YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Countdown of the midterms.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on Joe Biden, shame on his entire administration that said inflation wasn't a big issue or it's not here to stay.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: with just over two weeks to go until Election Day, Republicans lean into voter fears about inflation.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. President: Today, I'm announcing three critical steps that my administration will take to reduce prices at the pump.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: President Biden releases millions of barrels of oil from the nation's reserves.
JOE BIDEN: The polls have been all over the place.
I think that we're going to see one more shift back to our side the closing days.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And hits the campaign trail.
Plus -- REP. VAL DEMINGS (D-FL): How long will you watch people being gunned down and do nothing?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Midterm candidates clash over guns -- SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): I'm 100 percent life because I -- but not because I don't want to deny anyone the rights, but because I believe that innocent human life is worthy of the protection of our laws.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: abortion -- REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): Our guy thought it would be a good idea to raise money for those people who stormed the Capitol.
It's outrageous.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: -- and the future of our democracy, next.
Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.
Midterm Election Day is just 18 days away and early voting is already underway in some states.
Republicans are feeling confident about their chances of winning control of the House and the Senate while Democrats have been holding out hope, they can hold on to power.
But gas prices and inflation are on the rise again putting the economy back at the top of voter concerns.
And according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, the share of likely voters who said economic concerns were the most important issues facing America has increased from 36 percent in July to 44 percent, far higher than any other issue.
The poll also showed that 49 percent of likely voters say they plan to vote for a Republican for Congress.
That's 4 percent more than the 45 percent who say they plan to vote Democrat.
And Georgia's Republican Governor Brian Kemp is running for reelection against Democrat Stacey Abrams.
He was quick to pounce in the shift in voter sentiment.
GOV.
BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): Georgians should know that my desire is to continue to fight through 40-year inflation and high gas price and other things that our Georgia families are facing right now, quite honestly, because of bad policies in Washington, D.C., from President Biden and the Democrats that have complete control.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Now, this week, President Biden announced he will release 15 million barrels of oil from the country's strategic reserve as a way to deal with rising gas prices.
But Biden also said he will prioritize passing abortion rights legislation if his party can hold on to power.
JOE BIDEN: If you care about the right to choose, then you've got to vote.
That's why these midterm elections are so critical to elect more Democratic senators to the United States Senate and more Democrats to keep control of the House of Representatives.
Folks, if we do that, the first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Joining me now to discuss this and more, Rick Klein, Political, Director for ABC News, he can also be seen in the Hulu series, Power Trip.
It offers a behind-the-scenes look of the network's team on the campaign trail covering the midterms.
And joining me here in studio, Laura Barron Lopez, White House Correspondent for PBS Newshour, Abha Bhattarai, She's economics correspondent for The Washington Post, and Nikole Killion, Congressional Correspondent at CBS News.
So, thank you all for being here.
Abha, we've got to start with you because you're covering the economy.
What's your reporting say about whether or not there could be a recession, how bad the state of the economy is or maybe this is being overblown?
ABHA BHATTARAI, Economics Correspondent, The Washington Post: That's a great question.
And by many measures, the economy is in great shape right now.
The job market is still very strong, unemployment is at historic lows, people are getting raises, people are continuing to spend, businesses are continuing to hire.
But the dark cloud over all of this is inflation.
And that's really weighing on consumer sentiment.
It's weighing on businesses and that's sort of what's driving all of this doom and gloom that we're seeing here in Washington and around the country.
People now for over a year have been seeing higher prices at the grocery store at the gas pump.
They're depleting their savings that they piled up during the pandemic.
They're racking up more credit card debt.
And they're feeling the sort of sense that the bottom is slip out.
They're not sure when things are going to get better.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And you're an economics reporter using words like dark cloud and doom and gloom.
So now I have to ask you -- President Biden, he's taking all of these steps.
How much of an impact can it really have?
How much of an impact can the White House really have on all of this?
ABHA BHATTARAI: That's a great point.
The White House can do bits and pieces here and there but this is really in the hands of the Federal Reserve, which is charged with raising interest rates enough to slow the economy and bring down inflation.
And the hope is that it can do that without tipping the country into a recession.
It's unclear whether that can happen and more and more economists are predicting a recession in the next year.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Laura, you're, of course, at the White House.
Politico, our friends at Playbook, they wrote this headline.
It's the gas prices, stupid.
It's also been widely reported that White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, every morning, he checks the gas prices before he goes to work.
