tv Washington Week PBS July 11, 2020 1:30am-2:00am PDT
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robertunder preure. on the virus and the campaign. president trump: if you look at the chart of deaths, deaths are way down. >> it's a false narrative to take comfo in a lower rate of death. robert: case numbers rise. but the president pushes schools to reopen. even as health experts express caution. >> that's the tragedy of donald trump being president today. he's exactly the wrong person to lead at this moment. robert: and the battle for the white house heats up as joe bide speaks out. and the president turns to race and culture. ne. announcer: this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- >> when the world gets
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complicated, a lot goes through yo mind. with fidelity wealth management, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management. announcer: additional funding is provided by -- the estate of arnoms and koo and foundation. n through the yuen 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, moderar robert costa. robert: good evening. the divide between president trump and health experts over schools remains a central tension in washington. with the president pressuring governors. this week, he warned that he might cut off federal funds if classrooms remain shuttered. and he urged the c.d.c. to
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soften its recommendations. this all comes as cases soar. and states iremplementing orders on fac e coverings with some health officials even urging new stay at home orders. and it comes as an abc news ipsos poll outda fshows two thirds of americans disapprove of the president's handlin of the pandemic. listen to the different messages this week from the president and dr. anthony fauci. president trump: it's tim to be open. it's time to stay open as they come up.t the fires but we have to open our schools. we're not closing. we'll never close.rt you'll have nreas that will have difficulty and they'll do what they have to do. th an will be largelyp to the governors. >> then tre are som etim when despite the guidelines and e recommendations to open up carefully and prudently some states skipped over those and just opened up too quickly. certaiw,y florida, i you
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know, i think jped over a couple of checkints. robert: joining me tonight, yamiche alcindor, white house correspondent for "the pbs wshour." paula reid, white house correspondent fo cbs news. cleve r. wootson jr., national political reporter for "the washington post." and eamon javers, washington correspondent for cnbc. a lot of news tonht. but let's start with the schools. earlier today, i spokeitnew jersey governor phil murphy, a democrat. he told me that he still planning to have in-person lening thi fall. but knows many challenges are ahead. he also told me his state needs $20 billion in direct fede aid to shore up its budget. paula, open up your notebook. what is the inside scoop on the president's pressure campaign? >> well, up until n, the administration hasedeally defe to local leaders to determine when they want to mu reopen their cties based
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on the situatioon the ground. but then you saw this week when it comes tols schhe president issuing this broad mandate that all schools must open in the fall or else, potentially he will cut funding when in fact we know most l schools arally funded. and he's also made other threats. he's made it clear that he's ur putting pre on governors. and the question is, why is he taking this approach to schools efecifically when he'sred to states on so many other aspects of this pandemic? and as we -- the white house advisors i'm told the president knows that in order to get parents ck to work you need to getids back to class. and for the president, a lot of this is about hoping that that would give anconomic boost to the u.s. ahead of his re-election in november. but oneca of the most signi things out of the ministration this week is the fact that dr. bshks said that we really don't really have t dt mucha on covid and children because the under 10 set is least tested. be : that's exactly right. you've been pressing the
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administration on that question all week. yamiche, you've been talking to education aders across the country. head of the national education t asson. what are you learning about what they need to see in these schools to make coming back feasible? >> what they need to see is really a sustained evidence there is virus that is going down and that cases are going down. so a lot of tedhescators, they want to make sure they're not putting teachers in dangerous positions or students so the president h said, well, this is a virus that seems pretty safe for childre but the's a catch to that. and that is that they couldhe infect teachers. and every situation and every city is kind of experiencing th i pandemicdifferent ways. and one of the key things that the c.d.c. demrines says right now -- administration ss right now, and there are classrooms that have 30 or 40 students often crammed in a classroom trying to -- with one teacher to get through the day.
