gwen: the next big fight. will the government be able to impose stiff, new controls on the big banks? we talk about that, nuclear politics, supreme court politics and tea party politics tonight on "washington week." >> wall street took advantage of america. it's now our turn to look at wall street contributing to a better america. >> sounds simple enough. but a bank regulation bill that seems like a slam dunk only a short time ago -- >> i think we're very, very close -- gwen: has run into a partisan buzz saw on capitol hill. >> this bill wouldn't solve the problems that led to the financial crisis. it would make them worse. gwen: might the same thing happen to president obama's eventual supreme court nominee or to the plan embraced by global leaders this week to

reduce nuclear weapons? but saws ever where. >> the tea party movement. gwen: much of it building under the tea party flag. >> stop calling anyone un-american. let the unintended consequences of these actions, the results are un-american. gwen: covering the week, david wessel of "the wall street journal," gloria borger of cnn, peter baker of "the new york times," and john dickerson of "slate" magazine and cbs news. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by --

>> additional funding for "washington week" is provided by boeing, pepsi, the annenberg foundation, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening.

we may be approaching high noon for financial deregulation or, as the democrats have begun calling it, wall street reform. >> it's no surprise to the financial institutions that profit from the status quo has sent hordes of lobbyists to kill reform. you know, it's like throwing a piece of meat into a piranha tank. they're going to race to see how fast they can tear it apart. but we can't allow them to succeed. gwen: any help of bipartisan faded a bit today when senate republican leader mitch mcconnell presented the white house with a solid list of 41 republicans opposed to the bill in its current form. >> all signs we get from the white house is they're not interested in talking. they're not interested in making a deal with us. they want to jam through a totally partisan bill. gwen: yet just today the security and exchange commission brought civil fraud charges

against financial giant goldman sachs, boosting the democrats' crackdown argument. it's a complicated fight that turned sharply political only recently when capitol hill negotiations broke down. what happened, david? >> you're absolutely right. the big news today was in the courts where the s.e.c. went and they filed this 21-page charges against goldman sachs that provided us a very convenient narrative. people had been looking for a narrative of what happened here and the people kind of believed goldman sachs was the villain and the s.e.c. today said yes, they were. they said goldman sachs had a client, a hedge fund, that wanted to sell something short. they wanted to benefit on something going down. so they worked on goldman sachs on something that was going to go down and then goldman misled investors and sold it to them without telling them that it had been kind of preprogrammed to go down. goldman sachs, of course, says this is absolutely not true and they're going to fight it. but it does give the democrats a very convenient whipping horse

at this moment in the thing. and then outside the courts in the senate, there were two thing that's really interfered with the president's hope of getting a little bit of bipartisanship here. one was that the senate agriculture committee, led by blanche lincoln, the democrat from arkansas, went so far left, so hard on the banks that tim georgia tech, the treasury secretary, is now trying to pull our back and mcconnell, as you say, minority leader in the senate comes up with this letter from 41 republicans saying, we're not going to deal with you guys. but it's interesting that both the president and the republicans want to be clear to everybody that they agree on who the bad guys are, wall street. the republican letter says we must ensure that wall street no longer believes or relies on main street to bail them out. gwen: it's like saying we all want health care reform. i just don't like the way you're doing it. >> exactly. but the president and the democrats had thought that they had maneuvered the republicans into a position where at least some of them would feel that being opposed to the bill woo be

too politically -- would be too politically risky. instead the republicans are trying to define it as we're not against reform, we're just against these loudy democrat reforms. >> they're calling this bill now a bailout bill. that's a good buzzword if you want to get the public on your side and you want to argue against financial regulations, right? >> absolutely. now this thing is very plom florida kated and most people can't understand it. even some of the insiders can't understand it. so the labels really matter. so the republicans want to call this the permanent bailout. they want to associate this with all of the things that happened during the financial crisis that are unpopular. the white house now suddenly started calling it wall street reform. it's kind of like they finally figured out that financial regulatory reshaping or something wasn't like a great sound bite. >> not very catchy. like public option. >> exactly. trying to define the terms in a way that people will side with you even though they don't understand anything you're saying. look past the terms. >> viewers who don't have a

chance to read the bill, probably will never read the bill, is this a permanent bailout bill or does this in fact rule out the idea of a bailout bill? >> this is to distinguish the members of congress that will read the bill -- >> or the journalists. >> right. >> look, the point of this bill is two-fold, one is to make it less likely we have bailouts in the future. that's the point of having more rules, more regulations, so we don't have firms exploiting the cracks in regulations. and the other is to say when there is a need for a bailout, that it's somewhat more orderly than the chaos we saw last fall. what the republicans are saying, uh-huh, you said you want a bailout again. and what tim geithner, the treasury secretary says, my gosh, haven't we learned anything in the last couple of years? when you have a panic, it may be in the interest in the public, the taxpayers and the economy to bail some people out, do not tie my hands and my successor's hands with a leverage. >> we have a situation here where we have a complicated bill people may not understand, rotating buzzwords and president unifying against the president.