Tell me a little bit about what you're hearing about how concerned the White House is about these inflation concerns, especially as they try to walk and chew gum, as President Biden said, as they're talking about abortion while also trying to deal with inflation.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, White House Correspondent, PBS Newshour: Well, it's something that the White House has long been concerned about.
They have long thought that the economy was always going to be the ultimate top concern for voters heaving into the midterms even after the Dobbs decision was handed down.
And so that's why a lot of people were asking why isn't the president out there more talking about abortion rights across the country.
And part of that was because the White House and all the people in the White House that I've spoken to said that, ultimately, he wants to try to sell his economic vision even though a lot of the things that Democrats have passed to date, well, it's stuff that they have tried to achieve for a very long time, like prescription drug reform and that ultimately can help people's pocketbooks, it's not going to take effect for probably another year or.
And so it's really difficult for the White House to sell that right now when people aren't necessarily feeling it right away.
And right now, they're looking at gas prices.
Now, to your point about White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, he is constantly tweeting when he can say that gas prices are still low.
And that was the argument from the White House this week, which was that, look, the president is taking this action on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve because we're trying to have this bridge carried over the winter to make sure that gas prices stay low as long as possible.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Nikole, Laura is talking about people might not feel some of these things for a year out.
And we're 18 days out from when the Democrats really want them to feel something.
What are you hearing out on the campaign trail?
I know you've been in Georgia and other places.
Tell us a little bit about what you're hearing from voters?
NIKOLE KILLION, Congressional Correspondent, CBS News: Yes.
Well, I mean, I've been in Georgia, I've been in Wisconsin.
And I think the sentiment is true that many people are extremely concerned about the economy.
When you ask them what's most important to them, that's the first thing they mention, are the high gas prices, high grocery prices, high energy prices, that it's difficult at times to make ends meet.
Abortion rights still rises to the top for a lot of female voters that I have talked to over the last couple of weeks on the trail, but, by and large, the economy still kind of rises to the top.
And just to talk about the point with respect to the White House, you know, I had a chance to speak with DNC Senior Adviser Cedric Richmond this week.
And he said what the president is doing is kind of intentional in terms of stirring away from these campaign rallies and really talking more about the policy and trying to sell what he has done.
In fact, we heard the president even referenced that in his remarks earlier today.
So, it is something where I think the administration feels proud of what they've accomplished and is trying to sell that messaging to people even in spite of that potential disconnect.
But I was told that we will see the president on the trail a little bit more in these final weeks.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, that will be interesting and we'll definitely cover it.
The other thing that was happening is a lot of debates, right?
This election season has been notable for the limited number of debates.
But this week, a number of candidates in key races, well, they faced off.
VAL DEMINGS: No, Senator, I don't think it's okay for a ten-year-old girl to be raped and have to carry the seed of her rapist.
No, I don't think it's okay for you to make decisions for women and girls.
MARCO RUBIO: She supports taxpayer funded abortion on demand for any reason at any time up until the moment of birth.
That's what she supports that's the extreme position here.
STACEY ABRAMS, (D) Gubernatorial Candidate Georgia: We need a governor who believes in access of the right to vote and not voter suppression which is the hallmark of Brian Kemp's leadership.
BRIAN KEMP: I'm the person that created the online voter registration system in the state, where any Georgian can vote, register to vote 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Quite the back and forth there.
Nikole, I want to come to you again because you were out and you covered the Herschel Walker debate.
Why have there been so few debates and what's the impact of the ones that have happened?
NIKOLE KILLION: Well, I think that is a hallmark of what we've seen this cycle.
I mean, just even trying to get these candidates to the table has proven quite difficult.
I mean, in the case of Georgia, it did take a while.
There was a lot of back and forth between the Warnock campaign, the Walker campaign.
Obviously, they did that debate last Friday, their one and only debate.
There was a second debate after that.
Herschel Walker declined to appear at that.
But even if you look at some of these other races across the country, I mean, in most instances we are only seeing these candidates debate one same thing in Florida between Demings and Rubio.
That was their only debate.
So, it really is kind of depriving voters of the opportunity to see these candidate on multiple occasions.
And in terms of Georgia and talking to voters, there were some voters who said, yes, I watched and I think that's enough.
But there were also plenty of voters out there who said, no, I actually would like to see more.
And, for instance, that debate, they didn't even get into the issue of immigration, for instance.