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there's a really no situation including in new york where you hear from the mayor,ill de blasio, that they could have all of those students in these buildings and still socl distance. so that's why you saw the president this week criticizing the c.d.c. saying he thinks that their guidelines are too tough. tooxpensive, impractical. there was that statement fromnt vice presience that the c.d.c.as going to be changing their guidelines because ct di of the president's criticisms. but the c.d.c. says today ly that's not true. we won't bessuing any new guidelines and guessing out more documents on ine exi guidelines. so there's a real pressure campaign by president trump to get these schools back open. about the educators and local leaders are saying unless we can do this safely we're not going to do it. grbert: cleve, i'm so glad you're on the p. because you've been reporting for weeks, months, for "the washington post" in florida. and florida is seeing a spike in cases. how is that surge in cases affecting the politics in that y state? >> yeah. we're looking at a situation where one out o every 100
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floridians has coronavirus, right? and people are petrified. they're worried. they're afraid. but i think they're also what is the reason for this?ow, what is the cause of it? why are one in every four coronavirus cases, you know, in florida? and whether there'sit a polal reason, whether it's the governor who should do something differently? robert: and is the governor -- what's the governorno -- gov ron desantis what's his political outlook at this moment? he's so close to pp.sident tr >> yea you know, back in april, ron desantis had a nee confere in the holy office -- oval office with president trump saying desantis is doing exactly what we - what he wanted governors to do. he's an eoomple of management. and then he sort of left that news conference and you know, t for the nouple of months things have just gotten worse and worse and worse. you know, so itto's har see
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e question will be whether or not that has political hmifications and whetherat has an impact not just on desantis but also on trump. ro rt: and eamon, also going to be a question of whether is ron desantis in florida, the governor there, or governor n murphy new jersey, whether they can get congress to give them the direct aid they need, what's your latest reporting on the stimulus negotiations in washington? what should those governo and many americans expect, if anything? >> well, look, it seems clear that washington is prepared to rush out some mor stimulus to the states. up to -- we've got nancy pelosi talking aut $2 trillion, $1 trillion in aid to the states because all of this is going to be superexpensive. you're tking about these new guidelines for the schools that they have to have socialdi ancing. they have to have cleaning. they have to have disinfectant and have plastic barriers. t somebody h pay for all of that. and the problem is that we're sort of in a vicioucycle economically which is that as the states have close dow the economies have shut down. they've stopped producing
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revenue for the state governments in the form of taxes. the state governments need those taxes in order to pay for all tnc enhaents to open up the schools. and you can't -- if you don't open up the schools you don't have an economy. d you don't generate taxes. so the problem is the states mieyt not have the m they need to reopen the schools and reopen their economies. that'shere the federal government can help. unlike the states can simply rr all that money and do it on deficit spending. a lot of deficit hawks in ashington are very quiet these days because there's a lot of borrowing going on here in d.c., bob. robert: paula, you are one of the reporters who talks to dr. fauci.ve you reporting relationship. you have depth on this beat on the hea blth caret. he's not doing much tv. is the white hoe holding himba ? and is he -- are there tensions there inside the west wing with e who hasn't even briefed the president since june according to his interview with the financial times? >> there is tension.d there has been tension because dr. fauci is one of the few officials who's willing to
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come out and publicly ntradict the president. and that has happened throughout this pandemic response. and there were concerns about whether the president who can't technically directly fire him from the federal wovernment, d potentially push him off role. sk force or diminish his hat is what we're seeing right now. in fact, he has noted you don't see him that much on tv and we was a press briefing at the department of education with the task force. and he was instructed not to g to the department of education. but to come here to the white house. and he told me heitasng in the situation room or about to sit in thsituation room because that's where he was told to go. to sort of join remotely. and that's significant because that made it impossible for him to be ere to answer questions from reporterieat that ng. erked only join the -- he could only join the meeting. meeting here at the white house. i'm told he did participate in that. but it does appearhat there is an effort to diminish his role. and i asked the white house earlier this week if they were