is this health care act two or is there a difference? >> i don't believe republicans are necessarily going to be united about this as they were with health care. the thing about health care was most americans felt they had something at stake, either they wanted to get insurance or they had a pre-existing condition or they felt their premiums were too high or they're on medicare. for them they were communicating with their congressmen and the congressmen understood and senators understood a lot of the dynamics of health care. my gosh, we have been arguing about this for about 20 years. this is very new to people. but i think that the reason -- it was a bit of a surprise, it looked for a while there was going to be some republicans supporting this thing. >> like yesterday it looked like that. >> and i think there might be again. the letter doesn't say, we're going to be against you no matter what you do. the letter is saying, got to give us something so we can say we have it. gwen: -- >> don't you think you have a split republican party where you have moderates like susan collins from maine or senator corker who actually w5u79 to get something done versus those who would rather have the issue and say this is the bailout?

>> absolutely. i think that some republicans are afraid to say we did nothing on financial reform will be hard to defend in november. gwen: well, it feels like we're on another slippery slope here. we're looking to see more than a simple partisan fight as well here in washington. the president is developing i call it a carrot and stick and carrot approach that is perhaps best detected in his foreign policy, as dozens of foreign leaders came to washington for a nuclear summit this week, the president moved beyond the issues he inherited, iraq, afghanistan, middle east peace process and onto the issue that's reflect his vision, like reducing nuclear weapons. did this give him the boost of the world stage, however, that he condition the quite seem to maintain at home rs peter? >> he's sitting there, of course, in the conference hall with 46 other world leaders. any president in that position, of course, chairing such a meeting is going to, you know, look like a man of stature, a man of world leadership and so forth. and the white house will tell you this is the largest gathering of heads of state by a president since f.d.r.'s --

obbling, he didn't survive, but the conference in san francisco to create the united nations. now, this is a much less, you know, sweeping affair than san francisco in 1945. gwen: in terms of what was accomplished. >> and what was aimed at and it's also a much more technical thing. what are we going to do with highly enriched uranium? that's not something that grabs people. the president was talking about nuclear terrorism. what happens if al qaeda gets a nuclear bomb, trying to scare people into take action on something he's cared about, even since he was a senator. >> what if we learned about barack obama, a, on the world stage and, b, in his foreign policy doctrine? >> right. >> i think you're beginninging to see the beginning of an obama doctrine if you will, it's one that is more poll teak than idealistic. the white house will say there's idealism still there. he met with people opt sidelines of this conference, you know, a number of bilateral meeting including with people like the president of kazakhstan, pretty

repressive place. but it also has a lot of oil and uranium and they gave up their nuclear weapons after the fall of the soviet union. so they were given a spot light to shine and be rewarded in effect for that and talk of democracy and human rights was left to the private sessions and not emphasized the way it might have been. gwen: in general why is it we seem to see him establishing more cordial, if you can call it that, relations with people like president medvedev rather than old allies like prime minister bnbn benjamin netanyahu? >> exactly. that's a critique you will hear from republicans in particular, president obama is attacking his friends and making nice with the enemies. and there's a lot of squabbling in the last few weeks with president karzai in afghanistan, with prime minister netanyahu in israel and that's created a real uncomfortable situation for the obama administration. they've now pulled back on the fighting with karzai. it was just a misunderstanding, who, you know, really that wasn't meant to be a big fight over whether americans are

invaders or not. with netanyahu, it's a different situation. they're still holding firm. some of the language he used suggested that he said that blood and treasure, american blood and treasure is at risk with this palestinian/israeli conflict. which is really interesting way of phrasing america's interest in that region. >> of course, netanyahu is worried about iran, just like the obama administration. with all of these bilaterals, did they make any progress on that front? >> they say they did. they said the chinese and russians are much more closer tonight agreement on the ideas of sanctions. russians are more forthright about saying sanctions are needed without saying what they will agree to. chinese still skeptical. we will see. the president said he wants this to happen in the next few weeks than a foo months. it feels very familiar, of course, for under president bush who got three sanctioned resolutions and none of which changed iran's behavior. the question is not whether they get sanctions but whether they have a ge yuen bite. >> and what do they accomplish in this meeting? >> they got a number of what

