yamiche: document discloser, the debt ceiling fight and present by an downplays controversy over classified documents found in his office and home. >> there are a lot of questions and i think joe biden will find the rules apply yamiche: to him. yamiche:as republicans continue their attack. and. >> one we sit down now, set a budget, set a path to get us to a balanced budget? >> there were not be -- will not be negotiations over the debt ceiling. yamiche: the two parties disagree over how to move forward. plus, a former gop candidate arrested for violently targeting democrats. next. >> 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 our u.s.-based customer service team can find one the fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. additional funding is provided by -- koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation -- committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again, from washington, moderator yamiche alcindor. yamiche: good evening and welcome to washingtonweek. for the second straight week,

president biden facing scrutiny over handling of classified documents from his days as vice president. the white house announced there were more classified documents discovered in his home late last week. that is in addition to the initial discovery of secret documents in his former washington office, and a second set of materials was found in december in his garage. house republicans, including the chairman of the house oversight committee, were quick to pounce. >> the president mishandle classified documents and they are not being transparent with the american people. yamiche: president biden sought to downplay the controversy. >> we are fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. i think you will find there is nothing there. i have no regrets, i am following what the lawyers want me to do. yamiche: despite the tension, the white house tried to project a message of the business as usual. on thursday, president biden

travel to california to visit areas devastated by extreme weather, and on sunday, vice president harris to be in florida to mark the 50th anniversary of the supreme court's roe v. wade decision overturned last summer. joining me to discuss this and more, nia-malika henderson, and in the studio, lisa desjardins, weijia jiang, and jonathan lemire. we are happy you are up because you are often up way too early. jonathan: i am heavily caffeinated. yamiche: yes. president biden broke his silence after days of not wanting to answer questions about the classified documents. what led to that and how much pressure is he feeling? lisa: i think the white house from the -- weijia: i think the white house from the beginning has had a carefully crafted strategy, not only for the

documents but how to communicate that to the people. our team broke the story and the big question after that was why didn't you disclose it yourself if you knew about these in november, if you knew about more documents found in december at his wilmington house? i think that's what they are struggling with more, because this president pledged transparency. the is transparency when it comes to the white house cooperating with the department of justice, but transparency with the american public is very different and i think that's where the discrepancy is. in terms of the white house strategy for dealing with it now, it is very clear. i think what we heard from president biden yesterday was veering away from that. sometimes this is a president who cannot help himself, he wants to weigh end, he's said he wants to talk about it. he said there is no there there. the white house gone to great length to separate itself from the doj, so it begs the

question of why is the president weighing in on what he thinks the conclusion will be? i think this is a pain for them right now, but if you talk to officials, they say the american people do not care about this. i think they are trying to turn the page as quickly as possible your yamiche: -- as possible. yamiche: as you said, cbs news broke this i wonder what you think about the unanswered questions that make it a continued pain for the white house. weijia: the biggest one is what is in these documents? if it is not top-secret that would harm national security, they can get in front of it and disclose whatever they could about it, to at least talk about the level of sensitivity, which they cannot do now because there is a special counsel investigation. we also don't know exactly why the personal attorneys for the president were sifting through these documents in the first place.

if they were packing up an office, i know when i packed something up, i am not going through folders, if it is just for the purpose of packing. we also don't know how many other documents may be out there. there is no clarity about exactly where the search has extended too. and if there could be more documents. yamiche: jonathan, so many questions, and reporting the president biden is frustrated. also reporting that he was supposed to have the a team of experienced people. how did we get here? jonathan: he was visibly frustrated about this when he was in california, he was saying you should care about what matter, -- what matters, the storm damage. it undercuts the idea that the adults are back after the trump administration. this is not totally comparable