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retaating against himr contradiing -- for contradicting the president they said no. they said he had been on tvt abix times in as many weeks. now, that does not appear be -- be a very common occurrence. it does appear that his role has been diminished. at the same time he's contradicting the prtsident. ro i know if you're watching this live, there's a lot of breaking news. and i want to turto it. because as a reporter, there's nothing better than breaking news. and tonight, we have some to sharmp president trust a few minutes ago as we went to air here on pbs, commuted the sentence for roger stone, his long-time confidante and political advisor and i've covered him for a decade. that's according to "the new york times" and "thpowashington st." and a statement just out from thou white. we wanted to make sure that was all nailed down before we shared it with y.. tone was convicted of lying to congress and witness tampering amid a federal probe into russian interference in the 2016 election. he was scheduled to report to sentence of mor than three is
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years. yamiche, why tonight and what are the political implications? >> the question of th political implications is i think one that we're not going to know for a long time. the president has been able to do things that are legally controversial and still not pay a bigrice in terms of his base not supporting him. but right now is really the question that a lot of people bo are thinking. and it's because he didn't want roger stone, at least according to the statement out the white house press secretary, he didn't want roger sto to serve any jail time and saying over and over again all week th he thinks roger stone was treated unfairly and a victim of a witch hunt and this was really about getting back at utm. he also talked a the fact today on the white house lawn, faesident trump, that is, he talked about th that he feels like roger stone was being penalized while other people who were dubious likee said, ce president joe biden and en president barack obama
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and f.b.i. director james comeye thatare more guilty of things, of perceived wrongs than roger stone. r of course, tis no evidence that any of those men broke the law in any way. there is evidence that rog stone broke the law. but what t president is doing here is really underlining the fact that he's willing to use his presential powers to help his friends, to help people who are closeo him. in this case rogersotone is one who is very close to the president. he's someone who has all sorts of lessons for the president that you see and -- enacted and played out every day from the prident including the fac that all press, whether it's bad or good is still good press because it keeps your -- your name up there and people talking about you. so i think this is a really -- i think an interesting commutation on the president's part but not surprising because thident had been hinting at this all week. robert: eamon, i know you were checking in with your sources and breaking news. are you detecting any divide inside the west wing about this decision by the president trump during the middle of election season? campaign season? the news is just -- has just
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been out a couple of minutes and i'm struggling to get my arms aroun this one. right? i don't think we've ever seen a president usehe pardon power so directly to benefit a litical ally of himself and remember what roger stone was doing ingris lying to cs and obstruction of justice that he was -- set to be sent to prison for was protecting roger stone but also protecting the president. nso there's enormous percentage of the american public that's going to look at this and say this is political payback for a guy taking the bullet here to protect a president of the united states. what's interesting is this id prt is doing it before the electn. we've seen pardons in the past that have seemed sleazy to a lot of people in the country. the bill clinton paon of mark rich comes to mind. that was done after the electi b just hoursore the president was set to leave office. and he wouldn't pay any politicaprice for it. this president is doing it in a hot cal summer ahead of a narrow re-election fight. and we have no way of gaming out at this point just how that's going to play. as yamiche said, the president
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has done a lot of thithngs over e years that his base has forgiven or tolerated or embraced even. we'll see whether this one causes them to swallow hard or whether this is just another example of president trump cing able to do things that order politicianld not get away with. robert: cleve, you're down there in florida and you covred the biden campaign for the post. what doeshis mean for the biden campaign? e do they cha and pivot a little bit to run against the president as someone who pardons too much? they gave a -- he gave a big speech this week on h economic plan. trying to counter the president's populist economic btch. bring ik to the democrats. does this, roger stone decision, change their calculus based on yoursa convons in recent days when the possibility was hovering out there? >> sure. i think they're probably asking theioame que that you're asking. what to do. and how does thathae? onof the things that biden has been doing over the last couple of days, what -- with the mccormick plan is pivoting
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from not just talking ill or speaking ill of trump. he's beeneally doing that f more than a year. part of it is him saying america, here's what i want t do. here's what i want to bring to the table. and, you know, obviously they felt a strong need to do that at this moment borehatever convention, as coronavirus is heating up, it' -- we wonder if there is going to be a switch. if there is going to be a bide put out a statement pivot. earlier today talking about coronavirus. but also, you know, the venezuan president as trump prepared to come to florida. t one of the bigge questions they're going to face is do you stay the course? do you put biden out there and explain who he is? or do you jus attack, attack, attack trump? robert: paul, i wanted to give you time to sen some text messages. jump in here. onof the most significant things here to me is two days ago. the attorney generalilliam barr one of his most loyal advisors said that he believed r rotone's sentence was fair. and i asked the president's