they call house gifts, individual agreements with countries. >> house gifts. >> health care reform, public option. >> it does matter. >> change. ukraine agreed to send back all of its weapons grade uranium and canada and mexico, all of these different countries had agreements. the problem is, of course, agreements are only going so far. one agreements they signed here is with russia to get rid of plutonium they no longer need. i was in moscow in 1998 when they first made that agreement with president clinton and president yeltsin. it's been 12 years since then. they still haven't done anything with that agreement. this was the agreement that put in place the agreement they made 12 years ago. >> even the start treaty has to be ratified by the senate and there's been noises that maybe that might be a little more difficult. >> it could be challenging. the republican is still trying to figure out whether they want to attack it for not doing too much or doing too little. it's a real question there. some republicans, conservatives like jon kyl, the number two in the senate, say this may put us

at risk. he's worried that it might make missile defense more difficult to fwilled, even though it doesn't directly limit that in the treaty. other republicans have kind of pooh-poohed it in saying well, it doesn't really do much more than george bush already in in 2002 with the treaty he signed with russia. we'll have to see how that plays out. gwen: it's been fun watching it all play out. the president's friends and his foes are waiting to see how another thing will play out, how he will fill the supreme court vacancy he was hand last week. will he use it to address the concerns that have always occupied the court like abortion and the death penalty? or will he put his stamp on affecting campaign finance regulations and property rights? how is that shaping up, gloria? >> at least it hasn't gotten any longer. gwen: are you sure? >> there are nine or ten names on it and it's a mix of some people you call liberals, some people you call moderate and some folks that are more moderate and have been in public

service. what's really new and interesting about this upcoming fight in talking to republicans and democrats about it is i think we're going to hear some new issues being talked about, because we always have the old culture issues, this is not to say they're going to go away but everybody who's covered one of these hearings understands when one of the nominees gets asked a question, what do you think about roe v. wade, precedent, i believe in precedent. and you never get an answer. but there is a new political dynamic that is, of course, driven by the tea parties on the republicans' side. and the question of federal power, what should the government be allowed to do? is health care reform for example constitutional? it's now being challenged. states' rights, property rights, a very, very big issue out west. and on the democratic side, you have the supreme court decision, which was a 5-4 decision that gets people at the white house very upset, as you know, which essentially loosens restrictions on corporations and the way they can spend their money in

campaigns now. so those are going to be things that they're going to talk about in this confirmation hearing on both sides. so maybe it will be a little bit different and more interesting for all of us to observe. >> if it's different, do we think it's going to be as ugly as we've seen before? is the fact that it's an election year that both sides have constituencies they might raid money from by kind of flaming some of these issues? what's the pregame guessing on the politics? >> first of all, obviously, it depends on who barack obama picks to be his nominee. gwen: which is why we keep hearing wait and see. >> and you talk to people at the white house, it doesn't seem to me that they're looking for a fight here. it also -- or a huge fight fight. gwen: is this president ever looking for a fight? >> but he will get a fight. he will get a fight. on the other side, in talking to republicans, it seems to me they want to be able to make their points and they understand that they're not likely to be able to get enough votes to phil buster

because if they wanted to, even though the democrats don't have the 60 votes, the republicans can lose some moderate republicans so it's not likely they would be able to successfully filibuster a nominee. what do they want to get out of it? they want to raise money. they want to make their points on these issue that's will be very helpful to them in the elections, smaller government, less activist visit judges, et cetera, et cetera. take it into the 2010 elections and both sides use it. by the way, this is important for a president's legacy so let's not underplay the fact that barack obama's going to pick somebody he's very comfortable with, who he thinks will be an important player on the court in the future. >> we had a hearing a day on one of his lower court nominees, of course. >> goodwin lieu. goodwin lieu for the california's appeals court. what did we learn from that? >> it was nasty. it was nasty. people didn't hold back. goode wane lieu had said this things -- gwen: his 5-year-old daughter was sitting there and they were banging him around. >> and he said things that they called a little unwise or

intemperate or whatever about sam alito. senator jon kyl called him intemperate about samuel alito when he was nominated to the supreme court. senators were raising the question of his judicial temperament. and that's always kind of an unknown. that came up with sonia sotomayor if you will recall. republicans were not hold linging back. i think they were putting down markers here today. sending a signal to the white house, you know, we may not be able to win this but we're not going to roll over either. question -- to go back to your question about whether it will be ugly, i think that that's going to be a political decision republicans will have to make depending on what happens with financial regulation and all sorts of other things because there's a line, you walk up to that and if you step over it, you can turn off a lot of voters. >> do they worry, do republicans worry they're against financial reform, they're against health care, they're against start?

