>> the looming debt crisis. >> no agreements. no promises except we will continue this conversation. >> the high-stakes first meeting between the president and kevin mccarthy. >> no classified documents were found. >> the fbi searches another one of president biden's homes. >> i don't know when, i don't know how, but we will not stop until we hold you accountable and change the system. >> hundreds mourn at the funeral of tyre nichols and demand action. passing police reform legislation is once again in doubt. >> this is "washington week."

corporate funding is provided by -- >> >> consumer cellular's goal is to help people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of plans. >> additional funding is provided by the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. these other individuals. the corporation for bob -- public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again from washington, here is our moderator. yamiche: good evening and welcome to "washington week." for the first time since kevin

mccarthy was elected house speaker, he and the president held a one-on-one meeting at the white house. they discussed a long list of priorities, chief among them the nation's debt and avoiding a financial crisis. president biden is sticking to his decision that he will not negotiate on raising the debt limit. house republicans will not take any action without spending cuts. they said they hoped their meeting set the tone for the future of talks. >> we can start treating each other with respect. that is what kevin and i are going to do. not a joke. does not mean we are going to a great and fight like hell. but we will treat each other with respect. >> we have different perspectives on this. but i thought this was a good meeting. we promised we would continue the conversation. i think at the end of the day we can find common ground. yamiche: meanwhile, the

candidates for the presidential primary are starting to take shape. nikki haley is expected to announce she is running for president. she is the first of what is expected to be a long list of challenges to former president donald trump. there was more news this week. the fbi searched another one of president biden's properties. this time it was a vacation home in delaware. no additional classified documents were found, but materials related to his time as vice president were taken by the fbi. joining me tonight to discuss this is the host of npr's " weekend edition." a correspondent for the new york times. a correspondent for nbc news. in the washington bureau chief for usa today. thank you all for being here. what is your reporting unveiled about this meeting between president biden and kevin mccarthy? >> i think the kind of tone that

you saw in the clips that you played was definitely the approach that both sides wanted to start this conversation with. but it will not be where it ends. i think both understand that. the closer the nation's capital gives to a default, an actual time when the rest of the world sees that the use does government -- the u.s. government is not going to pay its debts, the harder that conversation is going to be. i don't think there was anything and are reporting that suggested that either president biden or mccarthy gave any ground. it was setting a tone, kicking things off in a pleasant way. not being particularly nasty to each other.

i am just a cynical reporter but i think we will get there. we will get to the nasty and the angry. especially when you think about the way in whicspeaker mccarthy is going to be pulled away from compromise by so much of the caucus that he leads. it will be real difficult to maintain that home. yamiche: you are saying that they are politely saying i' going to stick to my guns but thank you for coming to the meeting. on capitol hill you have republicans saying you need to have spending cuts. former president trump is saying do not touch social security or medicare. what in the world do they actually want to cut? is there consensus? >> i would be breaking this on our other network. i think to a certain extent the white house has given some ground by having this meeting. joe biden itially said no negotiation around the debt ceiling. kevin mccarthy told us it was

all about the debt ceiling. they are at least talking about it. the big problem that republicans have right now is they do not know what to ask for aside from a very general sense that they want to cut spending. you cannot get them to give anything specific. would you take it from the pentagon budget? would you touch any entitlement programs? the closest we have seen to any substances we should take back some of this money that has already been allocated to the covid spending packages that have not been spent yet. that does not get you anywhere near the kind of rollbacks they are looking for in terms of really having an impact on the overall deficit of the country. it will be very difficult for them to really make an argument. they do have a leverage point. there has been some talk in washington that you cannot use the debt ceiling as leverage. have you met congress? they use everything as leverage. you cannot use it unless you can come to the table and ask something. yamiche: what do you make of all of this?

