WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.450 align:start GWEN IFILL: What a difference a week makes for Hillary Clinton, for Paul Ryan, for Joe 00:05.450 --> 00:09.700 align:start Biden, and for Donald Trump and Ben Carson. And they're all connected. 00:09.700 --> 00:13.230 align:start We explain how tonight on Washington Week. 00:13.230 --> 00:15.870 align:start FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.) I had a pretty long day 00:15.870 --> 00:19.140 align:start yesterday. (Cheers, applause.) It's been quite week, hasn't it? 00:19.140 --> 00:23.470 align:start GWEN IFILL: And she's had a pretty long summer, but the fall is looking brighter. 00:23.470 --> 00:27.820 align:start Just this week Joe Biden decided not to challenge her. 00:27.820 --> 00:30.450 align:start VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: (From video.) I believe we're out of time, the time 00:30.450 --> 00:34.570 align:start necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination. 00:34.570 --> 00:40.490 align:start GWEN IFILL: Two lesser-known challengers dropped out, and Clinton emerged undamaged 00:40.490 --> 00:46.520 align:start from an 11-hour congressional hearing on the Benghazi tragedy as Republicans pounced. 00:46.520 --> 00:49.440 align:start REPRESENTATIVE TREY GOWDY (R-SC): (From video.) Madam Secretary, not a single member 00:49.440 --> 00:54.130 align:start of this committee signed up to investigate you or your email. 00:54.130 --> 00:58.190 align:start REPRESENTATIVE SUSAN BROOKS (R-IN): (From video.) There are 67 emails in this pile in 00:58.190 --> 01:03.100 align:start 2012, and I'm troubled by what I see here. GWEN IFILL: And Democrats defended. 01:03.100 --> 01:05.920 align:start REPRESENTATIVE ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD): (From video.) Do we want to badger you over and 01:05.920 --> 01:09.010 align:start over again until you get tired, until we do get the "gotcha" moment that he's talking 01:09.010 --> 01:14.160 align:start about? We're better than that. GWEN IFILL: Clinton's face told the story. 01:14.160 --> 01:19.870 align:start Who else had a good week? Paul Ryan, who forced Republican hardliners to 01:19.870 --> 01:24.170 align:start back down and make him speaker of the House on his terms. 01:24.170 --> 01:27.210 align:start REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (R-WI): (From video.) I came to the conclusion that this is a 01:27.210 --> 01:31.100 align:start very dire moment not just for Congress, not just for the Republican Party, but for our 01:31.100 --> 01:36.130 align:start country. GWEN IFILL: While Ben Carson and Donald Trump are redefining the Republican 01:36.130 --> 01:38.220 align:start presidential race. 01:38.220 --> 01:42.080 align:start DONALD TRUMP: (From video.) The Wall Street Journal/NBC just came out with a new poll, 01:42.080 --> 01:48.420 align:start and the headline is "Trump on top, highest points he's gotten so far." 01:48.420 --> 01:53.190 align:start GWEN IFILL: Covering the week, Josh Gerstein, senior White House correspondent for 01:53.190 --> 01:59.080 align:start POLITICO; Carol Lee, White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal; Manu Raju, 01:59.080 --> 02:04.870 align:start senior congressional correspondent for CNN; and Molly Ball, national political 02:04.870 --> 02:08.210 align:start correspondent for The Atlantic. 02:08.210 --> 02:14.580 align:start ANNOUNCER: Award-winning reporting and analysis. Covering history as it happens. 02:14.580 --> 02:21.230 align:start Live from our nation's capital, this is Washington Week with Gwen Ifill. 02:21.230 --> 02:27.590 align:start Once again, live from Washington, moderator Gwen Ifill. GWEN IFILL: Good evening. 02:27.590 --> 02:33.290 align:start Hillary Clinton's 11 hours on the hot seat has widely been interpreted as a win for the 02:33.290 --> 02:37.090 align:start Democratic frontrunner. This moment may explain why. 02:37.090 --> 02:40.960 align:start HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.) I would imagine I've thought more about what happened 02:40.960 --> 02:46.180 align:start than all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than all of you put together. 02:46.180 --> 02:53.720 align:start I have been wracking my brain about what more could have been done or should have been 02:53.720 --> 02:59.350 align:start done. GWEN IFILL: The goal had been to prove that Clinton was negligent and political 02:59.350 --> 03:03.860 align:start in her handling of the Benghazi tragedy that took the lives of four Americans. 03:03.860 --> 03:09.410 align:start Late in the day, Republican Martha Roby pressed Clinton on how she spent the night of 03:09.410 --> 03:12.870 align:start the attack. HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.) I was alone, yes. 03:12.870 --> 03:14.770 align:start REPRESENTATIVE MARTHA ROBY (R-AL): (From video.) The whole night? 