as wel robert: what about this summer

recess? you think about moderate democrats, many of them won office in 2018 in the suburbs running on the health care issue, on the economy, you have representative anthony brendisi of new york told "the washington post" anyone looking for a smoking gun with the mueller testimony, dndn't get itime to move on and focus on some bills to get passed and hopefully get sig ld in. we talk a lot about the pressure on the -- on the left toward speakeri pel i. what about from the center on the speaker? >> that's what she has a to considut moving forward. how does moving forward with impeachment affect the people who actually got her in the majority? yeah. they're not the loudeple in the room. but they are the most important to ptect. that's going to be a key calculation. i talked to two of them yesterday. come van drew from new jersey and maxose from new york and both of whom won republican-held seatdeand they t very clear that they are not anywhere near supporting an impeachment quiry. but there are some other frontline democrats that -- call it the frontline

democrats, the most vun vulnerable democrats in the house democratic calk russ slowly starting to support impeachment. one mike lee vin from california announced his support for opening up anhm impet inquiry. . if you do see movement on that front perhaps that move pelosi. we'll see what they hear from their constituents in the recess. robert: andrearought up the attorney general bill bar. we had robert mueller's stimony. but what should we expect from d.o.j. on the i.g. version into carter page and the fisa application as well as the a.g.'s own report on the origins of the russia investigation? >> yeah. barr had said that we shoul expe that i.g. report in may or june. it's now july. so ihink we are expecting that within the next several months. a that could b really critical moment if he finds that there was some wrongdoing in the surveillance warrant that was issued for the trump advisor carter page. and then we're g tnghave this separate investigation. unclear when we will get that. but being run by a u.s.

attorney who has a very good reputation. also frankly a reputation for going quite i deliberativel other words slowly. so i wouldn't expect that we're going to get the results of that tooribly soon. but that's supposed to take a broad look at how the investigation began. so, you know, all this -- this mueller investigation material is not quite ihe rear-view mirror yet. >> and mueller -- sorry. muelleer didn't want to an those questions about the start of the probe during the hearing. >> and one of the mo frustrating things for people who wanted to get the facts out s that mule chose not to -- mueller chose not to rebut highlyue misleadingions that were really misstating the facts about the origins of this investigation. and the democrats tn stuck to their narrative rather than trying to correct it. one inr particular, carge had been under investigation long before donald trump evenun thought ofng for president. he was under investigation in prior case because of his connections in russia. and those fi sexuality a

warrants were -- fisa warrants were based on his previous relationship because he had been followed by the f.b.i. robert:et's turn to a related issue here. a new biptisan senate telligence committee report shows that russian intelligence targeted election systems in 2016 in all 50 states and it went on largelyec undd. republican senator richard burr of north carolina, the committee's chairman, described at happened in a statement burr said, quote, in 2016, the u.s. was unprepared at all levels of government for a concerted attacm fro determined foreign adversary on our election infrastructure. the report goes ton say the u.s. remains vulnerable to hacking by russia and other foreign actors. it cites three major issues. insecure voter registration databases. aging voter equipment. and paperless voting machines. mr. mueder war lawmakers about these matters on wednesday. >> the investigation that you think that this was a single o get by the russians

involved in our election or did you find evidence that suggests they'll try to do this again? >> i wasn't a single attempt. they're doing it as we sit here. and they exct to do it during the nextro campaign. rt: whatever you think about robert mueller's performance, there are also the facts. and the facts he laid out were also echoed this week by f.b.i. director chris ray. russian interference is serious. and it's likely to happen again 202 yet majority leader mitch mcconnell notoving on bipartisan legislation in the senate. will he pay a political price? >> well, this carries echoes of course of what mitch mcconnell n did in thes leading up to the 2016 campaign. you'll remember that the obama administration wanted congress to pass some sort of a statement. and mcconnell blocked it and said he wouldn't g along because he felt it was being caught up in partisan politics. it was designed to hurt the republican nominee. and so -- and that' very much his argument today. this is democratic

