robert: house democrats at a crossroads. and rublicans face pressure on election security. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." democrats debate impeachment. following robert mueller's testimony before congress. >> we did not reach a determination as tother the president committed a crime. robert: speaker pelosi pledges to move forward with investigations and their battles in the courts. >> it's based on the facts. the factsawand the that's what matters. not politics. not partisanship. just patriotism. robert: the president wants to move on. president trump: this whole thing has been three years of embarrassment and waste of time r ourountry. robert: but forgn interference remains a pressing issue as the senate

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station from viewers like you. thank you. from washington, moderator robert costa. robert: this week, the former special counsel a respected nonpartisan investigator stepd into partisan wildfire on capitol hill. robert mueller testified before two house committees about his probe of russian interferenc during the 2016 campaign and justice obstruction of by president trump. mueller's remarks were serious and concise and underscored his report's conclusions. the mueller hearings leave house democrats led by speaker deliberating whether to impeach the president. well, some democrats are calling for impeachmens proceedio begin, the speaker says democrats will not make a final decision until the courts decide whether the white house must comply with congressional demands including the call for testimony from

former white houseounsel don mcgann. cnn's mann asked the speaker about her -- manu ranchu asked he speaker with. >>ry trying to run out the clock on impeachment? >> i'm not trying to run out thelock. we proponent proceed when we have what we need to proceed. not one day sooner. and everybody has the liberty and the luxury to eouse their own position and to criticize me. robert: joining me tonight, mare landler, london bu chief for "the new york times." rosalind helderman, political enterprise and investigations reporter for "the washington and co-author of the analysis in the post's best-selling publication of the mueller report. and andrea mitchell, chief foreign affairs corresponnt for nbc news, and of course manu ranchu, senio congressional correspondent for cnn. what's next for house democrats? >> look, i hink that impeachment is suddenly on the table in the house which is a

bigashift. this- the speaker has been very reticent about going downhis path. she has said it's not going to happen. she's saidthat the preside simply goading us into impeachment and says the senate's controlled by republicwes. why woulo down this route? because there's simply not going to convict the president. her messaging has changed. she has said ater the mueller report let's see what the courts do. let's figure out the courts, the situation with the courts. i asked her directly after the mueller hearing about her concerns about -- it would die in the senate. she said that's not my concerne anym my concern is what's going to happen in the courts. she said this is not going to be and that very significant development today, they added -- theyag put lan in this lawsuit to get this mueller grand jury information that says the house jewish committee needs -- judiciary committee needs that information because considering articles of impeachment against the president and she signed off on that. does that mean they'll pullathe trig s not necessarily. but it means it's seriously on the table. robert: ros, what's thelo o in the courts about getting

that grand jury information? >> yes. sond gury material is secret. it is sealed. it is very hard to get.s there ctually just a court ruling in the past year from the d.c. circuit saying that a judge can't releary grand material just because it's in the public interest. so one exception that allows you to get iteleased is that there's a judicial proceeding under way and what the housecr des are going to argue is that impeachment is that judicial proceeding. it b angs them und exemption in the law and allows them to actually make up potentially persuasive argument to a judge that they should g. this stu robert: what about don mcgn's testimony? can they compel him to testify? >> that's also going to be a legal battle and interestingy' they said t going to enter the courts but they haven't filed that lawsuit yet to try to compel the -- to force him to comply with their wsubpoena. thl 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? does she wantov to on or are there cracks in the ranks even at the highest levels? >> there are cracks in the

ranks.ic we saw the chair of the caucus also coming out now it's close to 100 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 ss.-week rec 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 to defeat him at the polls. ngthink that that is the logic of -- we're goi io this next set of debates and more debates in september. the tempo of thisampaign, this primary campaign is increasing. they're running right into the 2020n. elect and that timing really puts a dead end, i think, to this, if the courts don't move quickly. and the courts have not been moving quickly. and so far a least, the department of justice, william barr, has held all the cards he and t white house have delayed this to take this sense

