GWEN IFILL: One debate down, three to go.
What did this week tell us about who took the
bait and who didn't?
Tonight on Washington Week.
They debated taxes.
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
The only years that anybody's
ever seen were a couple of years where he had to turn them over to state authorities when
he was trying to get a casino license.
And they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.
So if he's paid -
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
That makes me smart.
GWEN IFILL: They debated trade.
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
You called it the gold standard of trade deals.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
And you know what?
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
You said it's the finest deal you've ever seen.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
No.
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
And then you heard what I said about it, and all of a sudden you were against it.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
Well, Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but
that is not the facts.
GWEN IFILL: They even debated temperament.
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
Well, I have much better judgment than she does.
There's no question about that.
I also have a much better temperament than she has.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
Whoa, OK.
GWEN IFILL: But by the end of the week, five days after their first big debate, Trump
was still playing on Clinton's home turf, debating his treatment of women - unleashing a
tweet storm today about Alicia Machado, the Clinton supporter and beauty queen who says
he derided her for her weight.
DONALD TRUMP: (From video.)
Almost every single poll had us winning the debate against
"Crooked" Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
Isn't this one of the strangest elections you've ever seen?
GWEN IFILL: In Washington, Congress voted to override an Obama veto for the first time.
REP. : (From video.)
The bill is passed - (sounds gavel) - the objections of the
president to the contrary notwithstanding.
GWEN IFILL: Why did Democrats join Republicans in abandoning the president?
Covering the week, Ailsa Chang, congressional correspondent for NPR; Lisa Lerer,
national politics reporter for the Associated Press; Ashley Parker, political reporter
for The New York Times; and Karen Tumulty, national political correspondent for The
Washington Post.
ANNOUNCER: Award-winning reporting and analysis.
Covering history as it happens.
Live from our nation's capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill.
Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill.
GWEN IFILL: Good evening.
With one debate under our belts, we thought that by tonight
we might have a little additional clarity about this 2016 race, and we do: preparation
works, taking the bait does not.
You may have heard Donald Trump say that the polls
show he won the debate.
Well, they don't.
A Fox poll released Friday night found that
Clinton bested Trump, 61 percent to 21 percent.
Polls in battleground states show
Clinton taking the lead in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada.
Also, you can sometimes tell who's won by watching who's complaining.
Bright and early this morning, Donald Trump picked up where he'd left off in a fight with
Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe he'd attacked for gaining what he called a
massive amount of weight.
Here are just two of his tweets.
At 5:19 a.m.: "Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that
Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT!
Hillary was set up by a con."
Then, at 5:30 a.m.: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past)
Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could" - "so she could use her in the debate?"
He actually got started shortly after 3:00 a.m.
Here's how Hillary Clinton responded this afternoon.
HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.)
I mean, really, who gets up at 3:00 in the morning -
(laughter) - to engage in a Twitter attack against a former Miss Universe?
I mean, he hurled as many insults as he could.
Really, why does he do things like
that?
I mean, his latest Twitter meltdown is unhinged, even for him.
GWEN IFILL: So what did this tit-for-tat, Lisa, tells us about both of them?
LISA LERER: Sex, lies and Twitter, Gwen.
(Laughter.)
I think for Trump it
underscores three - what are three of his biggest weaknesses here.
First of
all, his controversial sexist statements about women, which are a problem, given
that women are a huge part of the voting population.
Second of all, the temperament
questions, that he fires off from the hip, at times even shooting himself in the foot.
And third of all, his sort of lack of comfort with the truth - you know, the criminal
allegations he raised, the sex tape, that's not exactly the full story.
So you really are seeing his weaknesses on full display just in those tweets.
As for Hillary Clinton, what I think was most striking there was that she didn't mention
this for the whole week.
Since the debate until today, she did not bring up this issue at all.
GWEN IFILL: She didn't have to.
LISA LERER: She didn't have to, because he kept it alive for her.
And it was only today that she figured, all right, why not drum it home?
But in the meantime, she could talk about his taxes, she could talk about a host of other
negative things about him, so he gave her a lot of room.
GWEN IFILL: Karen, you know, one of the things that felt - I think Donald Trump called
it a "con," but at the very least it was a setup.
She very carefully at the end of
that debate planted this question about Alicia Machado, then stepped back.
KAREN TUMULTY: Oh, not exactly, though.
GWEN IFILL: Not exactly step back.
KAREN TUMULTY: Because the super PAC had an ad ready to go.
