lisa: congress on edge as it braces for another impeachment trial. the nation pays its respects to a fallen officer at the capitol. a place that is days away from an impeachment trial and on edge. >> sta, senators, and house members and house staff alike still live through this every single day. every single day. lisa: what's the democrats' case? what's trump's defense? will the republican party survive its own civil war? >> the party, it doesn't belong to anybody else. lisa: what's next in the covid fight? president biden: we can't do too much here. we can do too little. lisa: has biden going big ended hopes for unity? >> i would predict not a single republican will support the $1.9 trillion plan.

lisa: next. announcer: this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans and o u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. announcer: kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen 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.

lisa: good evening and welcome to "washington week." i'm lisa desjardins. 30 days ago, insurrectionists stormed the u.s. capitol. this week, the building was a place of mourning and honor for capitol police officer brian sicknick who was killed in the raid. members ofongress i've spoken with are still raw about the riot and that state of personal crisis is steering big political decisions right now. republican leaders are desperate to unify their party. house republicans voted overwhelmingly to keep wyoming congresswoman liz cheney who voted to impeach trump in her job as their number three leader and republicans backed georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene under fire for false and incendiary remarks she said in the past. greene said this week that she's a different woman now. but 11 republicans and hundreds of democrats didn't buy it. voting to strip her of committee assignments thursday. a republican divide with some trying to make room for greene.

>> the voters -- the voters -- no. the voters decided she could come and serve. lisa: and others now pushing to reject president trump. >> what americans saw three weeks ago was ugly. shameful mob violence to disrupt a constitution aleman dated meeting of the congress to affirm that peaceful transfer of power. it happened because th president lied to you. lisa: joining us tonight for this 2021 rollercoaster ride are four reporters covering all things washington, jonathan martin, national political correspondent for "the new york times," alexi mccammond, political reporter for axios, jakeherman, founder of punchbowl news a. political newsletter, and sabrina siddiqui, white house reporter for "the wall street journal." thank you all so much for joining us. jake, let's get right to it. let's start with you. i see you in the halls of the capitol talking to the republican lawmakers all the time. take us into their mindset right now, how are the events of january 6 affecting them personally and how did that

affect their actions this week? jake: naung, lisa. great to be with you. everything changed after january 6. there's no question about that. no doubts about that in the capitol. i think both parties are trying to find a new normal. and i think republicans have gone through a tumultuous civil war in the last couple of days in which they were trying to as you mentioned knock off the number three leader in the house republican conference. they had liz cheney, they were trying to grapple with marjorie taylor greene who had a history of very, very offensive racist slam phobic, anti-akhmet and i can conspiracy-laced charges and on the democratic side they're living with a republican party that they see as being guilty and rightfully so in some sense that they see being guilty and responsible for the violence january 6 flags if not directly no one is saying that they directly were responsible for the violence. but these were supporters of theirs and donald trump who

came and sacked the capitol. and i had one democratic lawmaker say to me every time we see some of these lawmakers, including marjorie taylor greene, we think of that day and lisa, you know this, and we all are up in the capitol all the time. i think everyone is going through some sort of ptsd from that day which was deeply tring and for all of us, for staff and reporters, for members and for aides. and i think that's very, very acute with members of congress. lisa: sabrina, i want to ask you, the view from the white house, which is not really a place of relative calm in washington as president biden gets started, how did they look at this sort of g.o.p. turmoil, is that something the democrats think they can take advantage of or counterintuitively is it too much turmoil? is it a problem for the biden white house? sabrina: well, i think that the approach so far that we've seen from the white house is to really stay out of the civil war that continues to unfold within the republican party. they don't really see a

political upside in really getting into whether or not there should be people who are held accountable for the event of january 6. instead, they've invested their political capital on negotiations over a coronavirus relief package and pointed out that president biden has taken office agast the backdrop of a pandemic as well as an economic recession. and so that's where his focus is. there have been multiple occasions in the white house briefing room where president preck tear jen psaki has been asked about marjorie taylor greene and her response has been we're not going to comment on any one lawmaker and they don't nt to elevate conspiracy theories from the white house podium or really give her much of a platform. so that is really the approach and i think it really is borne out of what president biden said he would do which is focus more on extending -- a bipartisanship in trying to work with republicans to pass some kind of coronavirus relief

package, not really get involved in the politics of what the future of the republican party looks like since president -- former president trump left office. lisa: alexi, i want to talk to you about progressive democrats who have waited for this moment, right? to be in power in the white house and in congress. but there's so much emotion there for progressives. can you talk to me about how progressives are weighing this emotion and fundraising off of things like marjorie taylor greene along with trying to pragmatically get some agenda through? what is the mindset right now for the left part of the democratic party? >> of course the most obvious example this week was congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez who had a r and emotional and harrowing account on instagram this week about her personal experience on the insurrection on january 6. saw something from her colleague and member of the so-called squad progressive, congresswoman reddisha talib who got really emotional when she was speaking about this on the house floor. saw complan steny moyer bring