03:14.770 --> 03:17.980 align:start HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.) Well, yes, the whole night. (Laughter.) 03:17.980 --> 03:19.760 align:start REPRESENTATIVE MARTHA ROBY (R-AL): (From video.) Well, I don't know why that's funny. 03:19.760 --> 03:22.250 align:start GWEN IFILL: That happened after 7:00 p.m. 03:22.250 --> 03:25.680 align:start and people were getting punchy but not landing any punches. 03:25.680 --> 03:28.460 align:start REPRESENTATIVE TREY GOWDY (R-SC): (From video.) In terms of her testimony? 03:28.460 --> 03:32.230 align:start I don't know that she testified that much differently today than she has the previous 03:32.230 --> 03:35.900 align:start times she's testified, so I'd have to go back and look at the transcript. 03:35.900 --> 03:39.240 align:start GWEN IFILL: He had to look. We don't know what he found in the transcript, Josh. 03:39.240 --> 03:42.010 align:start Was Trey Gowdy right? JOSH GERSTEIN: He was basically right. 03:42.010 --> 03:46.140 align:start I mean, her testimony was very similar to the testimony she gave almost two years ago on 03:46.140 --> 03:47.760 align:start this topic. 03:47.760 --> 03:51.340 align:start I do think, regardless of whether she said anything new, there were a few new things 03:51.340 --> 03:53.300 align:start that came out at the hearing. 03:53.300 --> 03:56.290 align:start There were a bunch of emails that this committee managed to get that other committees 03:56.290 --> 04:00.820 align:start have not gotten, her famous emails that we saw stacked up there and some from Ambassador 04:00.820 --> 04:04.300 align:start Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack in Benghazi. 04:04.300 --> 04:08.450 align:start And that added a little bit of context that we didn't know before and fueled some 04:08.450 --> 04:12.370 align:start theories about whether this was, in fact, a terrorist attack or due to the video that 04:12.370 --> 04:14.310 align:start we'd heard at the time. 04:14.310 --> 04:17.470 align:start But there wasn't a whole lot added to the equation during these 11 hours. 04:17.470 --> 04:22.520 align:start GWEN IFILL: You wrote a piece just before the hearings this week about the five rules 04:22.520 --> 04:26.110 align:start that Hillary Clinton should adhere to during this hearing. 04:26.110 --> 04:30.270 align:start I just want to run through them now and see if she actually stuck to your advice - not 04:30.270 --> 04:33.680 align:start your advice but your suggestions. One of them, don't lie. 04:33.680 --> 04:35.880 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: She did pretty well on this, considering - 04:35.880 --> 04:37.800 align:start GWEN IFILL: It seems like an obvious idea. 04:37.800 --> 04:40.620 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: It seems easy, but if someone asks you questions for 11 hours, the 04:40.620 --> 04:44.380 align:start chances that you might, even inadvertently, stray from the facts are actually pretty 04:44.380 --> 04:46.700 align:start high. And it did happen a couple times. 04:46.700 --> 04:50.670 align:start Some of her statements about the email situation in particular, she said that the State 04:50.670 --> 04:54.850 align:start Department had 90 (percent) to 95 percent of her emails before she turned them over to 04:54.850 --> 04:58.080 align:start the State Department. That doesn't seem to be correct. 04:58.080 --> 05:02.570 align:start And there's some other things she said on the email front that don't totally check out 05:02.570 --> 05:05.130 align:start with what we know about the situation. 05:05.130 --> 05:09.120 align:start But across the board on her statements on Libya and Benghazi, there wasn't much change 05:09.120 --> 05:12.200 align:start from what she said before, and I don't think much of it can be really disproven. 05:12.200 --> 05:16.010 align:start MANU RAJU: You know, I was in the room there yesterday, Josh, and it seemed like 05:16.010 --> 05:18.190 align:start Republicans clearly had a strategy. 05:18.190 --> 05:23.380 align:start They wanted to paint her as owning that Libya policy, in addition to not responding 05:23.380 --> 05:29.340 align:start quick enough to the warnings from Ambassador Stevens at the time. 05:29.340 --> 05:34.290 align:start But they seemed to keep going down these rabbit holes and getting stuck on these very 05:34.290 --> 05:38.310 align:start specific "gotcha" moments and was trying to get her in a "gotcha" moment. 05:38.310 --> 05:42.830 align:start Why do you think that Trey Gowdy and the committee Republicans kind of ended up in 05:42.830 --> 05:47.660 align:start that - unfortunate for them, looking like they were launching a partisan attack? 