Her campaign had a video
ready to go.
There had been an article done and a photo shoot with Cosmopolitan Magazine.
They had really prepared for this story to sort of take off and take on its own legs.
And again, you know, they I think made the calculation that Donald Trump was not going to
be able to sort of walk past this.
And beyond this underscoring his weaknesses, what
really alarms a lot of Republicans is that he is not returning to what were his strengths.
I mean, he actually had a halfway decent 15, 20 minutes at the top of that debate where
he was talking about himself as an agent of change and Hillary Clinton as the status quo.
He seemed to have her on the defensive on trade.
And he lost it after that.
And again, a lot
of Republicans want him to get back to sort of not only prosecuting the case against her,
but getting to his larger campaign themes, the themes that have gotten him this far.
GWEN IFILL: So, Ashley, why did he take the bait?
ASHLEY PARKER: (Laughs.)
Because he simply cannot help himself, right?
And the irony is, as Karen said, he actually had a decent debate.
He had a good first
30 minutes, and even the rest of the debate he didn't necessarily win -
KAREN TUMULTY: I gave him 15, Ashley, but OK, we'll - (laughter) -
ASHLEY PARKER: I'd say 20.
But he had like a good first 20 minutes.
And afterwards, even if you talk to his advisers, the complaint was mainly that he had
sort of left some opportunities on the table; there were chances he could have really
hammered her, and he didn't.
And that was initially the narrative, but Donald Trump can just not pass up any bait, any
tweet, any slight, no matter how small, no matter if it's from a civilian or -
GWEN IFILL: Even if it's - even if it's been telegraphed, because she's been talking
about this idea of throwing bait out there.
Every pundit in America has talked about throwing bait out there.
ASHLEY PARKER: Well, what's stunning is normally you don't telegraph your debate
strategy because the other side will pick up on it.
But I think the Clinton people correctly realized they could telegraph it and Donald
Trump still wouldn't be able to resist.
(Laughs.)
LISA LERER: And she's still doing it.
She was dropping some things about Mark Cuban,
knowing that he loves fighting with Mark Cuban.
I mean, there's - she's just dangling that stuff up there - out there and he is like a
little fishy swimming right up to the, you know.
AILSA CHANG: But isn't this what his supporters love about him, that when someone takes
a swing at him he slugs back even harder?
Like, could this have the potential of
actually exciting his base even more and drawing more support?
ASHLEY PARKER: I think in this case it's tricky because this woman, this former Miss
Universe, as the Hillary people sort of correctly intuited goes at one of his core
vulnerabilities, which are, you know, female suburban voters and also Hispanic voters.
So while they may like the he tells it like it is, he's not politically correct, he is
very much going after a demographic in a negative way that he needs to win.
LISA LERER: Also, the Clinton campaign believes he has a floor, so there's a certain
level of support they think he won't fall below.
But they're looking at about 10 percent of the electorate, some of whom are, you know,
loose Republicans, moderate Republicans turned off by his rhetoric - some are Gary
Johnson supporters, a few are undecided - that they're trying to win.
And for that group that they're targeting, this doesn't help him.
GWEN IFILL: Well, so, Karen, was part of the deal also that maybe the Trump folks
thought that their greater vulnerability was on things like the tax returns - when he
said, oh, it's smart not to pay taxes?
KAREN TUMULTY: And they certainly had a lot of vulnerabilities on that, and they didn't
even have lines prepared for that.
I mean, for him to say - Hillary Clinton took after
the tax returns.
She said, now, the reason he's not - he's not turning them over are he
may not be as rich as he says he is, he may not be as generous to charities as he says he
is.
She's going after all the things that he prides himself on.
And instead of having an
answer to this, he says, well, that's just - you know, that's smart of me not to pay taxes.
GWEN IFILL: Now, is that the distinction to be - yeah - is that the distinction to be
drawn between Donald Trump and the Trump campaign, which is the Trump campaign gets all
that but Donald Trump may not?
KAREN TUMULTY: And my colleague Mary Jordan was sitting in a room with undecided voters,
and she wrote that people literally gasped when he said it's smart of him not to pay
taxes, because, guess what?
Everybody else is out there paying their taxes.
GWEN IFILL: So what happens next?
Is it possible within this campaign that people have
gotten to him this week and said, OK, we've got a town hall meeting coming up; we can do this better?
ASHLEY PARKER: It's certainly possible.
(Laughter.)
GWEN IFILL: They can say it.