So, I mean, there are reasons and protocol for why you have multiple debates.
But even in the case of Arizona, what we're seeing there, the gubernatorial candidates, they aren't facing off at all.
So, what does that say going forward about how things are conducted?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And that's why like you, Nikole, because you literally transitioned me to Rick because Rick is sitting there in Arizona.
You've been talking to both candidates who are running for governor.
Katie Hobbs is not wanting to debate Kari Lake here.
Tell me a little bit about that race and what it tells you about the overall landscape of the midterms right now?
RICK KLEIN, Political Director, ABC News: Yes.
And this is a little bit different than some of the other debates over debates.
Because in this case, you've got the Democrat who says that she's not willing to talk to the Republican face-to-face.
And the reason that she says that, that Katie Hobbs says that, is that she sees that Kari Lake is someone who denies the legitimacy of the last election and traffics in conspiracy theories.
And in her view, she doesn't want to elevate that by even having the conversation.
But, boy, is that risky for two reasons.
One is Kari Lake is quite good in television.
She's a longtime T.V.
anchor right here in Phoenix.
She's very well known in the Phoenix media market and she's very good on camera.
She does multiple news conferences, interviews all the time.
She talks to people at every opportunity she has.
Katie Hobbs is the secretary of state of here.
She's not quite the same kind of political performer.
And the other thing that's dangerous in all of this is that you have an opportunity, a possibility that someone that denies the legitimacy of the last election could be in charge of overseeing the next one.
It's not just Kari Lake.
You've got secretary of state candidate and attorney general candidate, as well as statewide candidates, congressional candidates up and down the ballot here in Arizona and, frankly, in battleground states all around the country who bring views that say that, look, this election was somehow fixed or stolen.
They have -- promoting false information about that and they're casting doubt on whether they would concede in 2022 or certify results in 2024.
That's an area that the stakes get even higher around the midterm elections.
It's not something you hear a lot from voters.
It's not something that voters are listing as a top of mind issue.
It's not something that they're talking about when you go to discuss it with them.
But it is a real consequence potentially of these elections to have people who say that the last election was somehow stolen being in a position to oversee future elections.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Rick, while we have you and talking about sort of what's going on in Arizona, I also want to ask you about the other races.
I know the Power Trip is going around the country.
Tell me about what you're seeing in other states.
I'm thinking of Ohio, of Florida, of Pennsylvania.
What sort of connects these races together and tells us the story of this midterm season?
RICK KLEIN: Yes, thanks, Yamiche.
It's really interesting to go out there and talk to voters and talk to the candidates because we see all sorts of different types of candidates.
A lot of them are people that have been recruited by Donald Trump, candidates like Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters right here in Arizona, J.D.
Vance in Ohio.
None of them have ever run for office.
None of them probably ever run for office if Donald Trump wasn't president, if Donald Trump didn't consider them to be friends of people that urged on.
And that has created a kind of a new class of politicians.
Mitch McConnell has talked about candidate quality.
Those are the kinds of people that you're talking about.
And I've seen also with our reporters on the ground some really interesting twists on what it means to be a Democrat these days, to look at someone like John Fetterman or Tim Ryan.
Frankly, they don't look like a lot Democrats.
They've been going to a lot of redder parts of their states.
They're trying to bring a kind of working class appeal to states that are either on the purple side or a little bit, in the case of Ohio, more Republican-leaning.
And they're trying to use performances on the trail, trying to connect with people by traveling around in a different way.
It still matters these days even in the age of tens of millions of dollars being dump into these campaigns to make personal connections.
And, yes, a lot of the -- our campaign reporters, our embeds, they are talking to voters that say that the economy is front and center.
And I think the Democrats have a couple of issues here.
One is that some of the issue that voters may be on their side on, like election integrity, like abortion rights, just aren't top of mind.
There's something that aren't thought about every day.
You don't tend to go about your everyday life thinking, well, is the next election going to be stolen or not?
You do think about gas prices.
Because every time you drive by a gas station, there's a visible representation of what's going.
You do think about inflation, because every time you buy lunch or buy groceries, you see those prices.
That's what people feel.
And I'm intrigued by some Democrats that have been breaking with the White House and saying, look, you should be more aggressive.
We've heard Mark Kelly say that the White House has made mistakes on the border.
We've heard people like Tim Ryan saying that there's been mistakes in not confronting inflation as a more existential or a bigger threat for American families.
