'Retaliation is real': Why Republicans in Congress won't stand up to Trump — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00There's too much going on, of course, and  it's our job tonight to try to make sense
2. 0:04of some of it and to try to analyze the  broad themes of this administration so
3. 0:09far. One issue of paramount concern, conflict  between the judicial branch and the executive
4. 0:14branch. President Trump quite obviously believes  that the executive branches first among equals,
5. 0:20but most judges don't. We'll discuss  this tonight and more with Peter Baker,
6. 0:25the chief White House correspondent at The  New York Times. Laura Baron Lopez is the White
7. 0:30House correspondent for PBS Newshour. Eugene  Daniels is a senior Washington correspondent,
8. 0:35and next month we'll become a  co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend. And
9. 0:40Mark Leibovich is my colleague  and a staff writer at The Atlantic
10. 0:43who will not be co-hosting the  weekend. Um, welcome, everyone. Thank
11. 0:48you for being here. One week it's  gonna be David Rubinstein in the
12. 0:51chair and the David Rubenstein  studio and you guys, your minds are
13. 0:54going to be blown. I just realized  that at the open. Yeah, yeah,
14. 0:58he has a great show. Um, let's start,  um, by talking about Lisa Murkowski,
15. 1:04um, senator from Alaska, just for  a moment, uh, and, and listen to
16. 1:06a little bit more of what she  said earlier this week. We are all
17. 1:11afraid. OK
18. 1:13I'm
19. 1:16Oftentimes very anxious.  about About using my voice.
20. 1:23Um Um, because retaliation
21. 1:26It's real. Laura, do other senators  feel this way? Yes, they do,
22. 1:32and other senators have said it or  expressed it in some form. Senator
23. 1:35Thom Tillis has talked about the  many death threats that he's getting,
24. 1:38but she is voicing something that  many will say more in private than
25. 1:42they do in public. I mean, that  being said, this shouldn't really
26. 1:46be a surprise to her or to others  that she, that Republicans are
27. 1:50in this situation because the  administration, even before Trump took
28. 1:54office, have repeatedly emboldened  extremists and used hate speech
29. 1:58to talk about their political  enemies and, and so this is something
30. 2:01that Any Republican, you know, you  think of the Liz Cheney's, Adam
31. 2:04Kinzinger, others of the world  that they've had to deal with for
32. 2:07years because they spoke out. Lisa  Murkowski is one of the few Republicans
33. 2:11left in On the hill who  voted to who voted to convict
34. 2:18she has immense power with that,  with that as well. Yeah, is she,
35. 2:21is she the closest thing now in  the Senate to a Mitt Romney, now
36. 2:25that Romney's gone. I think she  is. I think she's one of the few
37. 2:29left out of Republicans in the  Senate who is willing to vote against
38. 2:32the administration who is willing  to voice opposition to things that
39. 2:36they're doing. She has also expressed  frustration about the actions
40. 2:40of Elon Musk and Doge and was  very vocal about that early on.
41. 2:44Mark, let me ask you because  something struck me as odd about that
42. 2:47statement. Um, not
43. 2:49Not that it's a reflection, not that  it's not a reflection of a certain
44. 2:52reality, but you know, it's odd  because she's like supposed to be
45. 2:56a leader and being a leader means not
46. 2:59Expressing that that you're scared  to, to lead. Is there, is it,
47. 3:03is what's going on here? Is that  just a moment of like honest honesty.
48. 3:07I, I think so. I mean, it is so  pervasive what she is talking about.
49. 3:10I mean it was like almost blurting  out that like the sky is blue
50. 3:13in some ways. I mean, I think just  to be clear too, she's not talking
51. 3:16about intimidation, political  intimidation like Elon Musk throwing
52. 3:19a bunch of money at an opponent  opponent or or someone being primary
53. 3:23she's actually talking about  physical, physical, and you know the
54. 3:26death threats, um, you know, doxing.  Um, swatting all the stuff that
55. 3:31goes on or at least threats thereof  that goes on and just to be clear,
56. 3:35I mean that is a a, you know, that  goes on a lot these days. I mean,
57. 3:39threats certainly go on a lot,  especially since January 6th. Um,
58. 3:42it's been a real hallmark of this  era, and just to point out, you
59. 3:46know, what should be clear, um, you  know, politics, you know, you're
60. 3:50supposed to governing is supposed to  take place by politics, by persuasion,
61. 3:54by debate, authoritarianism is  government by intimidation by. threat
62. 3:59by violence in some cases, right,  Peter, let me, let me frame this
63. 4:03out a little bit more, and I'm not  trying to be uncharitable to Senator
64. 4:07Murkowski. I understand the nature  of the threats that we all live
65. 4:10with these days, and
66. 4:14but she's almost talking  about the Josh Shapiro level
67. 4:17issue where we saw earlier this  week of physical intimidation. The
68. 4:22question for you, maybe it's a  naive one, is. Aren't senators among
69. 4:27the most protected. Americans, the  most protected critics of really
70. 4:33not. I mean, the Capitol Police does  not shadow every member of Congress,
71. 4:36certainly, certainly when they're  out of town, only occasion the
72. 4:39leadership, yes, and then occasional  uh instances where particular
73. 4:43members have particular reasons for  threats they might provide protection.