of immediacy away from it. it'seen months since the report was released, since barr put his own stamp on it, misleading the public, i think by most accounts. and the mueller testimony did not rise to the drama of expectations even thou the nuts and bolts were there and the hard facts were there that coulduprt impeachment. robert: what about inside the white house? walking away from mueller testimony, what's their next step? >> well, i mean, the preside continues with what he's been doing which is to discredit the investigation. you know, while at the same time claiming it totally soonerated him. e's followed the same strategy. it was sort of interesting watching him in the days and hours leading up to the testimony because he did look like he had genuine anxiety about what was going t come out. he was incredibly critical of the fact that robert brought one of his leading legal advisors to sit next to him and advis so there was this sort of sense of slight panic on the part of t

the presin the days leading up to it. i think when it ended up bng as undramatic as it was, and bob mueller stuck as closely as he did to the report itself and refu to speculate, elaborate, offer any cjecture ll about the white house's motives, the president breathed a sigh of relief and there was that note of triumphalism in 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 the calendar is rushing forward so quickly. a 'll probably see him pivot little bit now to sleepy joe biden, the squad, e political enemies that he's already been making hay with over the past few weeks. 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 well. robert: what about this summer recess?

eyou think about moder democrats, many of them won office in 2018 in the suburbs running on the health care issue, on the economy, y have representative anthony brendisi "the york tol washington post" anyone looking for a smoking gun with the mueller testimony, didn't get it and time toe on and focus on some bills to get passed and hopefully get signed into law. talk a lot about the pressure on the -- on the left toward speaker pelosi i. what about from the center on the speaker >> that's what she has to consider about moving forward. how does moving forward impeachment affect the people who actually got her in the majority? yeah. loudest people in the room. but they are the most important to protect. that's going to be a key calculation. i talked to two of them yesterday. come van drew from new jersey and max rose from new york and both of who won republican-held seats and they made it very clear that they are note anywhear supporting an impeachment inquiry. but there are some other frontline democrats that -- call it the frontline democrats, the most vun

in the le democrats house democratic calk russ slowly starting to supportpe hment. one mike lee vin from california announced his support for opening up an impeachment inquiry. . if you do see movement on that front perhaps that could move pelosi. se'll see what they hear from their constituen the recess. robert: andrea brought up the attorney general bill bar. had robert mueller's testimony. 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 origins of the russia investigation? >> yeah. barr had said that we should expect that i.g. report in may or june. it's now july. so i think we are expecting that within the nexteveral months. that could be a really critical ment if he finds that there s some wrongdoing in the surveillance warrant that was issued for the trump advisor carter page. and then we're going to have 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 deliberatively, in other words slowly. so i wouldn't expect that we're going to get the results of that too terribly soon. but that's supposed to tak a broad look at how the investigation began. so, you all this -- this mueller investigation material is not quite in r ther-view mirror yet. >> and mueller -- sorry. mueller didn't want to answer those questions about the start of the probe during the hearing. >> and one of the more frustrating things for people who wanted to get t facts out was that mule chose not to -- muelor chose not t rebut highly misleading questions that were really misfaating the s about the origins of this investigation. and the democrats then stuck to their narrative rather than trying to correct it. one in particular, carter page had been under investigation long before donald trump even thght of running for president. he was under investigation in prior case because of his connections in t russia. anse fi sexuality a

warrants were -- fisa warrants were bed on his previous relationship because he had been followed by the f.b.i. robert: let's turn to a related issue here. a new bipartisan senate intelligence committee report shows that rsian intelligence targeted election systems in 2016 in all 50 states and it went on largely undetected. republican senator richard burr of north carolina, the committee's chairman, described what happened in stateme burr said, quote, in 2016, the u.s.reas ured at all levels of government for a concerted attack frodem a rmined foreign adversary on our election infrastructure. the report goes ton say the u.s. remai vulnerable hacking by russia and other foreign actors. it cites three major issues. insecure voter registration databases. aging ver equipment. and paperless voting machines. mr. mueller warned lawmake about these matters on wednesday. >> the investigation that you think that this was a single attempt by the russians to get