So, I feel like it's sometimes when you go against your party that you have either an opportunity to break through a bit and maybe, maybe just cut against the national narrative that we see developing over these last couple of weeks.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Abha, what Rick is talking about really cuts straight to your beat about the economy.
I wonder what you're hearing from voters, especially as we've seen Democrats try to do this thing where they're both balancing, talking about inflation while also talking about abortion.
What are you hearing from voters?
ABHA BHATTARI: I spent the week talking with voters around the country.
And I was really struck by how many longtime Democratic voters said that they were suddenly sort of having to make these decisions that they never thought they would be making.
They're wondering if they should prioritize the economy or abortion rights, gun control, these issues that are all very important to them.
But they feel like they have less and less of a choice when they are struggling to pay for groceries and pay for electricity and all these other essentials that have been going up in price.
As one woman in Nashville told me yesterday, we can no longer afford to prioritize our principles over inflation.
And so they're really rethinking sort of their entire belief system in some cases.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: That's fascinating to hear.
And, Laura, talk a little bit more about the White House's approach to this?
I was really struck by a question that President Biden got.
It said, top domestic issue, inflation or abortion.
And he basically said we should walk and chew gum, talking about Democrats in his party.
What are you hearing from White House officials?
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I mean, this question was also posed earlier this week to his staff, to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
And she essentially said that the top economic issue is inflation, making that distinction economic, not necessarily entirely domestic.
I mean, look, we're seeing the final argument from Biden happening this week, which is we had the speech from him about abortion rights, staying if you election two to three Democrats to the Senate, then his first bill to Congress would be to solidify, codify Roe, Roe v. Wade.
And he clearly is going to continue making that argument in the two weeks.
Part of that though is also going to be the argument that he -- that his agenda is trying to keep this economy balanced, trying to make sure that it doesn't fall into a full-scale recession.
And the argument from the White House is essentially that, look, the economy does have a lot of factors that, in terms of unemployment, like being low, the fact that jobs, there's a lot of options for jobs, that's what they're trying to focus on as well.
I think the other thing is, today, the president was focused on student debt.
And so he, again, is trying to make this argument to very key constituencies across the Democratic base, including young voters.
I've talked to Democratic strategists who say that, look, if the youth voter turnout doesn't reach 2018 levels, then, yes, we don't really have a chance of holding the Senate and definitely not the House.
So, these constituencies also with black voters, if they don't reach a certain threshold in places like Georgia or Pennsylvania, then, again, Democrats don't really have a chance of holding the Senate and definitely not the House.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And the other thing, when you think about sort of what drives voter attention, drives voter feelings, Nikole, is this idea of sort of how scared are they, right?
You think about sort of the way these measures are being given to them by Democrats and Republicans.
Part of that, of course, is Trump.
It's former President Trump's grievance politics.
We had some news just today, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump adviser, he was sentenced to four months in prison for defying the January 6th Committee's subpoena to come testify.
You also saw an official subpoena go out to former President Trump to say, you need to come to the committee.
What's your sense of how all these developments surrounding Trump and the Trump orbit how they impact voters' minds in these midterms?
NIKOLE KILLION: It may make ripple.
I don't know that it will make a wave and that's just because it's kind of baked in at this point into the lager discussion we've been having again, it's the economy, stupid, right?
I mean, that is really what people are caring about day-to-day.
So, how concerned are they going to do be about a subpoena to the president?
I'm not sure.
What I did find interesting about the subpoena that went out from the January 6th Committee is that the committee has been very clear to say that they are not going to do anything around the midterms.
I mean, we saw them hold the hearing last week, you know, in terms of their report.
They say that that's not going to be tied to the midterms in anyway.
And yet, the subpoena drops where they want the former president to produce documents a few days before Election Day, and then they want him to show up for this deposition a few days after Election Day.
Obviously, they're under a time crunch.
They're trying to get their work done by the end of the year.
But I just think the timing around of all of that is interesting.
And whether or not the former president cooperates, it all remains to be seen.
We know he has bashed this committee as the unselect committee, his attorney today already accusing this committee of flouting the norm.
So, will we see any compliance here?
Obviously, the committee would hope so, but, again, unlikely it seems.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And I'm going to -- before I want to turn to some stuff that's going on in Florida, I wonder if you could just chime in here when it comes to conservatives.
They've made the case that Republicans are just better at dealing with the economy.
Are you hearing that from voters?