74. 4:46Otherwise, no. They provide their  own protection, which they have
75. 4:49to pay for out of their campaign  funds or whatever else, but there's
76. 4:52not Mitt Romney had to do, he did  have to do that. Liz Cheney does
77. 4:55that to this day as far as I know.  I mean, a lot of people have had
78. 4:58those kind of threats and forced  them to live there. lives in a very
79. 5:01different way than there used to  be, and senators don't want to,
80. 5:03by the way, live with security,  trailing around. They want to be
81. 5:06open and accessible to their people.  It goes against the nature of
82. 5:08what our representative government  is supposed to be like, but this
83. 5:11is the reality today. Jeff, I think  there is what you're trying to
84. 5:14get at here is that if this is what  senators are feeling. If they're
85. 5:18this scared and they're willing  to tell that to people. How should
86. 5:21the normal American feel, right?  So how should the normal American
87. 5:24that is watching what's happening  in the country and doesn't like
88. 5:26it and feels scared for different  reasons. They're looking to those.
89. 5:30senators and those members of the  rest of the members of Congress
90. 5:32to say, you're the leaders of our  country. Help us, right? Those
91. 5:36Republicans that are in Alaska  that are talking to Lisa Murkowski,
92. 5:40who are fearful for whatever reason  they're looking to her for some
93. 5:43kind of like for her to be sturdy  and and sure of things and so that
94. 5:47sure, be honest with folks and talk  about how scared scared we things
95. 5:52are, but there's another element  to this to where it doesn't ensure
96. 5:56that the people around you feel  more confident in you as a leader,
97. 5:59right. Right. I mean, does this  lead to other senators, Republican
98. 6:04senators saying, you know what,  Lisa, you're right. We should band
99. 6:08together. No. We should band together  like the law firms have banded
100. 6:13together, no, I, I, I think like  you're not one, you're not going
101. 6:17to see that because as we were  just saying, there's less and less
102. 6:20members of Congress in general who  are not, um, who are not a part
103. 6:25of the, the Trump train who aren't  excited about the things that
104. 6:28are happening, who aren't going  to go. out front and, and do what
105. 6:30Lisa Murkowski is doing. She's  part of a dying breed of members of
106. 6:33Congress and Republicans willing  to do that, to do the thing. Um,
107. 6:36so no, you're not gonna see a  bunch of people get up and stand up
108. 6:39and stand outside and do this,  talk about how they don't like what
109. 6:43Trump is doing, how they don't like  what Elon Musk is doing, because
110. 6:46they're scared and whether they're  scared of the physical violence
111. 6:49or the political on the physical  violence part and that has also
112. 6:52been seen on both sides too, of  course, President Trump was the target
113. 6:55of two different assassinations  attempts last year, just this last
114. 6:58week, I think this the would-be  the assassin of Brett Kavanaugh was
115. 7:01sentenced, I think, in court. Steve  Scalise several years ago, but
116. 7:04it does seem at times that Trump and  his people seem to be more willing
117. 7:09to use words like traitor and  treasonous that might excite people
118. 7:12to take action, and I think that's  the worry what level of responsibility
119. 7:16you have as a president, as a leader  of this country, to try to tamp
120. 7:19down the kind of passions that arise,  rather than stoke them something
121. 7:24I've been curious about on the Josh  Shapiro attack, which is a serious
122. 7:29Attack a serious arson attack,  um, obviously we're understanding
123. 7:32now that it was an anti-Semitic  attack in in in uh in in its in its
124. 7:37nature. Um, the kind of a muted  response generally to it. I, and
125. 7:41I'm wondering if you think that
126. 7:43if it had been a right winger and not  some anti-Israel guy or something,
127. 7:48um, it would have been a louder, a  louder outcry. It's a good question.
128. 7:51JD Vance did express his concern  for Governor Spiro. It was an awful
129. 7:55thing that happened, but the  president talk about it much and, and
130. 7:58I think you know, what you would  have seen under a lot of different
131. 8:01precedents is a is a reckoning, a  way of like, let's talk about why
132. 8:05our society is like this today and  what we can do about it to come
133. 8:08together even as we argue as we  should about big and serious issues.
134. 8:12That's just not Trump's nature  as a leader, and he would set the
135. 8:15tone. He set the tone. I mean,  President Biden often tried to do
136. 8:18that. The former president, you  know, he ran on that saying that
137. 8:20he was trying to tone down the  rhetoric, but I think what you're
138. 8:25seeing from President Trump is  whether it's in the type of language
139. 8:28he uses. by calling people a traitor  or treasonous. He puts a target
140. 8:32on multiple people's backs when  he specifically names them when he
141. 8:36repeatedly attacks people by name,  be it judges, be it lawyers, be
142. 8:40it any political enemy that I  don't know anything about that, you
143. 8:44know never experienced that.
144. 8:45I mean, I remember well, I'm  sorry, Mitt Romney himself told me,
145. 8:53he once said, you know, the first  job of a president is not to say
146. 8:56something that's going to inflame  the random nut and Trump doesn't
147. 8:59have that, and I think he went  farther to say something to the degree
148. 9:03that he actually will sort of  possibly, you know, try to communicate
149. 9:07in some way to incite, you know,  things that will make people who
150. 9:11he disagrees with scared, and that  is, you know, that is out there
151. 9:15and Romney has told people that he  was told by other Republican senators
152. 9:18that they voted against conviction in  the 2nd impeachment trial specifically
153. 9:22because they were afraid of their  families, for their families, that
154. 9:25has a real impact beyond just, you  know, a nervousness on. Part of
155. 9:29elected official, it seems to be  impacting their votes, and I think
156. 9:32part of the muted response  from on the Shapiro of the
157. 9:35situation that happened this week  is also that we're unfortunately
158. 9:38getting used to a lot of this,  right? It was a part of the news for
159. 9:41a little bit, but you know, a few  5 years ago, 10 years ago, this
160. 9:45would have been the only thing we  talked about as reporters the only
161. 9:49governor's man it would be the only  thing that other members of that
162. 9:52members of Congress to talk about  the populist political violence
163. 9:55is a trait of authoritarianism