to donald trump and the documents at mar-a-lago, and his seemingly unwillingness to give them back. but politicians have weighed in privately on both sides of the aisle, it is not comparable but there is enough similarities to muddy the waters. a number of frustrated democrats i have talked to, as soon as those documents were discovered at mar-a-lago, why not search the biden residence? there was nothing like that that happened, until those first documents were inadvertently found in december. weijia: not only were they not searched, president biden has his own words now being used against him by critics, because when the documents at mar-a-lago were discovered, he said how could anybody be so irresponsible? yamiche: one is fascinating about this is trump's issues are

different but you still have president biden facing fierce criticism from republicans who have new control over the pennsylvania side. tell me about republicans that are getting ready to vote, criticize this, and threading the needle of ignoring former president trump's handling of docunts. lisa: he found some kind of rabbit foot -- kevin mccarthy found some kind of rabbits foot, because he was given this gift. this is another cause for investigation for republicans in the white house continues to not answer questions, continues to not look transparent, continues to raise doubt not just about president biden but democrats themselves. i think republicans are taking attack -- a tack where they are

not fully pouncing, they believe the white house is doing enough damage themselves that they can take it more slowly than they usually do. yamiche: fascinating, and in some ways, it is playing itself out with the white house sort of having its own problems. nia, there is a poll -- oh apparently we don't have nia. lisa, there was a poll that showed 62% of regedit -- registered voters that believe president biden acted inappropriately. i wonder what that means, even if biden says this is different, that the american people are saying this isn't good. lisa: it's huge, in the midterms, one of the reasons democrats did better than expected is because their base believed in their candidates and showed up. republicans had a candidate problem. democrats stood with democrats even amid doubt.

that is something that can really snowball in the coming months. jonathan: at least for now it's more of a political problem than a legal one. right now, they are cooperating with the investigation, they say it was a mistake. they've got a special counsel, as does president trump. some suggest it will be painful in the short-term but in the long term and might be a good thing because they can rebut any claims of bias from the department of justice. it does take a hit right now. for a president who friendly was on a winning streak. midterms, democrats did better than expected, they got a lot of legislation done last year, he has received high marks for leadership, keeping the allies together in the war in ukraine, and we were on the verge of his likely announcement to run in 2024. yamiche: john said this could be a hick up for president biden, i wonder what you are hearing from

your sources when it comes to the way the american public might see the document issues, if a complicates president biden's run possibly from reelection? a number of outlets say he is likely to announce after the state of the union. nia-malika: that was always the plan, so there might be a temporary hiccup now, he is icking with the plan to announce his reelection bid. democrats i talked to said this was a tempest in a d.c. teapot, much ado about nothing. i think you saw president biden echo that today. they think voters are much more savvy than we give them credit for, that they lived through this with hillary clinton they lived through this with what happened with the donald trump as well very recently and they can tell the difference between whether or not there or something possibly nefarious going on that would possibly warrant something like we saw with donald trump, versus what

we are seeing with joe biden. i do think there is something else at play. e biden in terms of his political brand, he is different from donald trump, he is competent, he's been in public office and public life any years. there's also i think something else. generally people think of him as being a decent human being, a decent person, family man, he goes to church, he is loyal to his wife. those sort of intangibles i think will serve him well as whatever unfolds with the special counsel. there is fear, though, with a special counsel -- we've seen, for instance, with bill clinton, it can begin with a real estate deal and end with a soiled blue dress and impeachment. i'm not suggesting there is anything like that with joe biden but we do know once you give a special counsel this kind of power, things can go any sort of way. there is i think a latent fear

among democrats about that, whether this will end up in a different way then it began. but they are also heartened by the sure footing the white house seems to be on over these last days. lots of hiccups, lots of something on the message front but it seems to be they have righted the course. yamiche: as the white house is dealing with this, and trying to pivot to business as usual, part of that is vice president harris giving a speech about abortion. we had the march for life, these are advocates of restricting abortion who had a big march today. they used to go to the supreme court and now they are also going to congress, marching -- marking that as a new battlefield. i'm wondering about where the battle is when it comes to abortion in this country? nia-malika it has begun again. we saw a 50 year battle, it culminated in the dobbs decision and we will see 20, 30, 40 more years of battles.