up that photo of marjorie taylor greene holding a gun that was photo shopped next to other members of the so-called squad to really show that these progressive members of the party have been targeted by these folks, these insurrectionists and are really feeling uncomfortable in this moment. freshman congresswoman corey bush moved her office which was close to marjorie taylor greene's because she felt uncomfortable after an altercation in the hallways earlier this week. so we see how they're really speaking out and sharing these raw accounts of what's been happening. and at the same time, as you mentioned, lisa, they've been working really hard trying to be collective, especially the congressional progressive caucus as a voting bloc to push pelosi, schumer, and president biden on certain things that they consider non-negotiables for the covid package. they don't want to see the number lower than $1.9 trillion. they've been lobbying inside and outside for $15 minimum wage be included. yesterday, congresswoman

camilla japayl when that might not be included in the package called the white house and said could you have president biden tweet from the p ufflet s account in support of including a $15 minimum wage? but as we might learn very soon, lisa, a tweet might not necessarily mean it's going to be policy. $15 minimum wage although progressives have -- might not end up in the eventual package. lisa: that alone is a big change from the trump administration. we're going to come back to the covid relief package. that's a very important topic. jonathan martin, you weren capitol hill today and i missed you. we were on different sides of the capitol. but i think you can get the theme i'm getting out here. the emotion at the u.s. capitol after january 6, can you help us understand, let's get away from the washington, all the washinon stuff. what does this mean for regular americans and what does this mean for the government for our next few years? this where we're going to for a long time? jonathan: yeah. i can't recall a moment in our country's recent history when politics was this poisonous and by that i meanhen there was a

level of contempt and disdain between the two parties that they don't just view the other as the opposition in a lot of cases they view the other as something eveworse than an adversary. short of an enemy but not far from it. and i think we see that increasingly in communities and states, politics has gotten so darn polarized. and obviously that's reflected with people's lawmakers in washington and in state capitals. you just don't have the kind of friendly relationships across the aisle relationships anymore. and especially with the sort of newer generation of members coming in who were sort of much more attuned to the base of their party and frankly, lisa, the incentive structure is now different for them. you talk about marjorie taylor greene, for example, who was stripped of her committees, that didn't stop her from having a press conference today with lots of cameras and i think she was plenty happy to have the cameras there, probably more so about that

than she was disappointed to lose her committees. lisa: i was at that press conference and she definitely seemed to be in full energy, full gusto enjoying that spotlight right there. i want to talk a little bit more beyond the lawmakers about what's driving all of this and what's happening to americans also. jake, you know, i don't know if you remember last time i saw you was january 6. you and i were among maybe two or three or four people that were standing there watching together the rioters break through that front door of the u.s. capitol. and that extraordinary moment. and i want to ask you about this other layer which is what did you make of who the rioters were and what was driving them? jake: that's a good question. i think in the moment, none of us -- we all knew that they were coming from the white house, from the rally at the white house. and what's driving them, they -- you know, jonathaand i were talking about this today. this is politics as almost a cult, right? if not a cult, certainly a cult

of personality around the president. and the president led his supporters to believe that there was some sort of nefarious plot to steal an election from him, an eleion that he clearly lost, that there's no evidence was rigged or was any -- was tampered in any way. tampered with in any way. so -- i think that's the main core of it, right? i think we have -- there's this group of people who listen to wh the president says and, you know, were not involved in politics before him and might not be involved in politics after him and they hang on every word and every word he said for weeks was the vice president can overturn this. he can reverse this. and i think that's what's driving them. i think -- and that's why a lot of them were not wearing masks. because the president, you know, said you don't have to wear masks for many, many months before then saying you have to wear masks. so i think -- that's what i think was driving this. but in the moment, lisa, i don't think any of us -- we were just making sure we weren't going to get bowled over. but that's what i think is the

general -- their general theory of the case. lisa: being up there, i did -- in that moment, absolutely, it s all about let's make sure we get to a safe place. because there weren't any police officers right around us at that point. but as i was out there witthe rioters, it struck me, there was such a strange group of some people who clearly didn't know what they were doing, were surprised they ended up in the capitol and others who were very focused. it was wild. jonathan: yeah, it was. sorry. i think that some of them were -- i think some of them were along r the ride. but the vast majority of them walked into a building they knew they weren't supposed to walk into in a manner they knew they weren't supposed to walk into the building. so i think -- i think they do deserve some -- some blame for that. lisa: oh, 100%. and i think that brings us to the question coming up before us how much is president trump to blame for this? jonathan martin, i'm going to ask you to do something tricky briefly tell us about this massive -- a massive and really