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chief of staff, mark meadows, is it appropriate for the president to grant clemency to his own loyal attorney general says the sentence was fair? now, meadows defde the president noting that his clemency power is absolute. that is effectively true. t again, it will be interesting to see if there are any political consequences to this decision. because once again, it draws attention to how many of the president's close associates have either beeno cnvicted or pleaded guilty during his time in office. robert: yachche, that's an interesting point from paula. because this book, byary trump, the president's niece, has been a big story this week about the president's psyche and my own reporting on mr. stone and pesident trump over the years. they were very close politically for decades. he is someone who has been at the president's side through ups and downs. and thathere probably wasn't so much of a political calculation here but this was a personal decision for president trump. to protect a friend. to help a friend perhaps.
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>> it's -- you can see it in two ways. they obviously have a personal relationship. president trump has known roger ste for years and years a years. but there's also a political calculation there. as eamon not, there's this idea that roger stone might be seen as taking a bullee t for president. so that the president is also commutation of roger stone's sentence. so in some ways people could see it as theinresident m sure that roger stone continues to be loyal to him. but i think there is of course the personal aspect of this. theresident has talked about the fact -- friends with roger e stone andls like roger stone was not treated fairly and targeted because o his relationship wh the president. so there could be both of those things going on. but i think the real question here is what is joe biden going to do? that was smart question for you to ask. and i think we're going to have to sit and wait and see if joe biden latches on to this or if he continues to talk about the thing that most americans are thinking about in their everyday lives andhe coronavirus and it is the ability of the country to get past this virus and the
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ne thus far and in the trump months to come. robert: so cleve, this is a campaign shaping uto be about power. it's also shaping up to be a campaign on race and culture. the president began the week with his tweets onubba llace defending the use of the confederate flag. you've been to the villages in florida. where -- that racist chant was uttered that prident trump tweeted and then deleted. how is race and culture playing on the ground in florida? >> sure. one the things that saw at the villagesas not changing.y people but there's an intensification, right? i talked with the leader of the democratic club at the syringes and one of the things -- villages and one of the things she said she doesn't believe anybody on either side was swayed. the republicans are not s by what the democrats said but their mind andatever they k
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can. i talked to a guy who is spending his retirement in a golf cart at the villages with anti-trump signs up. you know, all der. day. because now he feels this -- just strong need to try to persuade someone, anyone. and ye that means that he's gotten into a few verbal and occasional physical fights. but at the same time, this is how he sort of fills that neese within h. and i think that's one of the things that we're seeing at the villages. which is supposed be this sort of sleepy retirement village, right? but instead you're seeing people getting into really heated arguments and exchanges. sometimes with racist overtones. just about this election. robert: yamiche, any thoughts on that? >> i think it's someone -- as someone who is a native of florida i'm very familiar with the villages. my last reporting trip down to the villages and down to florida, i was talk a group of senior citizens who are trump supporters and they were talking about the facll that r they liked his economy and they liked that what he was doing with all the different policies that he was
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pafinge. but then when we started talking about immigration, those people are probably diseased and don't need to be here. and by the way, puerto rico, probably shouldn't be a state. and what you saw there was really af veiled part racism. the idea that these can be friendly people. and that we were having a pretty friendly conversation. but they fel the need to say that they thought immigrants and hispanic people were somehow a detriment to this country. and we can have political differences but if you're targeting one group of people and saying those people are bad,hat is completely racism. and i think the president can't help himself in some ways. he continues to dig in on culture wars and continues to dig in on the racial divisions in this country. america had racial problems long before president trump came along. but now that he's here, he's not shying away from the fact that he thinksunning and using racist terms and racist language and sending racist t tweets hnks that helps him politically we'll have to see in november if that's thease. robert: eamon, what aboutn the economy?