ASHLEY PARKER: When you talked to his aides afterwards there was sort of a discussion of
- they kind of recognized some of the weaknesses in the debate.
They said, you know, he didn't have a ton of specifics and facts.
So even if we can't make him sort of like a Hillary Clinton-style policy wonk, we would
at least like to arm him with some statistics to give the illusion of sort of, you know,
policy specifics.
And they also talked about - you know, the town hall format is very
different.
It involves dealing with an audience, moving your body around stage.
And they want to sort of practice that with him, but then they have to say at the same
time they had also wanted to practice this debate with him standing behind a lectern and
that didn't happen.
So I think it's still an open question.
GWEN IFILL: If sexism is a tripwire for him, it seems to me that there is - remember the
town hall debates where one candidate seemed to move to the other and even with two men
on stage it looked threatening?
That could be even a bigger - this is the woman who
survived the Rick Lazio debate, where he came out from behind his podium, remember?
LISA LERER: And Hillary Clinton is great at capitalizing on those moments.
Like any sort of - and her campaign is great into turning those moments into sort of
rallying cries for her base.
I think she was a little underestimated in this debate.
I mean, these are - she's not a great campaigner, as everyone knows, but in situations
like debates, like congressional testimony, where she can prepare, where the rules are
defined, where the format is defined, she tends to do quite well.
And I just wonder whether the Trump campaign, which feels a little bit like an echo
chamber sometimes in terms of who they're talking to and who they're getting input from,
and underestimates how well she does in those kinds of formats.
GWEN IFILL: But is there room to turn the tables on her?
Just as it's clear what his weaknesses are, it's fairly clear what hers are.
KAREN TUMULTY: It is very treacherous to try to do that in a town hall forum, because
half the questions are going to be coming from undecided voters in the audience.
And the secret here is you have to be engaging with those people, sharing their concerns,
and conveying to them that you actually have a solution to their problem.
And it's really hard to pivot, and let's talk about Monica Lewinsky here.
So, by the way, there are pitfalls for Hillary Clinton in a town hall forum, too.
We saw in the much-talked-about Matt Lauer Commander in Chief forum a few weeks ago,
when she got hostile questions from audience members she sort of reverted into Hillary
Clinton lawyer and litigator mode.
And that is also something that may not go over so well in a town hall.
GWEN IFILL: OK, well, that town hall meeting, that next presidential debate is nine days
away.
But on Tuesday we get to see the vice presidential nominees, Republican Mike Pence and
Democrat Tim Kaine.
Can either of these two, who could be a heartbeat away from the
presidency, make a difference this year?
I'm curious about that because I've moderated
two vice presidential debates.
People go oh, vice presidential debate.
But we remember
them, don't we, Karen?
I mean, you wrote a whole piece on it today.
KAREN TUMULTY: Well, and of course.
And I doubt, though, unlike one of your vice
presidential debates, that either of them is going to turn to the camera and wink.
(Laughter.)
GWEN IFILL: We can't get Tina Fey back, but.
(Laughter.)
KAREN TUMULTY: But, you know, these are serious business because in our country's
history I think there have been nine vice presidents who have ascended to the presidency
because of the death or resignation of a president.
But mostly what these candidates
traditionally do are they play the attack dog for the top of the ticket as well.
In this case, the two people at the top of the ticket are such larger-than-life figures and
the two people at the second spots are so comparatively bland, I honestly don't know what
kind of dynamic to expect.
GWEN IFILL: Part of the dynamic might be how do you get to be Mike Pence, and you get -
you're going to get the same questions directed at you, I imagine, as your candidate
might.
So if you're Mike Pence, how do you do that, especially when you've already
released your taxes, when you've already said you agreed with the trade agreement?
LISA LERER: And you want to remain a player if this doesn't work out for this time around.
GWEN IFILL: That too.
LISA LERER: So it puts him a tough spot.
ASHLEY PARKER: Yeah, Mike Pence sort of more than Tim Kaine has this incredibly fine
line to walk, right?
Which is, since the day he was nominated he's basically been a
human Swiffer for Donald Trump's messes - (laughter) - you know, sort of cleaning them
up, walking them back, explaining them.
And so in the debate he wants to be seen as
a loyal attack dog and a good soldier who's defending Trump.
But as Lisa said, he also has his own political future in mind.
And he doesn't necessarily want to go down every rabbit hole and tie himself to, say,
birtherism or this recent string of tweets we have seen.
So it'll be very fascinating to see what he does.
