Transcripts For KQED Washington Week With Gwen Ifill 20150523

And the rubber hits the road on the campaign trail. I have seed repeatedly i want those emails out. Gwen we get a first peek on Hillary Clintons email as republicans try to stand out in a crowded field. In washington during my brothers time republicans spent too much money. Im probably the most scrutinized american. I will not let the patriot act, the most unpatriotic of acts go unchallenged. Gwen the jockying begins in earnest. Covering the week yochi dreazen. Charles babington congressional and Political Correspondent for the associated press. Dan balz chief correspondent for the washington post. And molly Ball National Political Correspondent for the atlantic. Awardwinning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens. From our nations capitol this is Washington Week with gwen ifill. Corporate funding for Washington Week is provided by tora bora, florida lugea bargon cason midway, dokto normandie, medina ridge, the reservoir, these are places history will never forget but more important are the faces we will always remember. Additional Corporate Funding for Washington Week is provided by prudential. Additional funding is provided by newman own foundation, donating all profits to charity and nourishing the common good. The annenberg corporation. The corporation for public broadcasting and from contributions from viewers like you, thank you. Once again from washington, moderator gwen ifill. Gwen good evening. Well, the plan seemed clear and two wars, yet the government of iraq and afghanistan to step up and count on alleys in the regions that have set the balance. Then isis came along and changed the form thrafment city of ramadi fell on iraq as the unesco syria was overtaken as we. Isis is now expanding in libya and elsewhere in africa. All of this presents a dilemma for the Obama Administration which insists the week was a tactical setback. We have seen a lot of success. But weve also seen significant periods of setback. Thats part of what a military conflict is going to be won. Gwen the president s critics pounced. This takeover ramadi serves the latest example of a president whose policies are rudderless in the middle east even as that region is riled with grotesque violence. Gwen how tough a spot is this . Yochi the reality is that by any measure isis is spreading in iraq, syria libya. U. S. Integenerals believes that there have been isis commanders physically sent from syria to libya to take command of an isis branch there. And the list goes on and on and on. The president if he were to admit any of that, the question uld be why arent you doing more . Why arent you willing to go back there and theyre continuing to expand . This week his answer was no i done think hes losing and he went through a long litany of reasons why theyre falling. But that quote, the no, i dont think were losing will haunt him for a long time because we are. Gwen the u. S. Foreign policy is were getting out and you have to take over for youres an we will do what we can do to and we will do what we can do to support you. What is the other option . Yochi there needs to be aer of some sort and clearly relying on the iraqis will not work. Theres a quote from a general that they drove out of ramadi to talk about how they basically just surrendered. If those are your allies and you cant trust them, option one is send u. S. Ground groups. He doesnt want to do because its casualties or hope and i think the hope is contain this. Try to keep it as limbed as you can. Hope theres a war oy attrition. But there are no good options and the game changer he might need he doesnt want to do because of his own view of the world. When he helped lined this policy initially was to destroy isis. And you just talked about a containment policy. That seems like an enormous gap from the ambition to the reality of war. What has brought that about . I think the real is when he was first saying destroy. When you would talk to anybody in the military, they would say thats nonsense can. You cant destroy an ideology. The ice lambic state is both an ideology and a group. Hezbollah cant do it. The question was can you degrade them . Can you make them weaker, smaller . And were not even doing that. Youre right theres a gap between the goal of destroy and the word degrade but were not even degrading. So the gap is bigger. What is the extent of the spread of isis beyond iraq and syria and what kind of dangers does that pose . If you talk to the people in the intel world theyll say there are 16 countries where isis are. They do believe libya is an actual islamic state. They do believe egypt is actual islamic state. So youre seeing it not just in the mideast but southeast asia, parts of south africa and parts of west africa. So its growing and growing and growing. Whats the status of assad . Hes been fighting this war between two different fauxes . Is he going to survive. Survive . Yochi everybodys been saying hes been wobbling. I think theres a chance that this year he does and then the question is is whatever comes next worse . Anarchy, is that worse than this man being there . Gwen everybody mistrusts iran and yet you need them to push back isis. How does that sort itself out . Yochi you need the gulf states, united emirates bahrain both to contribute ideologically. If you have the clerics say what youre doing is note allowed. But theyre not going to do it because they simply dont trust the white house. The camp david meeting accomplished very it will. Theres nothing that either party could say we have a victory. If they dont trust the u. S. On iran, they wont work with the islamic state. Gwen well, thank you, yochi. This is not a cheerful story but neither is that. Members of congress were scrambling to flee washington for a holiday week off leaving a big trade deal, a major transportation deal and the patriot act in theyre wake. Some were predictable. Dealcutting more than a little arm twisting and a few odd bedfellows especially on trade. Its the oddest political alignment in congress. That is you have a democratic president who wants a more aggressive trade. He wants this Fast Track Authority to negotiate trade deals that well have a better chance of winning enact it. But the Congress Overwhelmingly oppose him on this. So were going to Republican Leaders who are very strongly against him on every issue. So its an almost up side down type of politics. Its very strange. Gwen when it comes to