Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 6/14/24

LISA DESJARDINS: This week, the politics of justice.

President Biden vows he won't interfere after his son is found guilty on federal gun charges.

But Republicans hold the attorney general in contempt of Congress and embrace former President Donald Trump and his attacks on the justice system, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

I'm Lisa Desjardins.

Jeffrey Goldberg is away.

The deep rift between Republicans and Democrats around the American justice system grew this week after President Biden's son, Hunter, was found guilty on three felony gun charges.

The president said he will not pardon Hunter nor commute his sentence.

But former President Donald Trump and Republicans continue to rail against the Justice Department and system after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial.

How Republicans and Democrats view the Justice Department and our country's legal system is where we begin tonight.

And joining me to discuss this and more are Leigh Ann Caldwell, an anchor of Washington Post Live and the co-author of the Early Brief Newsletter, Francesca Chambers is a White House correspondent for USA Today, Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter with NOTUS, a new media outlet from the Allbritton Journalism Institute, and Sabrina Siddiqui is White House reporter at the Wall Street Journal.

Thank you all for joining us.

Let's go ahead and start with that Hunter Biden verdict, of course.

The president in this case is both a father of someone convicted and the president.

And he had to address both.

He did so pretty succinctly.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. President: I'm extremely proud of my son, Hunter.

He has overcome an addiction.

I said I abide by the jury decision, and I will do that and I will not pardon him.

LISA DESJARDINS: Now, Biden also said he won't commute a sentence either, just to clarify all that.

Two weeks ago on this set, Jeffrey asked how much the Trump conviction may or may not matter.

Sabrina, I want to ask you, how much do you think the Hunter Biden conviction would matter ultimately in the election and American politics at this point?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: So, what we've seen in polling ever since the legal challenges surrounding Hunter Biden have come to the public view is that this is not an issue that impacts how the majority of Americans will vote.

Now, this was before the verdict came in, but, you know, most Americans said that they it's not going to change that the way they're approaching the November election.

Now, among those voters who said that, you know, the, the charges against Hunter Biden might sway their thinking, most of those voters were Republicans.

So, they're probably people who aren't voting for President Biden anyway.

I think that in this particular case, the issue of addiction has also been one that I think a lot of families can relate to.

I think that when you interview voters, there is some degree here.

But importantly, it also showed that the justice system works as intended.

It doesn't matter if you are a former president who is once again seeking the White House or if you are the son of a sitting president, if you have charges against you, a jury will weigh them.

If they believe the evidence stacks up, then you will be convicted.

And in some ways, they actually may have taken away a talking point from former President Trump and Republicans that there's a two-tier justice system and only he's being held accountable or prosecuted and not Hunter Biden, the president's son.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

Francesca, what does the Biden campaign think about that?

Do they feel like now it's easier for them to throw punches at Trump, because they too have dealt with the justice system and they are acknowledging it, or is this a case where the Biden campaign wants all the other Democrats to throw the punch?

Is it -- a classic question, how aggressive is the Biden campaign going to be about this?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, White House Correspondent, USA Today: So, they certainly haven't backed off calling Trump a convict, saying that he is a criminal.

And, in fact, since then, they've really only seemed to ramp that up.

And from what I've seen, and as far as what you were saying, Sabrina, what I've heard from Democrats is that they do think that there are many families who have struggled with this in America, that they're empathetic to the president on this issue.

And the Reuters/Ipsos poll that did drop right after this ruling came out really showed that the race is still in the margin of error nationally.

It was a two point, two-point difference of the swing between them.

And when you look at independents in particular, it's 36, 33, it's very, very close.

And you also have to keep in mind that when you're talking about all the issues that voters are looking at in the election, even if you ask about Trump and his legal struggles, or Hunter Biden and his legal struggles, this is all within the realm of the economy and other issues being very important, like abortion rights too.

LISA DESJARDINS: Do you think the Hunter Biden conviction matters, Evan?

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, Reporter, NOTUS: I kind of want to push back on this notion that it doesn't matter, because I do kind of think that if you look at the way a lot of Republicans are talking about it, they definitely think it matters, right?

There's a significant vocal group in the Republican Party, supporters of former President Trump, who have taken this verdict and said, this verdict proves that the system is somehow rigged, there's something wrong with the system, right?

They're obviously doing this because they think they need to do it, because if Trump got convicted, they want to tear that conviction down as well, right?

This is an actual thing.