And I know, you know, on the Hill -
you cover Congress, and he's very popular, Mike Pence in Congress.
And I'm sort of curious if
he sort of doesn't - if he does walk this fine line well, you know, what you think his
role could be either in a Trump administration or if Trump loses rebuilding the party.
GWEN IFILL: My goodness.
And Tim Kaine is also very popular within his own party.
AILSA CHANG: They're both extremely well-liked, absolutely.
I'm curious, though, like, in the debate, what you guys think that Kaine could bring that
we could glean from the Clinton campaign that Clinton couldn't bring in a debate.
What does Kaine bring in that kind of conversation?
LISA LERER: Well, he certainly seems much more relatable, much more likeable, much more
everyman.
So I think he could sort of soften her up a little bit, testify to her
character, and of course, go after Pence and try to tie Pence as closely as possible -
Pence is going to try to, as you point out, not get tied to Trump - some of Trump's
stuff.
And Kaine is going to be right there trying to tie him right back, so.
GWEN IFILL: And Tim Kaine has been a pretty facile attack dog so far this year.
For instance, there was complaint during this presidential debate that Benghazi didn't
come up, that other issues didn't come up.
But Donald Trump also didn't bring them up.
I think, given the same situation, Tim Kaine would bring them up.
KAREN TUMULTY: But he does seem to have the capacity to attack with a smile.
And, by the way, that was something that I noticed about Hillary Clinton.
I mean, she seemed to have taken the albeit sexist criticism - (laughter)
GWEN IFILL: You keep saying that!
KAREN TUMULTY: - that she didn't smile enough.
But, I mean, during this debate it just seemed like the whole time that she was
lacerating Donald Trump, that smile almost never came off her face.
GWEN IFILL: I used to work in a newsroom where people would tell me to smile when I
walked across the room, and I'd respond by gritting my teeth.
(Laughter.)
But then I realized - I realized it's sometimes it's easier to smile, doesn't
cost you anything, and then you can keep going.
But, so if we have to look - we
have a very hot and cold presidential race, right?
At the vice presidential level,
who's hot and who's cold?
Ah, hadn't thought of that, had you?
Or are they both kind of lukewarm?
LISA LERER: I mean, they're definitely not larger than life personalities, that's for
sure.
(Laughter.)
Tim Kaine has a certain appeal.
You know, I've seen more of him
than Mike Pence, I must admit.
But he's sort of likeable, kind of everyman.
He's kind of like your dad driving the carpool.
ASHLEY PARKER: The harmonica.
LISA LERER: The harmonica.
AILSA CHANG: He wears khakis with leather jackets.
LISA LERER: A little corny.
GWEN IFILL: He wears khakis with leather jackets?
ASHLEY PARKER: Or, denim jackets.
I saw -
AILSA CHANG: Playing a harmonica with a denim jacket.
KAREN TUMULTY: Yeah, I think they're both comfort food.
LISA LERER: Yeah.
GWEN IFILL: Yeah, but we're also - but also we'll also see these guys try to engage each
other in a way I don't think we've ever seen any of them engage each other before in the
vice presidential level.
And that's going to be worth watching for because, once
again, as you pointed out, sometimes it happens.
And you hate to ask the question,
so what happens if your guy doesn't make it, but it is important.
It's important.
Let's talk about that some more, because I am very curious as we go through this campaign
and we see the way it's worked out.
For instance, we see the president and Joe Biden,
we see the way that - how important his vice president became to him.
And now we watch
what's happening as the president enters the final - the final turn in his presidency.
Down the hall - down the street at the ranch we call Capitol Hill, it turns out history
was committed.
Both chambers of Congress, 97-1 in the Senate and 348-77 in the House
voted to override an Obama presidential veto for the first time.
What they agreed on?
That families of 9/11 victims be allowed to sue the government of Saudi Arabia over
alleged links to the attackers.
SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER (D-NY): (From video.)
It's very simple.
If the Saudis were culpable, they should be held accountable.
If they had nothing to do with 9/11, they have nothing to fear.
GWEN IFILL: It was a remarkable moment of agreement on the Hill, one the president
called - the decision, that is - a mistake.
So, Ailsa, how did it come to be?
AILSA CHANG: Well, this was a bill with a tremendous amount of support right at the very
start.
I mean, it was framed from the beginning as a bill that simply was meant to
give families of 9/11 victims their day in court.
No member of Congress wants to vote against a bill to help 9/11 families.