this boat collection which is par of the patriot act which is supposed to be renewed or not. I have to think of a different term. Unlikely allies. Here you have the republicancontrolled house overwhelmingly proved change to this program that would do away with the bulk data collection. The president and his administration is totally onboard. You would think that would be moment tum but you have Senior Republicans who say not good enough. We want to stick with the program clactly as it is. And the exactly as it is. And the way the senate works it doesnt take too much opposition to at a minimum clog things up. The trade bill cleared an important hurdle this week in the senate. But it seemed to take a lot to get that done. Can you talk about the deals that were made to try to get that through . I was in the Senate Gallery where the reporters stand for that. Its so rare to see drama on the senate floor. There was a packed table of senators talking and talking and talking. At the center was Maria Cantwell and Mitch Mcconnell was there. The roll call was going to be that the obama agenda was going to fail. They needed several more votes. These democrats were holding out. You could tell we could nl hear them but you could tell that a deal was cut and they immediately turned to the presiding officer and voted aye and got it over the hump. Gwen they have export, inport that most people dont know who it is. Its so well. Cantwell an other senators x. M. Bank export sales is set to expire on june 1. Theres quite a few conservatives who dont like it. They think its a cooverpt give a corporate giveaway. Theyd like to kill it. As odd as it sounds that was the pivot. So the trade bill cleared that senate hurd with some difficulty. Now could it get through the house . Charles molly, its got a tough road ahead in the house certainly it might. Democrats in the house even more so than in the senate. Many of them virilely oppose it. Theyve got an increasingly Bad Reputation among labor unions and liberal groups. So really its an easy vote for almost any Democratic Congress to vote against this. And obama even more so in the house than in the senate is going to rely very heavily on republican votes. Some of the comments twarled Elizabeth Warren was almost insulting an angry. What was your reaction to that, to hearing a senator referred to that way . There was some comments Elizabeth Warren who did not like that. They thought he went too far. Gwen by calling her by her first name . No, i think that and i think you can see obama calls Harry Reid Harry and john boehner john. That was not a legitimate shot. He says hes just a politician. Gwen worst thing you can say yeah, exactly lo and behold. They felt he made it too personal. Its not personality driven. Its ideologically driven. These groups are not going to look favorly on democrats to help this trade legislation if it does get approved. Gwen why are these deadlines always so frantic . You know, increasingly it takes deadlines unfortunately to get congress to do anything. And so often what they do is just a punt. Weve seen it in budgets, the c. R. s. The continuing resolutions. Now were seeing the stop gap measure applied to more and more policies. Ok. Just keep following it. If you want to see how strange this 2015 Campaign Already is look no farther that cedar rapids, iowa. Hillary clinton answered questions among them how about those e maims . Hillary i respect the state department. They have their process not just for me. But anything that can do to expedite that process i heartily support. Gwen republican candidates announced and unannounced hoping to test the field hoping to be in upcoming debate stages. Start with you, dan. Whats at stake for hillary here . Well, credibility, authenticity, likeability. Im not sure that the release of these this initial release of the emails is going to cause significant ripples. Everything we know so far about them is that theres no particular smoking gun that tells you something radically different about what was going on with benghazi at the time. And so i think she will probably get through that but the interesting part of the week that the big news was she answered a question which you know, may tell people more about us than about hillary clin to. There are two things that are going on. She and her campaign have set a strategy for how she want to roll out the opening stage of her candidacy. And theyre going about it methodically in a way that Hillary Clinton goes about Everything Else and they are walling off and screening out all of the chatter that comes toward them. And yet at the same time there is criticism of the way shes doing it from the outside but not just from the press. There are people who are supporters of hers who do not think shes handling herself particularly well in the stage either by remaining quiet but appearing cloistered by not doing other kinds of events, by not opening herself up to more. Gwen thats why molly, answer those questions i noticed her tone was very lighthearted almost coy. She almost shrugged it off. Is that because shes under pressure to answer questions but doesnt necessarily have to answer them in a particularly transparent way . Molly i think for democrats to hurdle for hillary at the beginning stages of the campaign is to show that she is not the candidate she was in 2008. And so you see her and her handlers working working very hard to create this person who is down to earth, relateable, authentic, human. And so within these very coled settings she has come off that way but she has not wanted to engage with anything that might present a risk. And so that old risk of hillary is the same candidate who was rigid, who wasnt able to go with things exactly as planned and i do think that is a danger for her. What kind of reviews is this strategy and behavior by Hillary Clinton getting from other democrats, important democrats in important states . They think its a good idea . Are they worried . I think theyre not enthusiastic the way she stiff armed the press. Its not just ourself interest saying that she ought of open up a little bit. It does give her a bad impression. That shes not accessible that her campaign is screened in advance. And you know, her campaign would insist that regular people dont care about that stuff, the griping in the press. Gwen may may have a point. And i do think its corrosive to the image shes trying to create. I had a conversation with a longtime supporter of her and his view