LISA DESJARDINS: It's sort of three logical steps to get there, but they're saying it.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But the overall attack on the justice system, right, to see a situation where a special counsel originally appointed by former President Trump convicts the president's son in the state where the president is the most powerful that he is, right, Delaware, to see all that happen and then they come back and say that shows it's rigged, people inside the president's orbit think that this is a very important thing to push back on and to tear down because it takes one of their talking points away.

And they're clearly trying to use it to influence voters in the election.

LISA DESJARDINS: So, it's in this environment that the former president came to Washington this week.

And part of that environment was also about Merrick Garland and the idea that the House held him in contempt.

Leigh Ann, I want to talk to you about that, but, first, I want to point out that the attorney general actually did something unusual involving The Washington Post.

He posted an op-ed this week about the justice system.

This is very unusual for him in the Department of Justice.

In this op-ed in the Washington Post, Attorney General Garland wrote, we have seen an escalation of attacks that go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and necessary oversight of our work.

They are baseless, personal, and dangerous.

Now, he published that op-ed the very day before Republicans voted to hold him in contempt in Congress.

That has to do with the Biden classified documents case.

Republicans want the audiotape of President Biden.

But Speaker Johnson came out after that op-ed, and he said this about Garland.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): It's a rich irony to hear this attorney general talk about weaponizing a function of government.

That's what the Department of Justice has been under his leadership, or lack thereof.

LISA DESJARDINS: Republicans have offered just a few examples of weaponization.

They pointed to the 2023 FBI memo out of just one bureau about Catholics.

There was also an anti-abortion protester in Pennsylvania who had an aggressive raid at his house.

But other than that, really, there's not evidence of systemic weaponization of the Department of Justice.

Leigh Ann, how much do you think Republicans are going to continue to talk about this, continue to keep up these attacks, even as the head prosecutor in the country says it's dangerous?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, Anchor, Washington Post Live: They're absolutely going to continue this.

Not only do they only have a couple instances of weaponization, but they set up an entire select committee in Congress to investigate this issue, which hasn't really resulted in any proof that there is actual intent to weaponize the Justice Department.

But I will say that this is -- the reason this matters is because it motivates the base of the Republican Party, want to keep them fired up and motivated to come out for Republicans and former President Donald Trump on Election Day.

And that's why it matters.

Democrats -- getting back to Merrick Garland actually.

I was going to go in a couple different directions, but Merrick Garland -- LISA DESJARDINS: Should we?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: No.

So, Merrick Garland is defending the Justice Department because what the Republican attacks are doing is they are effectively delegitimizing people's views of not only all the institutions but definitely the Department of Justice.

This is something that is seeping deeper, deeper into American consciousness.

You see this in polling, not only with all of government institutions, but specifically the Justice Department.

And that's why Merrick Garland is defending the Justice Department and the employees that work there.

He also did something very similar in a congressional hearing before House Republicans last week.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

Let's keep going a little bit bigger picture on this.

I was in the Hudson Valley in New York.

There's a few good swing congressional districts in that area.

I was there earlier this week.

And I spoke to one voter who told me he wasn't sure who he's going to vote for.

You know, he said, like many voters, he doesn't want to think about it, isn't excited about the election.

But then he told me, you know, whoever I vote for and whoever wins, it's rigged anyway, which is sort of a news, like it's not just if this guy wins.

It's like if anybody wins, it's rigged.

So, Evan, I want to talk to you about how deeply you see this idea permeating that our institutions, no matter what happens, are corrupt.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Oh, very deep.

I think we're in an actual real crisis moment for the justice system, which is an extremely important element of our democracy.

It's not just Republicans who are saying this or people, maybe undecided voters.

I spoke with a TikTok influencer who covers news, right, who had a million viewers on our channel, very big deal.

And I talked with the end of the Trump trial, because I wanted to see like how was this playing in this new medium, TikTok.

And she said, look, my audience doesn't really care about it.

If you have people who like President Trump, they think the thing is just rigged, it doesn't really matter what happens.

And if people who don't like President Trump, former President Trump, they think that it doesn't really matter what happens.

Nothing will really happen to him, that there is really an absolute, like there's like an ennui that is being built up about around the justice system.

And all this conversations, you know, it's not just what's going on with the Trump campaign and Hunter Biden and everybody else and Donald Trump and all this stuff.

Well, you also have a lot of these stories about the Supreme Court that don't look so great.