excellent piece that you did for "the new york times" with others on the 77 days leading up in the white house to -- what did you learn about the last days of president trump and what he was doing that may have had a role leading up to this riot? jonathan: people who knew the president well who worked with him and in some cases in congress and other cases literally his own staffers, lisa, they thought that he was just doing kind of trumpian bluffing. he knew he had lost the election and that he just wanted to salvage his legacy the best he could and so he was doing this shtick. and as the days went on, it became clear to them that somebody who had done kind of trumpian bluffing before, would eventually come to his senses on policy issue x. this case was different. and that he actually was starting to believe some of the b.s. that was being fed to him by the more shall we say

colorful advisors who were in his ear. and that obviously by early january, he clearly believed that he had won the election, that it was not just him trying to sort of look for an escape hatch to salvage his legacy, but he was actually trying to legitimately hang on to power. and that he was putting real pressure on mike pence to kind of d his bidding. and i think at that point, people were really alarmed both in the white house and in congress. lisa: so we now have an impeachment trial again. i joked somewhat earlier not my first impeachment trial which is a bizarre thing to say. alexi, i want to ask you, can you lay outhat the basic arguments here for both sides from the democrats saying he must be convicted and from the republicans, from president trump, and his team, saying no? alexi: well, the republican argument is pretty easy. nare mirroring what president trump or former president trump and his lawyers are saying which is it is unconstitutional for a former president to be

tried by the senate. to be sure many legal scholars agree that is not the case and a former president can be tried. but that is what republicans are going to argue on top of the fact that they will say that this is a partisan exercise by democrats, a political show, as some have described it. democrats of course submitted one article of impeachment. they are trying to make the argument that former president trump's words directly incited the insurrection at the capito and they're going to argue that former president trump didn't do anything to stop the mayhem that day. and they're going to remind folks of the violence and terror that members on both sides of the aisle experienced that day to really kind of hold republicans' feet to the fire. and that lisa to me is the big picture. both sides to be sure are making an argument about the other side. but it's really about the court of public opinion. it's about branding the party to the american people, especially ahead of the 2022 midterms. but especially as both parties are sort of undergoing a little t of an identity crisis and a rebranding moment under a new administration and

post-president trump. lisa: from that anxiety on capitol hill, let's turn to the issue causing anxiety for millions of americans, the coronavirus. president biden has got a dilemma. he wants to go big with the next covid relief package. but he also wants to go bipartisan and get republican support. this as democrats overnight passed what's callebudget reconciliation which gives them the chance to push through a new covid bill without any republican votes. so there's a clear contrast between the parties. >> democrats in congress are plowing ahead. they're using this phony budget to set the table to ram through their $1.9 trillion rough draft. so let's hope president biden remembers the governing approach he promised and changes course. president biden: i'm going to act and i'm going to act fast. i've told both republicans and democrats that's my preference to work together. but if i have to choose between getting help right now, to americans, who are hurting so

badly and getting bogged down in a lengthy negotiation, or compromising on a bill that's -- that's up to the crisis, that's an easy choice. i'm going to help the american people who are hurting now. lisa: sabrina, also late tonight, in an interview with cbs news, president biden indicated something that we heard alexi talk about earlier he thinks the $15 minimum wage may not make it in this deal. take us through what's going on in the white house with this really first massive test of president biden in congress, what is the most important for him to get and how is he going to get every democrat to support it? sabrina: well, i think the white house has been consistent that they believe they need to go big when it comes to this package. now, they have of course proposed $1.9 trillion. and there's been some sense that they might be flexible on the overall number. but you saw the white house

reject republican counteroffer that was really just a fraction of what president biden has proposed. it was roughly $618 billion. so what we don't yet know is how much lower are they willing to go, but the biden administration has been very clear that they want more funding for state and local officials. that is something they say is non-negotiable. they want significant funding to help reopen schools which is emerging as a hot button issue across the country. they of course want to have significant funding for vaccine distribution which is of course really at the center of how they will be able to lift the nation out of this pandemic. so it was interesting toee thatresident biden signaled that perhaps there is some room for negotiation, for example, on the issue of a $15 minimum wage. i n't think we will see them negotiate on the question of stimulus checks of course. that is something that they have been very clear that they believe needs to be delivered to the american people.