practically, we will see more births in particular states that have high poverty levels, high infant and maternal mature ellet he -- maternal mortality. that means something that is impactful for women and their families. in 2024, the so-called pro-life movement are going to try to put up a candidate that wants to have a federal abortion ban. in terms of the pro-choice movement, you saw i think a renewed commitment to the pro-choice movement and situation in roe v. wade in a way that i think democrats and liberals were not so fiercely proponents of abortion. i think you saw in 2022 what that meant for the ballot box, democrats did much better than they expected to and part of that is because republicans were seen as very radical in terms of abortion. i think there's gonna be very

much a renewed fight, a battle around the abortion pill, it got fda aroval and some pharmacists will sell that in different states, particularly blue states. it ain't over by any means. we saw what happened the last 50 years, there will be new to energy, renewed fight, and rened the local battle lines drawn around this for many years to come. yamiche: you are using the words renewed fight in battle, you're talking about abortion but you could also be talking about the debt -- the debt ceiling. on thursday, the u.s. hit its debt limit. the treasury department put in place what it calls extraordinary measures to make sure the u.s. pays its bills. this is not expected to come to a head until june wh the u.s. could potentially default on its debt. house republicans are demanding spending cuts before they agree to raise the borrowing cap, but the white house and democrats are refusing to negotiate. lisa, you are the wonky hill

reporter, the perfect person for this question. what in the world is going on and how worried should we be? lisa: i love explain this kind of story because it is so important and the stakes are so high. how to do it quickly? i think that's reasonably, what we have right here is democrats digging in, saying we will not negotiate on the debt ceiling, fine. debt ceiling is separate from spending. however, republicans make a case we have a serious debt problem. in the time they are speaking to, $2.6 million in debt we have spent as a country, just in one minute. the issue is republicans are now ready to use scorched-earth tactics. both sides, i feel like the bases are digging in with righteousness in a way that makes me think we really could end up with a dangerous

situation in june. they do have to negotiate and i think that will happen. they will try for some kind of guardrails, maybe on spending, maybe a longer-term process for how the budget can be tackl, but right now, republicans are feeling like no, we've got to cut the budget back more than any democrat is ever going to agree to and that is the problem. jonathan: today is a microcosm of how that struggle will play out. president biden, offhand remarks, yes, we will talk to the other side, kevin mccarthy immediately putsut a tweet, let's negotiate. the white house says we are not negotiating over the debt ceiling. they point out that it got done without hassle during the trump administration when democrats were the majority. even just talking about this is going to rattle markets. this is going to come down to the deadline most likely, but even in the weeks running up to

it, there is a fearsome the could happen to impacts for all of us. lisa: the other problem is a lot of the republicans playing this game who wanted to go up to the edge, in a way they have already won. what they want is process changes, a different way of going about things in the house. how much do they care how much the spending changes now or later? and that is a real issue. yamiche: when all that is going on, kevin mccarthy says he's accepted an invitation to go to the white house. weijia: the white house said there is no invitation on the table to just come and talk about the debt ceiling, we would love to talk about a wide range of economic issues. i will say my phone rang and it was white house officials saying we want to make sure you saw this statement, because they really want people to know they are not changing that flag it, it is in the ground, they are not going to negotiate.

there is no date set for any meeting between these two men anytime on anything. [laughter] it is a lot of show. yamiche: no meeting set to negotiate any ti on anything. we have to underline that. [laughter] weijia: as of tonight. yamiche: another issue bubbling up this week that i wanted to get to, on wednesday, a former gop new mexico state house candidate charged with multiple counts in connection with shootings at the albuquerque homes of four democratic elected officials. he allegedly hired four minutes to conduct the shootings in the summer in january. this as officials revealed that last year, the u.s. capitol police investigated 7501 threats against members of congress. nia, what you make of this, the

scary video of him showing up to his opponents houses and making threats, what you make of this? nia-malika: there has been a tenfold increase in threats against lawmakers going back to 2016. many people tie this to the rise of trump, the rise of trump's him and rhetorical violence we've heard from him over these many years. susan collins, the senator from maine in october said she would not be surprised if at some point a lawmaker was assassinated. we saw what happened with nancy pelosi's husband, they were looking for her, they ended up attacking her husband unfortunately this isn't a surprise for anyone. lawmakers talk about the threats they've received, the increased need for security. the need also to tamp down the violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories. some of this and grows out of this election denial is him.