This is a moment where you need people who lead the justice system, who care about the justice system, you need to step up and really defend it a lot more against a lot of people who are starting to think it doesn't count anymore.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: And I was just going to pick up on that and say, go one step further.

It's attacks on the justice system.

It's attacks on the government writ large.

It's attacks on the American media and trying to under undermine the credibility of everyone at this table as well.

It's all of American institutions.

And when you look at the contempt vote for Garland specifically, though, look, they knew that Democrats were not going to vote for this.

Obviously, the White House is going to say that they're going to put out executive privilege.

Obviously, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden is going to respect executive privilege.

So, all of those things were baked in.

But when you are in an election year and that is one of your top campaign messages, you want to try and get the other side on the record as voting against your thing, whether it's this or it's border security or abortion rights.

I think you're going to see a lot of that.

School is out for the summer basically, and a lot of these votes moving forward are going to be messaging votes and they're about politics.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The impact is still to be seen, right?

I mean, on that Garland vote, there was one Republican who voted against it, Representative Joyce from Ohio, right?

And he said, one of the things I'm worried about with this vote, why I'm not voting, I'm a former prosecutor, I'm not voting for this because I feel like we're trying to score political points off the DOJ.

And so the political points have now been scored.

Now we see what happens to the institution in the long run.

LISA DESJARDINS: Talking about Capitol Hill, the former president, as I said, was on Capitol Hill speaking with many Republicans.

Not every Republican, by the way, met with the former president.

And one thing I wanted to ask you, Leigh Ann, because you have so much great reporting about this, can you take us sort of behind the scenes?

What did we learn other than the fact that apparently Mitch McConnell and former President Trump now can smile at each other?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: And fist bump.

LISA DESJARDINS: And fist bump, and shake hands, all of it.

What did we learn?

You have great reporting on this.

What does it mean?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: It was quite a remarkable day yesterday on Capitol Hill.

You had the meeting in the morning with House Republicans who mostly embrace the former president.

That was more -- you know, it was pretty subdued for Donald Trump, but it was a little more, you know, peppy than later in the afternoon, which was the most astonishing meeting, where he met with Senate Republicans, most of them, except for three, two of them, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who want nothing to do with this man.

And he did not jab Mitch McConnell.

He did not make fun of anyone in the room, like he usually does.

He has very publicly been a foil to Mitch McConnell.

Instead, it was peacemaker.

They were all -- senators came out of that meeting and saying that they had never been in a room with senators who many of them did not want him to be the nominee and Donald Trump and have it be such a collegial meeting.

LISA DESJARDINS: Mitt Romney was in there.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Mitt Romney was in there.

Senator Josh Hawley came out and he told me that was surreal, like he could not believe that meeting.

And so it is -- ultimately, what it means is that the party is 100 percent behind Donald Trump in a turnabout moment that we would not have expected in the days after January 6th.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI: And, you know, I think that this was obviously an effort to rally the troops, but, you know, this is the third time that President Trump has been in on the ballot, you know, in a presidential election cycle.

And we've seen the first two installments of this trilogy.

You know, there are all these public disagreements over whether or not he should be the nominee.

There's always this barrage of criticism, those Republicans who are in more moderate districts or, you know, if they're senators, you know, in swing states, where they feel like they have to draw some distance from his demeanor.

But then at the end of the day, they do all come around and rally behind him and they do line up behind him.

And I think that a large part of that is of course, because the overwhelming majority of the Republican electorate is behind former President Trump.

And so, you know, when you saw this show of unity, I think, you know, in some ways -- LISA DESJARDINS: (INAUDIBLE) seem like the breaking point.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI: But then they also saw the way in which we were talking about how this is so, you know, baked into the way that the Republican electorate thinks everything they think of Trump, you know, the idea that the whole system is rigged against them, even their views on January 6th.

I think even those Republicans who broke with him on that day or in the days after, they saw where the voters are and that's firmly behind it.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: And then, ultimately, the reason is because of Election Day.

They all want to win.

And they've made the decision that we will only win if we are with him.

And they want to take back the Senate, they want to win the presidency, and they want control.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: And it's not just Congress, though.

I mean, if you look at the Republican Party writ large, perhaps with the exception of Mike Pence, who has said that, you know, he will not endorse Donald Trump, you're seeing it from folks like Nikki Haley, Chris Sununu, people who had some pretty terrible things to say about his qualifications for president.