partisanship. is is not actually about making our elections more secure. it's about democrats trying to score points. the interesting thing -- to answer your queion directly, i don't know if he'll pay a political price in his own state. but i do know that it just sort of to mdminreaks of hypocrisy and it also potentially sets h up by the sort of you live by the sword you die by the sword. so he doesn't want to see this because he sees it as calculated to go againstrump or republican president. what we learned today that the iranns are also interested in potentially interfering in our election. and if they donterfere in the 2020 campaign, they're likely to interfere in ways that could have differentme out and so in -- and likewise the chinese. so the whole notion of foren interference in elections isn't necessarily automaticallyca anti-repub and i think that's the issue that mitch mcconnell should think about. >> and i think whas so outrageous to a lot of people is richard burr is the republican chair. ttat com, that senate intelligence committee worked

as -- bipartisan committee, i've covered that committee for s. and they -- they delivered. and robert mueller delivered.th report delivered on this very issue. it is an attack on o democracy. and in fact in the 2018 midterms, the national security agency shut down the internet research agency i petersburg for a number of days just to make sure that they could not sphereith our election. -- interfere with our election they were so about it. if thi happening and mitch mcconnell not to let these -- anodine measures and a start and not to even get a vote on the floor is pretty astounding. robert: manu, majority leader hashe citedussian sanctions that -- the report on by the u.s. government and the trumpra adminion and cited $380 million in grants congressional located to stes last year. whenever i see you, you're roaming the.s halls of the. senate. you're talking to lawmakers on

both sides. what's the real state of play? is this all areserving his fragile relationship with president trump or is he making a states' rights case? >> well, both. you know, he is making a states' rights case. that's how he's trying to contend that he's being idea logically consistent.og -- ideally consistent. but there are things that have wide bipartisan support such as mandating backup paper ballots and forcing these election -- e election officials to do that. because of concerns that these systems could be interfered with inay some that -- yeah. sure. it's a states' rights argument but also if you wereo go down that route perhaps he would open this up to a larger discussion about election interference, bring up what happened in 2016, all yf a sudd may anger the man who's sitting in the white house. and ameri want to -- mcconnell does not want to do that and the senate is not a place where they legislate anymore. they deal wi confirming president trump's nominee

mcconnell does not want to open up a thorny situation with the white house and take his hits media, crats, republicans are silent about this. and then see where the chips fall wre they may. robert: so there's a senate report on interference. but you cover interference as a beat,d ros. ou know it goes beyond just what a senate committee coeludes. there eep fake videos online. there areks wikilf documents and emails. what are reportersit,ens confronting on this interference issue broadly speaking as we head into020? >> yeah. i think that was one of the messages that mueller had that you know, not just congress but we as citizens, maybe we in the media have not yet fully come to grips with the lessons of 2016 and what we're going to do next time because there's undoubtedly going to be a next time tt stolen material appears online that can be helpful to one party or the

sorry. you know, every day we still see fake viral memes pop up online and get spread like wildfire before they're shut down. so i think we're just very much at the begning of confronting this problem as a society. we haven't figured it out yet. robert: wt was your ta swa on mr. mueller's testimony about wikileaks? >> yeah. i thoug that was one of the most striking moments of his testimony because he had tri so hard not to enter the partisan fray and he had thisen one m where he was asked what he thought of the statements that president trump had made during the c about wikileaks. and it was, you know, i expected him to sidestep as he had almost everything else but instead he said that he found, you know, problematicwas an understatement. that it was giving hope and boost to illegal behavior. it was really a striking moment to hear him be so critical of president trump in the way that he dealt with wikileaks. e>> in fact, he c to life more in the afternoon session with house intelligence.

i think precisely because of the way he started in his initial nine-minute opening statement bac after t report was released. and ended again on the russia attack. this is what was animating him. this is the mission that he there to cover. this was the original crime if you will that le to the potentiality of destruction. and i think that's why he went beyond the -- yes, no, maybes, you know. robert: and theecond guessing you hear from capitol hill is that perhaps they should have the house intelligence committee's part of the hearing. >> why did they sucture it this way? >> well, technically, they oversee the -- the judicial committee oversees the justice department, t special counsel reports to the justice department, so this is a jurisdictional thing. so they could say the house judiciary cmittee should go first is a turf battle. and everybody on capitol hill is a turf bate and some of these guys want to be the first person to put their imprint on things. robert: a turf battle on

