WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.000 JUDY WOODRUFF: As Senate Democrats negotiate a trillion-dollar budget resolution in Washington, 00:05.360 --> 00:10.000 Democrats in California are in the final stretch of a recall election 00:10.000 --> 00:12.960 that risks their hold on the governor's mansion. 00:12.960 --> 00:17.440 Here to talk about this busy week in politics, our Politics Monday team, 00:17.440 --> 00:22.440 Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR. 00:22.720 --> 00:26.880 And it is so good to see both of you on this Monday. Thank you for being here. 00:27.440 --> 00:30.720 So let's start out with talking about what I was talking to Senator 00:30.720 --> 00:35.720 Bernie Sanders about, Amy, and that is this mega-spending bill, $3.5 trillion. 00:37.040 --> 00:41.360 He says he is sticking to his guns, he has already compromised. Where does it stand? 00:41.360 --> 00:42.720 AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: It stands 00:43.360 --> 00:45.840 not with Senator Sanders, but with Senator Manchin. 00:46.480 --> 00:51.040 When you only have 50 votes in the Senate, your ability to get something passed on a 00:51.040 --> 00:56.040 party-line vote rests with the one who is most at risk. And the most at-risk senator 00:57.600 --> 01:02.600 right now is Joe Manchin, who has said out loud multiple times, we're not doing $3.5 trillion. 01:03.600 --> 01:06.880 I think the bigger challenge right now for Democrats, though, as they're thinking about 01:06.880 --> 01:11.200 this process is, everything we have talked about has been the price tag. 01:11.200 --> 01:15.040 We have talked very little about the policy underneath it. And I think 01:15.040 --> 01:20.040 for Democrats who are talking about selling this in the next election in 2022 or beyond, right now, 01:22.000 --> 01:25.680 what they're talking about is all kinds of different things within it. 01:25.680 --> 01:30.680 We heard Senator Sanders talk about, right, making the rich pay their fair share, income inequality. 01:31.680 --> 01:36.680 But what is it tangibly? It hasn't really been defined yet by that. And Republicans then have the 01:38.080 --> 01:43.080 opportunity for these next few weeks and probably throughout the campaign in 2022 to define it 01:44.320 --> 01:48.880 by that number, right? This is just more money going out of Washington. 01:48.880 --> 01:49.280 (CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: Right. 01:49.280 --> 01:50.880 JUDY WOODRUFF: Right. AMY WALTER: It's -- whether it's socialism, 01:50.880 --> 01:55.880 whether it's this is why the deficit so large, or why inflation is going up. 01:56.000 --> 01:59.440 JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Tam, you could argue the administration, the president has tried to 01:59.440 --> 02:03.760 talk about it. Senator Sanders has tried to talk about it. The president's out there in California 02:03.760 --> 02:07.200 today talking about, we're going to fix the environment with this, among other things. 02:07.200 --> 02:09.600 TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Yes, certainly, President Biden has been pitching 02:09.600 --> 02:14.600 what they call the Build Back Better agenda, which I think that a lot of the conversation about it, 02:16.640 --> 02:20.800 as Amy says, has gotten bogged down in the process: Oh, it's a reconciliation bill. 02:21.920 --> 02:26.240 The reality is that, if they are able to pass something, 02:26.240 --> 02:29.280 and it has things in it that matter to people, 02:29.280 --> 02:33.440 then they will have something to talk about. But if they don't pass anything, then they won't. 02:34.800 --> 02:36.080 And Senator Sanders, 02:36.080 --> 02:41.080 I think, in his interview also seemed to say Democrats aren't going to let nothing happen. 02:41.200 --> 02:41.542 JUDY WOODRUFF: Right. 02:41.542 --> 02:45.040 TAMARA KEITH: So, at some point, something's going to have to give. 02:45.040 --> 02:49.040 But it seems like Democrats are very motivated to have 02:49.040 --> 02:52.800 something. And they know that the window of time to do this is not 02:52.800 --> 02:57.800 that wide, because, once you get into 2022, that is an election year. The endangered 02:58.480 --> 03:03.280 members of Congress and members of the House are going to start thinking about their futures. 