some of the aim arguments necessity make on financial reform, some think it's too much, some thinks it too little. >> party of no? >> is that a winning argument? >> sarah palin says we're the party of hell no. i think they are about to test that strategy right now. and i think there are divisions within the republican party about it. and some would -- some would like to go to the mat on everything and some folks say, you know what, we can't say no to everything. gwen: i'm glad you mentioned sarah palin because now we're getting to the next little key here. because there's a back drop for all of these challenges facing democrats and republicans this midterm election year, as david was mentioning, no one in washington is exactly popular. and that approval is showing its face in tea party rallies and already bruising primary battles. both sides are grasping for advantage. >> it is all about this coming november. we have to take the house and the senate and two years from now barack obama is a one-term president! >> these things go in cycles.

the mood of the media and how things get portrayed and so you're like a genius for about a month. and then you're an idiot for about six months. and then, you know, you're smart again -- you're not as smart as you were but you're a little smarter than they thought you were. and then you're an idiot again. >> kind of -- gwen: i want to ask who's the idiot now but i can't do that. that would be too hard. seesaw, it's quite a seesaw. >> hand out the dramamine for all of us. look at where we were 15 months ago. the president barack obama had won. progressives and liberals had the wind at their back, conservatives routed, tea parties were what had with the queen. now look at the energy, tea party movement in the republican ranks and the president is below 50% in some in his approval ratings and the change in this bipartisanship that he promised is gone. it's a partisan town.

and that line he mentioned about being called a genius, temperate. if they think he's genius, that conventional wisdom is only if in washington if it exists. if you look out in the country and health care, his big success, certainly historic success for the president. if you look at the public opinion, it has gotten worse since the bill passed. his approval rating on the issue of health care has gone down. numbers are as bad as they were in august. so the country doesn't any he's a genius just yet. gwen: so the passion is all on the conservative side, not just the conservatives but far edge of the conservative party? >> well, right. there's passion in the democratic party. they're happy the president passed health care reform. they get angry about the wall street bailout fwill. there are things to spur democrats but it's not like what's happening on the republican side. and i say republican, it's really conservative populist -- gwen: and they may not necessarily identify themselves by party. >> that's right. we learned some things about the tea party this week. there was a cbs/"new york times"

poll about tea party supporters. we learned some things. they tend to be republicans. extremely white, almost 90% are white. 1% black. they do not like this president. they don't -- large majority do not think he shares the values of this country. 92% think he's a socialist. 94% hate the government. but we also learned about a tension, they do not like the size of government but they like social security and medicare, which are responsible for the size of government and its growth smed. >> so good or bad for the republican party? >> it's a mix. there are good things for the republican party. in some races there are quite good. they are helping very conservative candidates raise money, get a lot of enthusiasm going on. but i talked to somebody in one of these races who's very involved in one of these races, one of these red-hot candidates the tea party loves. they say we have to keep our distance for two reasons, one, the tea parties are disorganized and there are some -- as in all political parties -- there are extreme people who behave in ways that are embarrassing and our candidate, this person is

saying, we don't want to have to have him answer for every crazy person in the tea party movement. when it gets to the general election, we want to appeal to independents and moderates and a lot of the rhetoric is not independent and moderate. >> and who leads this movement? we saw obviously michele bachmann, we saw sarah palin. do these sort of desperate elements that feel unhappy with things in washington, do they follow anybody in particular? >> the beauty of them in some ways is it has no leaders, in which gives you some sense of authenticity. these are people who have real concerns and this is viable and real. but it is very different in different places and it has no leader in "the times" poll, cbs poll, they asked about sarah palin, who is in some ways to the extent it has a leader, the leader. and the plurality, 47% to 40% he said they didn't think she was qualified to be president. that's among tea parties. the numbers are around 70% in the general public. they have no leader. this is one of the questions. the movement is at a hinge. there is a movement but the question is whether it's going to be channeled through a person. and that's where we are on that

question. >> look at the race in florida. you have charlie crist running against this mark arubio. he could become an independent? >> where crivet is -- charlie crist is, he has two options. he will drop out of the republican race. why? he's getting pounded. he's down 20. he will either become an independent or drop altogether and run another day. gwen: we'll be watching florida and all of those other hot races. it's going to play so far outside of washington and the debates are just beginning. we'll be following every bit of it. you can follow us, too. our blogs, our stories, our tweets, especially john's, and send your thoughts to our website. just log on to pbs.org/"washington week." as always, keep up with daily developments on the pbs newshour and then join us again next week on "washington week." good night. the conversation continues online. see more from our panel about

the week's top stories and we answer your questions. it's the webcast extra found only on washingtonweek online at pbs.org. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by --