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the big biden speech. es the white house see mr. biden cutting into their territory? >> yeah. well, you saw president suggesting that biden had plagiarized from him. and look, if you look at this fr the biden camp's perspective, you know, the president's poll numbers really did not move for the first three years of his presidency. he had rock solid base support all through all of the scandal and ieachment of the president. a lot of russia talk and investigation.where the preside started to move were on the coronavirus and economic wipeout that we saw earlier thisdear. now you see biden ahead of the president in a lot of polling and including in our snshes polling in battlcne -- polling in battleground states. the biden campaign will take noce of that and stick with messaging arnd the virus and economy and those things that matter to americans. their health and their economic well-being and leave the aside. stuff you can kind of hit it on the cable talk shows from time to time. but the meat and potatoes of the biden campaign is likely i think still to be about the
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it means for the average american voter who's out there trying to figu out how t live their lives. this isn't -- a national ounvulsion over the paste of months like we've never seen before in american history. and it's difficult to say how it's going to play out. but the consequarces of i going to be extreme and long lasting. and people are concerned about that. i think that's what this election is going to be all aboutront and center is the economy and people's healthnd robert:he courts. the president has been lashing out about the supreme court'ssi de to allow cyrus advance in manhattan -- vance in t manhatta use the president's tax returns and survey them on the investigation. what's latest on that front inside the white house? >> thiwas clearly a statement on the limits of presidential power. you saw the president lashing out saying this was unfair. in speaking to his aeyorneys say a mormeasured approach. and they think that in the short term, they can win. and that ty can play this out
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until past t election. they tell me that they are going to continuee to litig some of these issues. the supreme court left the door open for them to do and they will continue to do this. through the election. and that's significantecause even though they're unlikely to prevail, since most of their argumentfailed at the supreme court, if they do eventually have to pass off these documents, to the grand jury in hnew york, it will likeppen after the election and when feelers go to arand jury, they only become public if someonis charged and there's a trial and documents are e presented dence in a trial. so the president is extremely upset. his lawyers, they'ltake it. robert: thank you very much to our group tonight. that's all the time we have. what a big week in washington coming to a close. roger stone, the only thing i was waiting for tonight is a supreme court vacancy. what more could we have on a friday night for all of you "washington week" viewers and friends out there? anyway, yamiche, paula reid,
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cleve r. wootson and eamon javers, thank you very much. and thank you all for joinusing we will keep taking you as close to the news as we can. and join us onlineor more talk on theonversation about the latest decisions with cnn's joan biskupic. you can find that on our website or on our socl media. but for now, i'm robert costa. good night from washington. he[captioning performed by national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: corporate funding
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for "washington week" is provided by -- g when the world gets complicated, a ls through your mind. with fidelity wealth management, dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management. announcer: additional funding is provided by the estate of a arnoms and koo and patricia yuen through the yuen a foon. committe to bridging cultural differences in our commuie the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: you're watching
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-"we come to the open, undeniable fact that women do practice medicine, that they are able to bear up untrr the bodily and mentaln that this practice imposes" -- ann preston. -i think some of the really early women, pioneering women physicians, had a lot of grit and a lot of gumption. and, for them, this was, like, part of this larger battle for not only fighting, you know, against male doctors to allow you to be part of their institutions, but also fighting against this larger male-dominated society to allow them to fully inhabit the world as they happwant to. ♪
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