especially around president biden and his appearance and the obama administration with all the negotiating that happened? >> cynicism is the most default position in washington. isaac we should not ignore the fact that this was a pretty civil launch to a difficult discussion. you can contrast that with the first meeting that president trump had with a new speaker of the other party which ended with catastrophe and nancy pelosi leaving the white house. and even rate the president. this is a sign of our times that president biden said we treated each other with respect, not a joke. that tells you where the level of discourse usually is here. the white house did offer one thing that mit be a possible offramp which is to have negotiations about cutting spending and cutting the deficit that are parallel to the talks about the debt ceiling.

they are not connected but they happen simultaneously. yamiche: it is very interesting. i keep thinking if they stick in their corners and president biden says i refuse to negotiate a republican say we want spending cuts, if we end up defaulting, is there a political risk, and for who? i wonder when americans are not understanding the debt ceiling are they going to look up and say it is the democrats? they are the ones in the white house? >> there is a huge political risk to having the nation default. to me i feel like there would be blame to go all around. at this point you have americans who are very dissatisfied with government overall. this would be an argument that it does not work for them. i think by now you have both sides saying we are going to start out cordial. they are not really going to negotiate right now because they have time. they have several months. that is forever in washington

terms. you do not have to start negotiating until the rubber meets the road. the default is happening in two weeks. that is when you will really get the movement. right now it is just talking. >> there is plenty of time. >> to your point about how cordial they were in this initial meeting, which i think is important, i think all of us think if it was just kevin mccarthy and joe biden ming this decision they probably could come to some consensus. the problem for kevin mccarthy is he does not really have control of his own future. he has a very hostile right wing to his party that really wants to use the debt ceilings an example. they have threatened it time after time. they came close in 2011. this is the time when they truly have the power to make something happen. as much as kevin mccarthy does not want to do this, it may not be up to him. >> you are on the hill any time. were any of the freedom caucus people unhappy with him for being so cordial? >> they are holding their fire

at this point. they have not come right out and attacked him for that. i think they will give him a little bit of breathing room and space. as we get closer, as the deadline approaches, that is when you are really starting to see things heating up. kevin mccarthy could easily get this done by getting hakeem jeffries into a room. more republicans and more democrats that want to see this done there -- then there are the small number of conservative republicans who do not want to see this done. they have this motion to vacate that they could bring to the floor at any moment. yamiche: as we think about the economic realities of this, just today we had a jobs report, unemployment is at its lowest since 1969. how does the economic reality factor into all of this? >> the white house was very quick to seize on that jobs report as real evidence thathe

cynics were wrong. the critics were wrong. his economic plan is working to keep the economytrong. the challenge for the president is that there are all of these storm clouds at. it could be that the kind of aggressive job growth we have had actually triggers the federal reserve to continue to raise interest rates. even more aggressively. and that turns the country to flip over to a recession. a lot of economists disagree. this was an anomalous piece of data. the white house, what they are really hoping is that this does not happen. job growth continues strong. whatever the republican argument is going to try to be over the next 18 months as the

presidential election approaches is the economy is strong, that is going to make it a lot harder for republicans and a lot easier for president biden. yamiche: he brings up the republicans and 2024. wiest -- we are starting to see a number of people saying they're probably going to run. nikki haley is expected to announce her bid. larry hogan is looking at it. there is ron desantis in florida. what you make of this field that is taking shape. how weak might trump be or how much is he still there? >> it shows they think he is weak enough that they will run against him. i think the issue for the gop is that he is strong enough that he can be a wrecking ball in this primary. he is not going to go quietly. he is going to tear everyone down. he is not going to walk away. even if he were to lose.