so it's telling that they have been willing to keep the reconciliaon process on the table really from the very outset. so on the one hand they are willing to entertain negotiations with republicans, but at some point, if there's not going to be a deal, and certainly not a number that they think is significant enough in terms of relief, then they're willing to go at it alone and pass something with a simple majority vote. lisa: jonathan, all right, tell us how this is going to work exactly. do you think the winds are blowing in favor? last week my democratic sources some who might surprise people were except tal about the $1.9 trillion number. they didn't think it was justified. it feels like that's changing. where are we? jonathan: i think it has. i talked to one senior house democrat today, lisa, who said that he believed that the price tag would actually be ultimately -- the final price tag in the neighborhood of that $1.9 trillion figure. this lawmakers offered me an

interesting nugget from today's meeting, of course the president had a number of senior house democrats in the oval office today and apparently the president in that meeting cited yes, the polling data, to point out that this proposal is very popular among a broad swath of americans, including independents and even yes, some forex on the g.o.p. side. so while it may not be bipartisan necessarily in congress, it has support of people in both parties out in the country and the president is very conscious of that politics. lisa: jake, does it matter if this is entirely partisan? we talk a lot about in washington, but getting to jonathan's point here, will biden take any hits if it ends up being totally partisan? jake: i've thought a lot about that and i think the argument from democrats that we keep hearing is that we've just won the house, senate and white house. so why do we need to wait for republicans to come to their senses? that's what they say, not me. so i think that is what's driving them.

and then you had republicans come in at a third of the price tag and so that shows in democrats' mind that they don't believe republicans are either serious or in the same universe that they're thinking about. so if were democrats, and this is what democrats keep telling me why should we wait, why should we wait? but republicans, especially senate republicans say there's a narrow window for bipartisanship. this is going to set the tone for the next two years. so let's do this together. and remember, lisa, you know this. the last five covid relief bills were all bipartisan. lisa: yeah. jake: so this h been a bipartisan issue. but there are just some hurdles that you can't clear. republicans are not going to go for the state and local funding that democrats want. they're not going to go for $1.9 trillion. biden can't go below $1 trillion. so i just think there's not -- the venn diagram doesn't really work out here. lisa: congress is terrible at math and venn diagrams as you just pointed out. alexi, can you wrap this up? we started talking about the

republican divide. democrats obviously much easier to be united when you're in power, however, they -- last night, in the vote-a-rama we saw divisions democrats breaking on fracking and even the minimum wage, undocumented immigrants. can you talk about progressives, are they worried that ultimately ey just don't have the unity in the party to get things they want passed like joe manchin? alexi: look, i can't talk to progressive democts without hearing joe manchin's name and also kristin cinema's name and mark kelly's name. they have a list of democratic senators who they know will be a thorn in their sides and have the potential to pull president biden away from them and toward this me moderate direction. but when i talked to progressives, especially progressive caucus, they're verycutely aware of thousand become a mature and so fit indicated movement and caucus within the party. they feel strongly about trying to vote more strictly as a

voting bloc and everyone in line so that they can have more power. and heartened by the fact they have seen senator bernie sanders, for example, working in lockstep and closely with president biden even before he was elected president through those unity task forces and they've had conversationst the staff level since present biden has been elected according to folks in sanders' orbit. anyou know, a number of the executive orders that president biden signed out of the gate progressives were happy about and they feel like moving in their direction but lrs not afraid to speak up and speak out about manchins, sinemas of the senate to pull them in their direction or say this is where the rt of the party is. and you are -- we are no longer the outliers what they will say. lisa: one question if can i all four, nod, shake you head, chances are this covid deal gets passed before march, what do we think? yes, no? no? that's what -- that's -- not surprised. i think -- march 15 is the main

deadline. that's all the time we have tonight. on behalf of myself, and my fellow capitol hill journalists i want to extend my condolences, respect and gratitude to officer sicknick's loved ones. thank you to jonathan, alexi, jake and sabrina for your reporting and for joining us. great discussion. and thank you for your time during an anxious time. keep taking care of yourselves and of each other. the conversation continues on the "washington week" extra which streams live on our website and social media. join us for an in depth discussion of the legacy of zero tolerance, the family separation policy. i'm lisa desjardins. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning instite, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- consumer cellul, kaiser permanente. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen 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.

♪ ♪ candy: i grew up with the american dream. erika: but all asian immigrants were denied the right of naturalized citizenship and with the exclusion act, the chinese became the first undocumented immigrants. candy: the american dream is a lovely dream to have and so people continue to aspire; enduring whatever it is that they've got to do as immigrants. helen: japanese americans fought on the side the united states, while the rest of their family was incarcerated. erika: legal challenges were so important because they did not have political power. and as much as tragedy is a part of our heritage here, so is possibility. man: asian voices are coming out. alex: you've got these young people fighting to