But they're looking ahead and saying they want to be a part of the Republican Party -- LISA DESJARDINS: Or at least they'll vote -- FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: Well, they will at least, yes, at least, yes, at least vote.

But still, after saying that someone is not qualified and unfit to then come out and say that you will even vote for them, if you want to be a leader in this Republican Party, then that's what they feel they have to do.

LISA DESJARDINS: So, question for you.

The former president also said, boasted that he thinks Virginia is now a potential state that Republicans should be looking at, places like Minnesota.

New Mexico.

He is trying to expand the map, or at least he wants Democrats to think he's expanding the map.

There's a game of making people spend money in places they don't want to.

Right, what do you, what's the Biden campaign think about this?

Do they really think these states are on the board here?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: No.

I understand like what the thought process on Minnesota because of, you know, how 2016.

And, of course, the Biden campaign is also trying to, quote/unquote, expand the map in places like North Carolina.

They think that potentially there's an option in Florida.

I was just in North Carolina over the last couple of days and Democrats there are hopeful because of abortion rights, that there's maybe something that they can do there as well.

So, both sides are looking at that, but it probably will come down once again to the core battleground states, especially the upper Midwest, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin as well as Michigan.

LISA DESJARDINS: Evan, to close out this sort of part of the discussion, one thing that's happening here with the former president is he's saying to Republicans, hey, I'm great for you, as Leigh Ann and others were saying, and he's saying all campaign for you down ballot also.

Not all of them are sure they want him to, but he also is now endorsing more moderate candidates, sort of a more Mitch McConnell kind of strategy versus the more natural, I think, kind of more extreme folks that he's endorsed in the past.

How is that working exactly?

Because he's sort of saying, I want congressional members who are more likely to win, but less extreme, but I also want you to vote for me.

I'm the one who's going to throw fire and brimstone at everyone.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But I have to say there's one interesting part about that meeting to me with that of this week is that he endorsed Larry Hogan in Maryland, who I don't think really wants his endorsement at all.

So it's unclear.

Like was that like a poison pill?

Like, hey, by the way, I don't like you.

I'm endorsing you or don't know.

But I think that the, the answer here is that, you know, he thinks that he can get loyalty from these people.

And also the Republican Party is his entirely.

I mean, you know, his, what is it, daughter-in-law is like now that like runs the RNC.

I mean, everything is -- he is to do what he wants with and I think that a lot of these meetings were about that.

We had some reporting at NOTUS, so my colleagues talked about what happened inside the House meeting, and they mentioned that, you know, some members who were in the meeting said like, oh, he was rambling a lot, he sounded like a drunk uncle at a family reunion, things like this, they weren't like totally into it But they went and they felt that it was the right thing to do to go.

And so when you see him endorsing, you see him moving around, it's because there aren't a lot of Republicans who feel like they can say I don't want to be around you and it could be a very good reason for that, right?

I mean, he's very popular in his own party, more than he was before.

And like I said, he's taken over pretty much everything.

And if you're a Republican, don't you want to be with the guy who's winning?

LISA DESJARDINS: So, the split screen here was the former president meeting with the Republicans as the Democrats in the Senate were passing yet again another measure dealing with reproductive rights.

In this case, it was IVF and a measure that Senate Democrats said would protect IVF here.

Sabrina, I want to ask you about this.

It's June.

The election's not until November, but how important is this kind of push from especially Senate Democrats, but all Democrats to just make sure this idea of reproductive rights is out there.

It seems to be what they're really pinning a lot of their hopes on.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI: I think this is going to be one of the central themes for President Biden's reelection campaign and the Democratic Party going into November, because they do feel like they do really well on the issue of reproductive rights.

It is one of the main reasons why Democrats outperformed expectations in the 2022 midterm elections.

And now they have this opening on IVF, which was not really part of the national discourse until this Alabama Supreme Court ruling months ago, which if Republicans had just distanced themselves from the outset, then maybe we wouldn't even be talking about it.

But they had been a little bit all over the place, you know, whether or not they can even just clearly state that they support access to IVF, which is something that millions of Americans obviously benefit from or at least, you know, use in their efforts to conceive every year.

So, you know, I think that this is not a new issue for Democrats.

I mean, Evan incidentally is at this table and was at the forefront in 2012 of reporting on then-Senate Candidate Todd Akin talking about legitimate rape and the body has a way of shutting that down.

And we remember how much of a disaster that was for then-Candidate Mitt Romney and Republicans.