ABHA BHATTARAI: Absolutely.
I think a lot of voters are feeling this way, that they don't think Democrats have really been on top of their game when it comes to inflation.
For a long time, the messaging was, this is just temporary, this is because of supply chain issues, it will go away.
And when it didn't happen, it was, well, this is Putin's fault.
And so it's taken a while for voters to feel like Democrats are listening to them.
And the other thing that Republicans have going for them is that this isn't their economy.
I mean, we're likely to have seen extremely high inflation and high gas prices even with the Republican president in power.
But right now, this is Joe Biden's problem and they're able to capitalize on that.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Yes, the party in power is the one that's being held accountable.
Now, we have to turn to what's going on in my home state of Florida.
In April, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to create an election police force dedicated to pursuing voter fraud.
This week, the Tampa Bay Times released videos of people being arrested by the unit that have drawn fierce criticism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess you have a warrant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's for voter stuff, man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For voter -- YAMICHE ALCINDOR: So, Florida officials say the people arrested are felons who voted illegally.
Advocates say, in many cases, Florida issued these people voting materials that allowed them to cast ballots.
So, Rick, I want to come back to you.
What are the actions of the Florida election force tell us about the overall GOP approach to elections right now?
What are we -- connect what we're seeing in Florida and with these videos to what's happening politically.
RICK KLEIN: Yamiche, I think it is a significant development.
And just today, we saw a judge in Florida throw out one of the 20 case that the Governor DeSantis was highlighting as part of this saying that the prosecutors were trying to bring the case didn't have the jurisdiction.
And we've been reporting on this pretty extensively and talked to some of the lawyers involved.
And, clearly, what happened here is that Governor DeSantis was trying to make a major point.
He was trying to signal to Republican voters the importance, the priority that he was putting on election security.
It's something that's been echoed across Republican campaigns.
And it's something that moves things forward.
Instead of looking back at 2020, the signal that sent out there is clearly one that's intended to discourage someone who might have any question in their mind as to whether their vote is allowed to be cast or not from doing so at all.
And you can view that as a good thing.
You can also recognize that, in this case, you had individuals who were told by state authorities that they had the right to vote.
There was confusion around the types of felonies that they committed and whether they would be able to re-establish their franchise under a new law.
There are other states that have similar laws and some of the regulations.
And at the time, it felt like Governor DeSantis was trying to one one-up some of his Republican colleagues, maybe in the 2024 contention.
But as a case like this falls apart, you recognize a real toll that it takes on people, the individuals who were arrested, and also the countless number of people that might have the right to vote but might be questioning whether they should even try to do that because they see an action like this.
The body cam footage was striking because you had police officers who were unable to explain what exactly those charges were.
You had people who were just befuddled by the fact that they were being arrested for something that they were told by state officials they had the right to do.
So, to me, this is another manifestation of the mistrust that's been placed into the round of elections.
We know election workers are undergoing unprecedented threats in addition to people that are running for office saying that they won't necessarily trust election results.
You have this widespread mistrust as people are about to vote and are already voting in record numbers in early vote around whether you can even cast that ballot.
And I feel like this a big -- YAMICHE ALCINDOR: It's a lot of confusion when you look at the people that are really confused by this and confused at what's going on.
RICK KLEIN: I'm very curious to see whether, frankly, any of them stick.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: And, Laura, I want to come to you, because in the last 30 seconds that we have here, you interviewed a veteran Democratic pollster who told you this could motivate black voters, in particular, to come out.
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right, Colonel Belcher, who worked on President Obama's former campaign.
And he said that he thinks it could backfire.
Because he thinks that when people watch those videos, particularly black voters, that it could motivate them to turn out in states not just like Florida but also in Georgia, and that he know that some Democratic campaigns are going to start using that footage and ads in the final weeks heading into the election.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Well, certainly, watching that video is very confusing.
You can tell the cops were confused.
One cop saying there might be even a loophole if you were given voting material.
So, we'll definitely have to keep watching what's going on there.
Thanks so much to our panelists for joining us and for sharing your reporting.
You can see more of Rick, which we would love to see, on ABC News' docuseries about the midterms, Power Trip.
There will be a new episode, Sunday, on Hulu.
And before we go, tune in Saturday to PBS News Weekend for a look at how children's mental health is being treated following recent recommendations that kids over the age of eight be screened for anxiety disorder.
Thank you for joining us.
Good night from Washington.