this particular gentleman thought he didn't lose and was going on a rampage as a result of it. we are in a very difficult time. i think if you are a lawmaker, you were used to a nasty phone call at some point if you were an elected official, but now the threat has gotten so much worse. lawmakers are very nervous about this and some of this stuff has been visited upon them. members in congress and across the nation as well. you hope at some point some of the rhetoric is tamped down. it isn't really both sides. it is more on the right at this point. you talk to folks at the fbi and in law enforcement and there is real concern. it used to be there was a threat from outside the country's borders but now there is a threat from within. you see these incidents

happening. listen, lawmakers are not surprised at these kind of incidents, and they are certainly nervous and scared and stepping up security is much as they can. yamiche: a quick follow-up, pena lost by 48 points, not a close race. i wonder how that makes governing -- and how it also impacts voters when you think i want a government governing, but you have people who will follow pena and say he never conceded, this was a rightful thing he should have done, not shooting a people, but contesting the election when it was clearly lost by him. nia-malika: exhibit a is donald trump. he has set the example for this, the idea that you can clearly lose an election but also spread a lie that it was a rigged election and people are out to get you and votes were not counted, and italy changed votes from trump to biden.

you don't know how these conspiracy theories are going to land on unstable, criminal elements of the country. you saw that with this particular gentleman. there isn't any sense from what i can tell that lawmakers, particularly on the right, are interested in tamping down the rhetoric. there is a rhetoric around their being enemies on the other side and people who aren't following the rule of law and conducting elections in the way they should. i think we are glad there were not many election deniers that came out of the 2022 cycle, that people conceded and walked away, but this was a different instance and you hope this is something that going forward doesn't happen more frequently. but again, there's a lot of fear among lawmakers that this will become more routine. yamiche: we cover the trump administration. i had a flashback to you in the

rose garden with all of those wild times. i wonder what you make of what nia is saying. weijia: not just lawmakers, but president biden has issued this morning himself. it was his closing message before the midterm elections, that there is a real threat to democracy, and he got criticized for that, especially by republicans who said he has no idea what voters really care about, he is out of touch. it ended up being a winning message. after that, even though we didn't see what we saw on january 6, the president continues to issue warnings that there could be a repeat of that or worse. i think that is the message they are trying to portray, to let people know is not just something that seems like it couldn't happen, because it is happening. yamiche: lisa, obviously you came face-to-face with this when you covered january 6. lisa: at the capitol there's a

lot of raw and real fear. i know members of congress who have moved their house in the last four months. not just in washington. this week, i noticed the chief justice of the idaho supreme court in his annual address said his judges need more security because they are under threat. it is bubbling down. yamiche: we have to leave it there for now, but a lively conversation on important topics. thank you to our panel. don't forget to watch pbs news weekend on saturday for a look at the antigovernment protests in peru becoming increasingly deadly. i am yamiche alcindor, good night from washington. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service to help people do what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can find one the fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. >> additional funding is provided by --

koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation -- committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. sandra and carl delay-magnuson. rose hirschel and andy shreeves. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

♪ -♪ oh, they built their ship, titanic ♪ ♪ to sail the ocean blue ♪ ♪ and thought they had a ship ♪ ♪ that the water wouldn't go through ♪ [ bell clanging ] -three clangs of the bell in the rms titanic's crow's nest in april of 1912 unknowingly signaled the impending deaths of 1,500 people. in that moment, the next 100 years of history would be breached by this reckless tragedy, as to why so many had to die. in the titanic's last hours, death came as the leveler to a world of class, wealth, and privilege, a world abruptly swamped