involv our election or did you find evidence that suggests they'll try to do this again? >> it wassingle attempt. they're doing it as we sit here. and they expect to do it during the next campaign. robert: whatever you think about robert mueller performance, there are also the facts. and the facts he laid out were also echoed this week by f.b.i. ncrector chris ray. russian interfeis serious. and it's likely to happen again in 2020. yet majority leader mitch mcconnell not moving on bipartisan legislation in the senate. will he pay a political price? >> well, this carries echoes o course of what mitch mcconnell did in the months leading up to the 2016 cpaign. you'll remember that the obama administration wanted congress to pass se sort of a statement. and mcconnell blocked it and said he wouldt go along because he felt it was being caught up in partisan politics. it was doigned t hurt the republican nominee. and so -- and that's very much his argument today. this is democratic

partisanship. this is not actually about making our elections more secure. it's about democrats trying to score points. the interesting thing -- to answer your question 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 my mind wreaks of hypocrisy and it also potentially sets himself up by the sort of you live by the sword you die by the sword. so he doesn want to see this because he sees it as calculated to go against trump or republican president. what we leaoded that the iranians are also interested in potentially interferi in our election. and if they do interfere in the 020 campaign, they're likely to interfere in ways that could have different outcomes. and so in -- and likewise the chinese. so the whole notion of foreign interference in elections isn't necessarily automatically anti-republican. and i think that's the issue that mitch mcconnell should think about. >> and i think what's so f people s to a lot is richard burr is the republican chair. that committee, that senate intelligence committee worked

as -- bipartisan committee, anve covered that committee for decades. they -- they delivered. erd robert mueller delivered. that report del on this very issue. it is an attack on our mocracy. and in fact in the 2018 midterms, the national security agency shut down e internet research agency in st. petersburg for a number of days justo make surehat they could not sphere with our election. -- inrfere withur election they were so about it. if this is 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 has cited the russian sanctions that -- the report on by the u.s. government and the trump administration and cited $380 million in grants congressional located to states last year. whenever i see you, you're roaming the halls of the u.s. senate. you're talking to lawmakers o

both sides. what's the real state of play? is this all bout preserving his fragile relationship with president trump or kiis he a states' rights case? >> well, both. u know, he is making a states' rights case. that's how he's trying to contend that he's being idea logically consistent. -- ideologically consistent. but there are things that have n wide bipartiupport such as mandating backup paper ballots and forcing these election -- the election officials to do e that. beca concerns that these systems could be interfered with in some that -- yeah. sure. it's a states' rights argument but also if you were to goown that route perhaps he would open this up to a larger discussion about election g up what ce, br happened in 2016, all of a sudden you may anger the man who's sitng in the white house. and america connell does not want to -- mcconnell does not want to do that and the senate is not a place where they legislate anymore. theyeal with confirming president trump's

mcconnell does not want to open up a thorny situation with the white house and take h hits from democrats, media, republicans are silent about and tee where the chips nis. fall where they may. robert: so there's a senate report on interferenc but you cover interference as a oeat, ros. and you know it beyond just what a senate committee concludes. there are deep fake videos online. there are wikileaks of documents and emails. what are reporters, citizens confronting on thisrf inence issue broadly speaking as we head into 2020? >> yeah. i think that was one of e messages that mueller had that you know, not just c we as citizens, maybe we in the wdia have not yet fully come to grih the lessons of 2016 and what we're going to doa next time e there's undoubtedly going to be a next time that 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 beginning of confronting this problem as a society. we haven't figured it out yet. robert: what was our take swa on mr. mueller's testimony about wikileaks? >> yeah. i thought that was one of the most striking moments ofimis tey because he had tried hard not to enter the partisan fray and he had this one moment where he was asked what he thought of the statements that president trump had made during the campaign about wikileaks. and it was, you know, i expected him to sidestep as he had a everything else but instead he said that he found, you know, problatic was 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 thatw he dealth wikileaks. >> in fact, he came to life more in tes afternoonion with house intelligence.