03:03.280 --> 03:05.440 And it gets much harder to do it. 03:05.440 --> 03:06.320 AMY WALTER: Yes, I agree. 03:06.320 --> 03:09.280 It's -- we're at the place where it's too big to fail, basically. 03:09.280 --> 03:11.200 JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will see what not nothing looks like that. 03:11.200 --> 03:11.600 AMY WALTER: Yes. 03:11.600 --> 03:12.160 (LAUGHTER) 03:12.160 --> 03:17.160 JUDY WOODRUFF: The other reason the president, Amy, is in California is to do a visit, 03:18.320 --> 03:23.320 to show his hand for Governor Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall vote coming up tomorrow. 03:25.040 --> 03:25.380 AMY WALTER: Yes. 03:25.380 --> 03:28.400 JUDY WOODRUFF: And people have been voting, but it comes to a head tomorrow. 03:28.400 --> 03:32.640 What are we -- what are you watching from this? What could the parties learn from this? 03:32.640 --> 03:33.840 AMY WALTER: Yes, it's been very interesting. 03:33.840 --> 03:38.840 Part of the reason that Newsom was imperiled at all was his handling of COVID -- of COVID and, 03:40.160 --> 03:44.880 specifically, his decision to go and hang out with a bunch of wealthy lobbyist types 03:44.880 --> 03:48.960 at a really fancy restaurant in the Bay Area, when he's telling everybody else in California, 03:48.960 --> 03:51.840 hey, you got to wear a mask, or all these businesses were shutting down. 03:52.400 --> 03:56.800 That anger then turned into all the other troubles that the rest of the country is having, 03:56.800 --> 04:01.040 right, with the Delta variant and more shutdowns. But, over the last few weeks, 04:01.840 --> 04:06.840 Newsom and Democrats have been able to actually turn COVID against Republicans. 04:06.880 --> 04:11.680 The front-runner on the Republican side named Larry -- Larry Elder has come out against 04:11.680 --> 04:16.680 mandates for vaccines and for masking, which in a state that has an 80 percent vaccination rate, 04:19.200 --> 04:21.360 that's not -- that's not a popular position. 04:21.360 --> 04:21.610 JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes. 04:21.610 --> 04:26.610 AMY WALTER: And so you have everybody from this president to former President Obama 04:26.800 --> 04:31.800 to other major Democratic figure saying, voting against Gavin Newsom is literally dangerous 04:33.200 --> 04:38.200 to your health,, using the -- nationalizing COVID, but in a way that helps a sitting governor. 04:39.680 --> 04:42.880 JUDY WOODRUFF: And it's not for lack of challenges. There's something like 46 of them. 04:42.880 --> 04:43.216 (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) 04:43.216 --> 04:43.716 TAMARA KEITH: Yes. 04:44.320 --> 04:48.400 However, that's not nearly as many challenges as there were in 2003, 04:48.400 --> 04:50.720 when then-Governor Gray Davis faced a recall. 04:50.720 --> 04:50.933 JUDY WOODRUFF: You're right. 04:50.933 --> 04:55.680 TAMARA KEITH: And sadly, Gary Coleman is no longer with us to run again in this recall. 04:55.680 --> 05:00.680 But there are a lot of challengers. One thing that is missing, though, is -- that was there 05:01.280 --> 05:06.280 in 2003 that I think hurt Gray Davis that Governor Newsom has been able to avoid is, of the options 05:08.880 --> 05:13.880 on question two, the people that could be picked, there really is no major credible Democrat. 05:16.560 --> 05:21.560 There is a YouTuber that has generated some buzz among younger voters who is a Democrat, but, 05:22.400 --> 05:27.400 otherwise, it's mostly Republicans, which, again, has allowed Newsom and Democrats to nationalize 05:27.920 --> 05:32.920 this election, say it's a Republican power grab, say it's just Trump Republicans out to get us. 05:33.760 --> 05:38.760 There are other different dynamics too. Despite all of Gavin Newsom's troubles, he's actually 05:38.960 --> 05:41.920 above water. His popularity is above 50 percent... 05:41.920 --> 05:43.000 JUDY WOODRUFF: In the latest polls. 05:43.000 --> 05:43.011 (CROSSTALK) 05:43.011 --> 05:45.220 TAMARA KEITH: ... while Gray Davis was below 30 percent. 05:45.220 --> 05:46.716 JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes. So, we will see there. 