capitol had i. big surprise. >> exactly. robert: there wasn't too much of a turf battle on the budget. the house passed a two-year budget and debt limit deal before lawmakers left washington to begin their six-week summer recess. the deal raises federa spending levels, lifts the debt smit for two years and prevents automatnding cuts to military and domestic funding. it now heads to the sena's where xpected to pass. and ultimately end up on the president's desk next week. underresident trump federal debt has surged to $22 trillion deficit is expected to reach $1 trillion thisiscal year. this is a republican party that has been about the deficit under speaker ryan, yet now it's embracing a bartisan spending package, a debt limit package. why put all of those principles from the past in the rear-view mirror? >> i think part of this is a change in min iet. andt's not just in the republican party. it's among democrats as ell. and itctly not even just

in the political class. i think somewhat in the acemic world a well. there is this evolving belief orction that debt and deficits are not as asthreateni amaging as say people thought they were a decade ago. if you remember the way bob reuben came ias bill clinton's top financial -- efore treasury secretary, head of the counsel onomic advisors, and sort of drummed into him the idea that we have to get this under control. it's an overhang that will destroy our children's future. that thinking has completely disappeared in today's washington. robert:he was economy driving this decision inside of the white house? they didn't want to rattle the >> absolutely. i think this president, he -- the way he loves polls he loves the stock market. h that measure of success. and it may be a false measure in terms of theecnderlying omy and what -- we're going to face with entitlements and deficits down the roa but if that's what he's looking at, he knewt tfault on the u.s. debt, not doing debt

ceiling raise, would have been fatal to his re-election hopes. put out a tweet that day calling on the house republicans to get behind this billnd overwhelmingly house republicans revolted and voted against iw, any were not speaking up against it. deal s was a bipartisan that was cut. mitch mcconnell, senate majority leader, supports it. it will pass the senate with republican support. but the republicans were notta comfe with this. but they're scared to speak out, too. ted cruz who led the charge heainst leading a debt ceiling increase duringbama years, i asked him, are you comfortable with raising t debt ciling for two years, suspending is?t for two ye he didn't want to comment. when i asked him about it initially it goes to show you, just totally -- >> nick mulvanewho did not want this and a big success for mnuchin the tasury secretary. robert: and new economic activity t g.p. rose at 2.1% for the second rate a

pullback from the 3.1% in the first quarter of this year. that's according to the commerce department. you've been on capitol hill as a reporter for years. the republhean party with president on this economy, regardless of his lack of interest in deficits perhaps. >> yeah. i -- i arrived in 2011 during what people might remember was this really sort of almosten frigg moment where they almost didn't raise the debt ceiling. and i was ther through 2013. and my entire tenure was this story of the perpetual fight over the boner rul -- the boehner rule where ty wouldn't raise spending more than $1 for every $1 of spending cutoand t watch that get wiped away is just in a few short years is just amazing to watch. >> that propelled the house republican majority -- it was that issue and they ran and they fought. and the obama administration tooth and nail. but there's no talk about deficits and debt in washington.

robert: final thought on the e newnomic numbers. >> well, look, it deprichese president trump of talking point which is 3% growth. and the number wasg. disappoint that said, it doesn't seem that it's a real warning that we're headed into a sharp slowdown. no but, you it is an indication that president trump can't count on a gangbusters economy into his re-election which i think a few weeks ago people thought maybe he could. >> and he of course is keeping his drum beat of pressure, incredible, unprecedented pressure against the federal reserve. robert: to try to keep those traits low. -- interest rates ll. robert: w the republicans break in the house on this budget deal the freedom calk unanimous in the senate,n the house, the most of them already voted against it. robert: they already votedns ag it. >> in the senate i think you'll see half the caucus -- the r senaublican conference eventually vote for it. maybe a little bit more than half. maybe about half of democrats ultimately back it. it's not an easy vote for too. ats, because you punt the issue of

the debt ceiling. essentially into the -- if there's a democratic president, all a sudden they got to deal with it right off the bat in a new presidency. and how will the republicans deal with it then? probably won't give it to him or her that easily. robert: we'll be t watchingt whip count next week in the senate. and we'll be watching the trade talks. they restart with china next week. but we'll have to leave it there for now. d coming up next on the n week" extra we will discuss britain's new prime minister boris johnson. and we will toast mark on his new post overcrs the pond. watch it on our website. facebook or youtu. i'm robert costa. as mark would say cheerio, have a good weekend.

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