i think that is the issue. he is willing to go as low as he has to go and he is willing to keep fighting even when it is supposed to be over. he is not going to say it let me do what is best for the party. yamiche: i want to ask you, when you talk about going low, what the republicans are focusing on is elon omar getting kicked off -- ilhan omar getting kicked off her committee. tell me a little bit about what you are hearing on the hill as it relates to all of this. >> she makes such a great point. he just said not too long ago that he would treat a primary differently. i think that has to petrified republicans right now. to your point about how this plays out on capitol hill, there are so many of the kind of maga talking points that have become the republican party platform. this idea of involved

investigations tied to hunter biden, these are things that percolated in the right wing ecosphere that are now being put into practice by republicans on capitol hill, especially in the house of representatives. the big problem for republicans and kevin mccarthy is because they have only had a slim majority in the house, the idea of pushing for any kind of substantive legislation is a fantasy. the l.a. power they have is the oversight role that congress has. this is the only tool they really have. they can use that. there are things worth investigating. the withdrawal from afghanistan, covid origins, the ways covid payments were made. if that is legitimate i think the american people will recognize it. everything goes back to hunter biden. that is where i think they run a serious risk. that will tell us a lot about 2024 and where the power is in the republican party. yamiche: all of that is such an

interesting part of things that we will have to cover. we will make a little bit of a hard turn because there is the chinese balloon. i don't know how to have a show on this friday without talking about this thing. it is floating hopefully not over washington. what do you make of the fact that this thinis floating out there? what do you think about the situations? >> a spy balloon from china that they say is a weather balloon and know what it america believes is a weather balloon. it is like the comic relief. not that it is not serious and we should take it seriously and we want to bring it down safely and all of that. but really? it is a spy balloon? in 20 foot injury? -- 2023. u.s. relations with china are getting worse. the idea that our relation with china to get better with

secretary of state blinken supposed to make a visit tonight is off indefinitely. i think we are into more difficult times with china, not easier times. yamiche: it seems like the biden administration, there are no alarm bells going off at the white house. >> to the broader point about the relationship, i think there is a lot of concern about that. i think the balloon itself, the best indication of a lack of real crisis was that they did not immediately shoot it down. or somehow take it down. they seem to have assessed that it is not any sort of serious threat to people or to intelligence gathering. it sounds like what they want to do is let the wind kind of blow it offshore the way the weather

just heads from west to east and eventually that will happen. yamiche: that is what they're saying at the pentagon. it is not an immediate threat. we will leave it. meanwhile, we have to also talk about the somber part of this week, hundreds of people attending the funeral for tyre nichols who died after being beaten by memphis police. his mother said he hopes his death would not be in vain. vice president, harris call for -- kamala harris called for legislation to keep police accountable. >> i wish my son was sitting here beside me. i guess now his assignment is done. he has been taken home. >> tyre nichols should have been safe. we demand that congress passed the george floyd justice and policing act. joe biden will sign it.

yamiche: any meaningful progress for passing policing reform is an uphill battle? the last effort to do this failed in the senate in 20 when he won. one of the lead negotiators at the time, tim scott, says he hopes this time will be different. >> we want only the best wearing the badge in this great nation. but politics too often gets in the way of doing what every american knows is common sense. yamiche: i want to come to you. what are you hearing from people who are most impacted by this? which i have to say is african-americans who are killed at 2.5 times the rate of white americans. is there a change or people wanting change? people believing there can be change? even on the local level? >> i think it is really difficult. what i am hearing when i talk to people is exhaustion.

she talked aboutow when she talked to people in memphis, so many people were saying they had had run-ins with memphis police. or people they knew and loved had run-ins with mavis police that were dangerous. i think there is an issue where people are affected by crime and often times it is poor black people. they are also concerned about police brutality and being beaten and having to worry about just getting home. i don't know that the federal government offers much relief because the idea of congress being able to act seems very far-fetched at this point. they could not do it after george floyd. there will be very difficult to do it now in this divided congress. what can happen at the local level? i think there is pressure to try to make some differences. they disbanded the part of the police force that was able to do this. but at the same time it is like what is going to happen?