05:46.716 --> 05:47.600 AMY WALTER: We will wait and see. 05:47.600 --> 05:47.629 (CROSSTALK) 05:47.629 --> 05:49.793 JUDY WOODRUFF: But the number - - but it looks good for... 05:49.793 --> 05:50.480 (CROSSTALK) AMY WALTER: But it does. 05:50.480 --> 05:54.800 There's both the polling. And then, as you said, this is mostly mail-in ballots. We have 05:54.800 --> 05:59.280 already had more than seven million ballots cast. Democrats were having -- early on, 05:59.280 --> 06:04.280 the polling was picking up an enthusiasm gap. They have definitely come and turnout -- turned out. 06:05.920 --> 06:09.120 And it's much more polarized today than it was in '03. 06:09.120 --> 06:12.640 There are a lot of Democrats in 2003 who voted for the recall. 06:12.640 --> 06:13.080 (CROSSTALK) 06:13.080 --> 06:15.040 TAMARA KEITH: And for Arnold Schwarzenegger, 06:15.040 --> 06:18.025 because he was moderate in a way that Elder is not. 06:18.025 --> 06:19.040 JUDY WOODRUFF: Right, different in so many ways. 06:19.040 --> 06:21.280 Hard to get people in California to pay attention to elections. 06:21.280 --> 06:21.322 AMY WALTER: Fair. 06:21.322 --> 06:25.039 JUDY WOODRUFF: And sometimes in many states, so not just picking on California. 06:25.040 --> 06:30.040 But last thing I want to quickly ask you about, over the weekend, 9/11, some very somber, 06:30.480 --> 06:35.480 solemn remembrances of that terrible day in the history of this country 20 years ago. 06:36.320 --> 06:41.320 Tam, one that stood out to me was former President George W. Bush, 06:41.440 --> 06:45.120 Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Here's just an excerpt of what he had to say. 06:45.120 --> 06:46.800 GEORGE W. BUSH, Former President of the United States: 06:46.800 --> 06:51.800 There's little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. 06:53.600 --> 06:58.240 But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, 06:59.600 --> 07:02.480 in their determination to defile national symbols, 07:03.760 --> 07:08.760 they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them. 07:10.000 --> 07:13.600 JUDY WOODRUFF: "Children of the same foul spirit." 07:13.600 --> 07:15.760 He's talking about the January 6 07:15.760 --> 07:19.280 insurrectionists, even though he didn't name it, and what happened on 9/11. 07:19.280 --> 07:24.280 TAMARA KEITH: He is drawing a direct line. And, certainly, Flight 93 was thought to be 07:24.640 --> 07:29.640 aimed at the nation's Capitol. And January 6 truly did attack the Capitol Building. 07:32.880 --> 07:37.880 A lot has happened in those 20 years. It has been an incredibly difficult 20 years for this country, 07:38.240 --> 07:43.240 with a recession and wars and now this pandemic, but the words from the former 07:45.040 --> 07:50.000 president also indicate just how much things have changed, that what he is 07:50.000 --> 07:55.000 saying was sort of a mainline idea, or at least an ideal, probably not realized, 20 years ago. 07:56.640 --> 08:00.880 But now it's almost controversial, at least in some parts of his own party. 08:01.600 --> 08:04.560 AMY WALTER: Yes, and the -- but his position about 08:04.560 --> 08:09.560 domestic terrorism vs. terrorism abroad is also reflected among many Americans, right? 08:10.320 --> 08:15.320 In the NPR/"PBS NewsHour" poll, more Americans said they were worried about extremism 08:16.560 --> 08:20.560 in the United States than from abroad. And then there was an AP poll also out in August, 08:21.120 --> 08:24.160 same thing, where a larger percentage of Americans said, 08:24.160 --> 08:29.160 I'm much more worried about what's going on here than being attacked by extremists from overseas. 08:29.200 --> 08:34.200 And, yes, to Tam's point, it is this moment we had in 9/11, this moment we thought was going to be 08:36.560 --> 08:41.560 unity, and, instead, we have seen all these big - - other big events lead us to more polarization. 08:42.560 --> 08:43.440 JUDY WOODRUFF: Solemn. 08:43.440 --> 08:44.080 AMY WALTER: Very. 08:44.080 --> 08:46.480 JUDY WOODRUFF: Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, thank you both. 08:46.480 --> 08:51.480 AMY WALTER: You're welcome. 08:53.840 --> 08:58.599 TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.