It sailed through both chambers without any opposition, in part because there wasn't a
vote tally required.
It passed by voice vote in the House, unanimous consent in the Senate.
And no member had to go on record as a yes or no vote until this veto override vote.
GWEN IFILL: Really?
AILSA CHANG: And you could tell.
I mean, I was asking members just a week before
the veto ride vote - veto override vote, have you thought about this bill?
And there were so many members of both the House and Senate who you could tell hadn't yet
studied the bill very closely.
And it really wasn't until the last maybe two, three
days that you started hearing members publicly voicing very serious concerns about
this bill and this concept of sovereign immunity got tossed around.
GWEN IFILL: Well, tell me about - explain to me what that means.
And when you apply it to someone, who is affected?
Who is actually affected by what this bill - which is now law?
AILSA CHANG: Yeah, so sovereign immunity is the long-standing principle in international
law that stands for the idea that a country should remain immune from lawsuits in the
courts of another country.
And the White House was afraid that this idea of sovereign
immunity would erode as a result of this law because it would encourage other countries
to enact similar laws and basically allow U.S. government officials or members of the
military to be hauled into lawsuits in foreign courts.
And the White House says: We,
the United States - we're the country with the most to lose, because we have assets
all around the world.
Our presence is all around the world.
It could be extremely
legally risky for us to have a law like this.
Many members of both chambers agreed.
You had 28 senators sign a letter the day of the actual veto override saying they want to
see changes to this law in the lame duck.
But it's hard to say whether there is any will to -
ASHLEY PARKER: And how typical is that, that members will do something and then after
the law is passed experience what sounds like acute buyer's remorse?
AILSA CHANG: Right.
(Laughter.)
It is very not typical.
It's just it was such - people
went into the chamber, literally walking in chamber saying this is just a really tough vote.
We're not going to vote against a bill that helps 9/11 families, but they were also very
transparent saying there are unintended consequences that we frankly didn't think about
in time.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was
saying just yesterday at a press conference that he kind of blamed it on the White House.
He says, I don't want to blame the president for everything.
People think I blame the president for everything.
ASHLEY PARKER: What?
GWEN IFILL: He blamed the White House for the way that his own chamber voted overwhelmingly?
AILSA CHANG: Yes.
He basically said - GWEN IFILL: Got it.
AILSA CHANG: - the White House did not engage enough and did not engage soon enough.
And suddenly, in just days before this veto override vote, there was this robust
discussion about all these unintended consequences about national security being
disrupted, about, you know, our diplomatic relationships being disrupted, about private
litigants and courts making decisions about which countries are involved in terrorism.
Those are questions that we should have talked about many, many, many weeks ago.
But it didn't seem like the White House was doing a very fervent effort in calling
members and kind of lobbying this bill or lobbying them against the bill.
KAREN TUMULTY: And what are the chances that anything could be done in the lame duck?
So much is being put on this lame duck.
I mean, we may even have a Supreme Court fight.
GWEN IFILL: Yeah.
AILSA CHANG: Well, there is no chance of that.
McConnell reiterated just yesterday that -
GWEN IFILL: That's not happening.
AILSA CHANG: - there will be no confirmation during the lame duck.
He has two priorities during the lame duck, is to get appropriations bills -
appropriations bills passed, and also to pass the 21st Century Cures Act.
It's a bill for biomedical research.
There's not that much time after that.
There's only a few weeks between, like, the one week in November that they're back, and
then December.
And that's it.
GWEN IFILL: So they have to deal with their unintended consequences whether
they intended them or not.
AILSA CHANG: Exactly.
(Laughs.)
GWEN IFILL: That is a little confusing, but I think I know what I just said.
AILSA CHANG: I think that's exactly right.
I think they are done.
GWEN IFILL: OK. Well, Ailsa, welcome to Washington Week.
AILSA CHANG: Thank you for having me.
GWEN IFILL: And thank you all as well.
ASHLEY PARKER: Thank you.
LISA LERER: Thank you.
GWEN IFILL: All girls, yay.
(Laughter.)
We have to go for now but, as always, the
conversation continues online, on the Washington Week Extra where, among other things,
we'll continue to explore congressional priorities for the rest of this election year.
You can find the Extra all week long at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.
And on Tuesday night, turn to the PBS NewsHour for coverage of the one and only faceoff
between Mike Pence and Tim Kaine.
Judy Woodruff and I will be your guides.
And we'll see you here next week on Washington Week.
Good night.