i do not think we have good answers. yamiche: i want to ask about the trauma you are hearing from black people and people in this country who apart from calls for change, part of the funeral was mourning the loss of someone who should be here to raise his child. >> every life has worth. this person, he was a skateboarder, a father, he was beloved. his mother, that was her baby. i know i have a son. he will always be myaby. and she lost him. i think there is a pain in that that we carry that is physical, meaningful. i don't think this country fully deals with it. it is too much. >> i totally agree and i think that one of the sad things this reminds us of is the disconnect between that kind of trauma and policymaking. it used to be the idea that when

something dramatic happens it would trigger action. it would trigger politicians, lawmakers to act. whether it is 20 little children getting killed at sandy hook or immigrants dying crossing the rio grande or whether it is george floyd or others, tyre nichols dying, we are at a point and a paralysis in washington where even the most traumatic, horrible things that happen are not enough to trigger political action. there is no response. i think that is what leaves so many americans so deeply frustrated with the situations. >> a challenge for president biden in his state of the union address next week, we know he is going to talk about police reform. but will he have something new to say? is there some fresh approach? if the george floyd act could not pass in the wake of his

death and with democrats controlling both houses of congress, it is not going to pass now. is there something else that leadership can do to get us a different place? yamiche: you talk about the stalemate. jim jordan surprised me because he said police misconduct is a weaponization of the government. i had to do a double take. but he also said in the same breath he cannot think of any law that would happen what -- stop what happens to tyre nichols. >> defined pole misconduct? for a republican like jim jordan, it would be the fbi rating mar-a-lago -- raiding mar-a-lago. it would be capitol police officers roughing up anyway six protesters. that is part of the problem that we have in washington. people are talking past each other. even these things we think would be basic knowledge that we all agree upon like police brutality

or law enforcement run amok, different americans have different definitions of those. those members are speaking specifically only to those constituents. the second you start talking about police reform, the first thing republicans do is run tape of democrats saying defund the police. the first thing that happens on the others as they accuse republicans of not being serious about this. just like he talked about, it is the same conversation we have about guns, immigration. everybody just retreats back to the talking points. no one is interested in that consensus in the middle. there's a big difference between not changing anything and defunding the police. there is some kind of middle ground that can be found but it is so allusive because there is no political benefit to it right now. yamiche: i want to come back to this idea of can you even legislate hearts and minds? even civil-rights leader say we have to have new laws but there is this lack of humanity people are seeing when they see tyre

nichols bein beaten the way he is being beaten as he is calling out to his mother. >> we have to use the word, we have to talk about, even though thes were black police officers, there is an idea of policing that is rooted in white supremacy. that is something that people make the argument over and over again. you have black bodies, black people are not valued enough. so if you are in a position of authority, you may feel like you can get away with treating this person like they are not human. versus the way he would treat somebody who is white. that is just a fact. we have to really deal with that if we are going to go with the issues of police brutality in this country. >> that goes back to police reform and education and food programs to eliminate things like food insecurity and poverty. this is all part of the systemic problem that leads to the situation we saw in memphis.

lawmakers do not want to have a serious conversation. yamiche: even as we talk about education, we think about the fact that the ap african-american studies claes being watered down. >> it is a tough place to be. i think you are exactly right, we are talking past each other. even when it comes to what our history is and what people what -- want to learn. yamiche: we will have to leave it there tonight. thank you to all of our panelists for your reporting and insights. be sure to tune into newsweek for the latest on the unprecedented political and humanitarian crisis in haiti. good night from washington. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> consumer cellular has been offering wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. >> additional funding is

provided by the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. these individuals. 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. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >>

(narrator) the royal family and the tabloid press... have had a long and complicated relationship. (camera shutter clicking) (orchestral music) sometimes they're friends. ♪ sometimes they're not. (woman) this is harassment. it must stop. (narrator) this is the inside story of that fascinating relationship, of how the editors and copywriters got their biggest royal scoops and most iconic front pages, and how creating them had the power to reshape public opinion. why should news reporters and photographers hound people? (narrator) it's a story that begins with a tabloid royal who filled more column inches than any other.