is shes doing the exactly the right thing by not talking to you all, he pointed to me in the press. The minute she stars to answer your questions thats the only thing the press will write about and thats not in her interest at this point. It may be at some point that shell want to do more of than and do a more formal press conference and answer three or four questions at the end of an event. But at the same time you look at how shes handled herself on some issues. We just talked about the trade issue. She promoted this trade packet as secretary of state and now everything she is saying about it is hesitant, it goes exactly to what molly was talking about ricks of verse. She recognizes the divisions within her parties. She wants to bridge those as best she can. People see that and they say, wait a minute, whats going on with her . When you talk to the sup importanters like the jam you just mentioned, do you have a feeling this build build, build and dominate . Its a very good question and i dont think anybody has a good sense of that i think that people believe that. There will be questions that will trail her throughout this campaign in one form or another having to do with the very issues that were looking at. They may not be exactly the questions about how she handled the emails or the server but there will be questions about the Clinton Foundation about the way they raised money, about the con nebraskas that they are tied into, about potential conflicts of interest about what role bill clinton will play. These are things that i done think she can ever escape from. Gwen why dont we take these questions and apply it to the republicans . About half of them are not running. But does it matter . Are they trying to get spern things out of the way that they dont want to dog them later . I think jeb bush is the most prominent example of someone who has to deal with an often obviously still isnt it doing it well. Hillary clinton hasnt been able to handle nimbly or put them to rest. Its been the same with jeb bush. The most obvious possible question anyone would want to ask and yet he keeps not answering it in a way that would satisfy anyone. And so i you know, that is another one of these things like dan said that i dont think jeb can fully put to rest. Gwen we did a little bit of him saying my brothers spending spent too much money. He didnt quite pin it on his brother. Although he suggested that his brother could have been more robust with the veto pin. I can pretty confidentably predict hes not going to go fully negative saying yeah, i never liked that guy either. Theres an obvious to it. But for the companies who have announced already rand paul and marco rubio, and ted cruz and not jeb but they obviously feel that they need this peer of time to get traction, that they need to be out there wowing the act wooing the activists. And once everybody gets tired of those guy, they can swoop in. I was just going to make a quick point. I think the bush people and the clinton people have a similar view which is theres a lot of attention being paid to them right now but not by real voters. And that they want to run a campaign in which they have the resources, the organization and the preparation at that point when the voters really begin to check in. Gwen when the voters check in, we presumed, will be during the debate. This week we discovered that at least two of the network who is will be sponsoring the debates have tried to figure out what does one do when you have 20 people running for president. And they come up with rules. Who do the rules help so far and who do they hurt . Fox is hosting the first debate. Its in cleveland in august. They say theyre going to take the top 10 candidates based on polling and theyre saying representable reputable surveys. And those 10 people will get to be on stage. Cnn will take the top 10 on stage but then there will be a j. V. Debate. It happens first with the companies who arent in the top 10 facing off against each other. So its a very bizarre situation. Its almost an embarrassment of riches for republicans because a lot of the candidates who are at the bottom of these polls are still quite qualified people. You also have individuals like donald trump who polls well enough to be on stage by these metric who is is a continuing thorn on the side of the republican elite who is feel he doesnt reflect well on the party. But its an impossible problem for the republicans that gives long shot candidate as chance of introducing themselves to voters an making an impression if they do a good job and gives everyone a fair shot. You cant do that with 15 people on stage. He wanted more control more structure after the 2012 election. This is not make it is this is difficult for them. There were 20odd debates and people got real tired of it. Gwen but isnt it early even in our obsessive early interest to decide who is going to be in the top tier by the time the summer is over . It is. Theres almost no doubt that somebody who is not on that stage for the first time in that debate will have a greater impact on that campaign than one or two people who are in the stage. It is almost inevitable. The field is so tightly bunched and compressed that the cutoff line is very article. So you know, the r. N. C. Wanted to manage these but they were happy to let the networks make the decision gwen and the democrats, so far weve got three people on stage. That will be a very different picture, wont it . Gwen was have to go but the we continue on the Washington Week extra. You can find it on pbs. Org washingtonweek. Keep up with me and Judy Woodruff on the pbs news hour and well see you next week on Washington Week. Have a solemn and a thankful memorial day. Good night. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. 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Narrator they are californias most powerless children [ ] abused, neglected, deeply traumatized. Yolanda was 2 and had been homeless when social workers rescued her from a troubled mother. Danthony was just as young when they took him from a mother addicted to drugs. Rochelle was a teen when she was removed from an abusive home. But when it came to managing their complicated childhoods the state foster care system failed to provide them with a stable home. Instead, it gave them a pill. Rochelle trochtenberg so, im gonna ask you all to imagine for a second that youre a child in foster care. Youve experienced significant trauma and abuse, neglect