You know, it did bring abortion, you know, as a central issue in the presidential election.

So, I think, you know, anytime -- and you see reproductive rights rank highly not just for Democrats but also for suburban voters, suburban women, you know, independent voters.

I think Democrats are very eager for this to be a major theme going into November.

LISA DESJARDINS: We're sort of hitting the back end of the show here, but, Leigh Ann, I want to ask you, Republicans themselves don't seem to agree on these issues exactly what they exactly want to do, especially with IVF and contraception, and the former president sort of just said, tell people about your conviction, but that's what they've already been doing.

How difficult is this for them?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: It's extremely difficult.

It's proven to be difficult for Republicans in 2022 midterm elections, 2023 off-year elections.

And Democrats keep think they keep winning on this issue over and over again.

They hope that that continues into 2024.

But you heard Donald Trump yesterday tell Republicans behind closed doors try to the -- he said, we must message better than we did on 2022.

The abortion is why Republicans lost, he says.

But he didn't -- wasn't very specific on what that message should be other than talk about it in a way that is best for you.

And so that has been a huge challenge for Republicans, especially since it has been baked, voters do not trust Republicans unless you are a very staunchly anti-abortion voter on the issue.

And so it is a very difficult, you know, canvas to unpaint.

LISA DESJARDINS: All right.

In our last couple of minutes here going again, sort of a little bit big picture, these are such core issues that have been with us for decades.

And, of course, there's sort of new twists on them.

There's new kind of aggressiveness.

There's a new kind of bitter divide in this country that just doesn't seem to get any better.

But especially when I ask you two, are campaigns at risk, and they keep pushing these messages of flat-lining with voters and voters no longer being so animated about things like abortion or whatever you think about President Trump's conviction, former president's conviction, or is it this is how we are, we're always going to react to these things?

What's your instinct, Evan?

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Well, first, I want to say it's very cool of Sabrina to shout me out like that.

I mean, I had no beard then, but it's like it's nice to know people for a long time.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI: You thought I forgot.

LISA DESJARDINS: I can barely remember what I -- EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: My mom's going to watch this.

It's very awesome.

Thank you very much for reminding everybody of that.

But, you know, the challenge with this particular issue, right, this is a core value of American conservatism, right?

Asking to sort of like slough it off as Trump has is very difficult.

People are very moved and they really, really care about this.

So, the animation is there for a reason.

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: With the debate coming up, this is exactly why both campaigns wanted to bait so early, is because they're worried that Americans are tuning all of this out and they're hoping that they can break through all of that and get folks to start tuning back in.

But my goodness, guys, it's June.

It is June and we're having a debate already.

LISA DESJARDINS: Exactly, all right.

So, then since we have a couple more seconds left, do folks think, A, raise your hand if you think this debate will certainly happen.

I'm just putting that out there.

I do.

I think Evan's not as sure.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The last person I interviewed about it said they didn't think so, so I'm not going to -- my reporting tells me.

LISA DESJARDINS: I mean, you can't be quite sure.

But then the other question is, most debates don't move the needle.

This is a special election.

Does anyone think that this could?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: It's about getting them to tune back in though, not necessarily move the needle.

And, by the way, if either of them doesn't have a great debate, then they've got all summer to fix it.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yes.

I mean, there's still remarkably about 12 to 14 percent of voters are undecided.

How?

I don't know.

And so, absolutely, it's not about getting that person's vote in June.

It's about getting people to start paying attention because people have tuned out.

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: It's a game reset.

The Biden campaign has said all along, you know, that once people tune in, they're going to really -- those numbers are going to change really fast because they've seen Biden and Trump before and they picked Biden.

So, this is kind of like that moment to try to like wake everybody up, like surprise, it's election.

We'll see if it works or not, but that I think is the risk -- I mean, is the game here that they're playing.

SABRINA SIDDIQUI: I think that, you know, most people don't tend to tune in until you get to the fall, until you get to September.

But this is that moment where people might remember, oh, yes, there is a general election.

We may not like it, but these are our two choices.

And you have that moment to relive 2020 and see if your mind has changed.

LISA DESJARDINS: We will definitely be watching.

And, unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now Thank you to all of our amazing panelists.

I'm shouting all of you out for sharing your reporting, and to our viewers, thank you for joining us as well.

For more on Hunter Biden's recent criminal convictions, visit theatlantic.com.

I'm Lisa Desjardins.

Good night from Washington.