i think precisely because of the way hetarted in his initial nine-minute opening statement back after the repor was released. and ended again on the russia attack. this is what was animating him. this is the mission that he was there to cover. this was the origiril if you will that led to the potentiality of destruction. and i think that's why he whet beyond- yes, no, maybes, you know. robert: and the second guessing you hear from capitol hill is that perhaps they should have started with the houseig intece committee's part of the hearing. >> why did they structure it this way? >> well, tecically, they oversee the -- the judicial committee orsees the justice department, the special counsel reports to the justice department, so this is a jurisdictional thing. so they could say the house judiciary committee shoul first is a turf battle. and everybody on capitol hill is a turf battle andome of these guys want to be the first person to put their imprint on things. robert: a turf battle on

capitol had i. big surise. >> 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 federal spending levels, lifts the deb limit for two years and prevents automatic spending cuts to military and domesticnd g. it now heads to the senate where it's expected to pass. and ultimaty end up o the president's desk next week. federal sident trump debt has surged to $22 trillion in the annual deficit is expect to reach $1 trillion this fiscal year. this is a republicanarty that has been about the deficit under speaker ryan, yet now 's embracing a bipartisan 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 mindset. and it's n just in the republican party. it's among democrats as well. jand it's exactly not evet

in the political class. i think somewhat in the academic world as well. there is this evolving belief or conviction that debt and defitsre not as threatening as damaging as say people thought they were ago decade. if you remember the way bob reuben came in as bill clinton's top financial -- before treasury secretary, head of the cnsel of economic advisors, and sort of drummed into him the idea that we have to getth under control. it's an overhang that will destroy our children's future. that thinking has completely dippeared in today's washington. robert: was the economy driving this decision side of the white house? they didn't want to rattle the markets? >> absolutely. i think this president, h -- e way he loves polls he loves the stock market. that's his measure of success. and it may be a false measure tn terms of the underlying economy and w- we're going to face with entitlements and deficits down the road. but if that's what he's looking at, he knew that default on the s. debt, not doing a debt

ceiling raise, would have been fatal to his re-election hopes. >> he put out tweet that day calling on the house republicans to get behind this bill and overwhelmingly house republicans revolted and voted against it. now, many were not speaking up against it. and this was a bipartisan deal that was cut. mitch mcconnellmasenate rity leader, supports it. it will pass the senate with support. but the republicans were not comfortable with this. but they're scared to speak out, too. ted cruz who led the charge against leading a debt ceiling increase during the obama years, i asked him, are you comfortable with raising the debt ceiling for two years, suspending it for two years? he didn't want to comment. when i asked h about it initially it goes to show you, just totally -- >> nick mulvaney who did not nt this and a big success for mnuchin the treasury secretary. robert: and new economic activity the g.d.p. ros 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 republican party with the president on this economy, regardless of his lack of interestern deficitsps. >> yeah. i -- i arrived in 2011 during what people might remember was this really sort of almost frightening m where they almost didn't raise the debt ceiling. and i was there throu 2013. and my entire tenure was this sty of the perpetual fight over the boner rule -- the boehner rule where they wouldn't raise spending more than $or every $1 of spending cuts and to watch that get wipedway is justn a few short years is just amazing to watch. >> that propelled the house republican majority -- it was thatan issue. they ran and they fought. and the obama administration tooth and nail. buto there's nalk about deficits and debt in washington. robert: final thought on the

new economic numbers. >> well,ook, it deprichese president trump of a big talking point which is 3% growth and the number was disappointing. that said, it doesn't seem that it's a real warning that we're headed into a sharp slowdown. t, you know, 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 m people thougbe he could. >> and he of course is keeping up his drum beat of pressure, incredib, unprecedented pressure against jay powell at the federal reserve. robert: to try to keep those traits low. -- interest rates low. ro rrt: will theublicans break in the house on this budget deal the freedom calk unanimous >> in the sate, in the house, the most of them already voted against it. robert: they already voted against it >> in the senate i think you'll see half the caucus -- the senate republican conference eventually vote for it. ormaybe a little bit than half. maybe about half of democrats ultimately back it. it's not anasy vote for democrats, too. because you punt the issue of

the debt ceiling. essentially into the -- if there's a democratic president, all of a sudden they alt to with it right off the bat in a new presidency. and how will the rep wlicans deh it then? probably won't give it to him or her that easily. g that we'll be watch whip count next week in the senate. and we'll be watching the trade talks. they restart with china next week. but we'll haveto leave it there for now. and coming up next on the "washington week" extra we will discuss britain's new prime ministeroris johnson. and we will toast mark on his new post over across the pond. watch it on our website. facebook or youtube. i'm robert costa. as mark would say cheerio, have a good weekend.

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