05:47.660 --> 05:51.630 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, obviously the setup to this hearing wasn't very helpful to them to 05:51.630 --> 05:55.680 align:start have Kevin McCarthy come out a few weeks before this hearing and say that this was 05:55.680 --> 05:59.440 align:start intended - or suggested was intended to undermine her poll numbers. 05:59.440 --> 06:02.980 align:start It's something that's just very hard to rebut no matter how many times you say it's not 06:02.980 --> 06:06.580 align:start true. But I agree with you; it did seem like they were trying, in this 11-hour 06:06.580 --> 06:10.150 align:start endurance test, to provoke some kind of an outburst from her. 06:10.150 --> 06:12.890 align:start GWEN IFILL: But she left it to the Democrats - that's one of the other rules. 06:12.890 --> 06:15.770 align:start She left it to the Democrats to fight that fight, that political fight. 06:15.770 --> 06:18.710 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Right. I mean, it seemed inevitable that there would be a food fight, 06:18.710 --> 06:22.240 align:start that there would be some kind of shouting match between the two sides, and that did 06:22.240 --> 06:26.310 align:start erupt. I think it was over the question of whether Sidney Blumenthal's testimony 06:26.310 --> 06:29.070 align:start should be released, but that was sort of unsurprising to me. 06:29.070 --> 06:33.040 align:start And she did pretty much lean back at that point and let the two sides duke it out. 06:33.040 --> 06:37.100 align:start There were times when she seemed to be smiling as the two sides exchanged, and that's 06:37.100 --> 06:41.700 align:start probably a better strategy than getting super angry in the face of the Republican 06:41.700 --> 06:44.280 align:start onslaught. CAROL LEE: Is this story done now? 06:44.280 --> 06:46.880 align:start Does she have any other hurdles that she needs to clear? 06:46.880 --> 06:51.380 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, I think it's been set back substantially, or the air has been 06:51.380 --> 06:54.070 align:start taken out of it a lot, but it's not done. 06:54.070 --> 06:58.090 align:start I mean, there are still all these litigation cases that are in court trying to get her 06:58.090 --> 06:59.800 align:start emails to come out. 06:59.800 --> 07:03.630 align:start There are monthly releases of her emails scheduled through the end of January. 07:03.630 --> 07:08.110 align:start And then of course lingering out there is this FBI investigation into classified 07:08.110 --> 07:12.460 align:start information on her email, and that barely came up at all yesterday during these 11 hours. 07:12.460 --> 07:16.200 align:start CAROL LEE: There was a while there, a pretty long stretch, where this seemed like the 07:16.200 --> 07:20.030 align:start House Sid Blumenthal hearing. Why was he such a central figure? 07:20.030 --> 07:23.080 align:start Why was there so much fixation on Sid Blumenthal? 07:23.080 --> 07:27.620 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Well, there seems to be this notion that Sid Blumenthal was effectively 07:27.620 --> 07:29.630 align:start her Libya adviser. 07:29.630 --> 07:33.060 align:start That's what the Republicans were suggesting, that she was essentially ignoring 07:33.060 --> 07:38.180 align:start suggestions and advice from, in particular, Chris Stevens, the ambassador, while Sid 07:38.180 --> 07:41.030 align:start Blumenthal had her ear. 07:41.030 --> 07:45.300 align:start But it's something that's hotly disputed by Clinton and her team who say, look, you 07:45.300 --> 07:49.530 align:start don't see all the classified briefings she was getting, all the cables she was receiving, 07:49.530 --> 07:53.290 align:start all the other advice that she was getting. Just because you see Sid Blumenthal's 07:53.290 --> 07:56.730 align:start emails doesn't mean that he was her key adviser on Libya. 07:56.730 --> 08:00.390 align:start GWEN IFILL: Before we go through - on to the next segment, I wanted to just check off 08:00.390 --> 08:03.880 align:start the other things you wrote about. You said, don't lie. Check. Don't speculate. 08:03.880 --> 08:06.250 align:start Pretty much check. Don't joke. 08:06.250 --> 08:09.330 align:start She didn't joke except for that one little laugh at Martha Roby. 08:09.330 --> 08:13.890 align:start She didn't - it says don't interfere with the FBI, and stay out of the congressional 08:13.890 --> 08:17.620 align:start food fight. So maybe she was reading what you wrote, Josh. (Laughter.) 08:17.620 --> 08:20.110 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: She may have been using that as her script. I don't know. 08:20.110 --> 08:23.250 align:start GWEN IFILL: I don't think so. (Laughter.) But that's OK. It was a good script. 08:23.250 --> 08:26.550 align:start Clinton solidified her frontrunner status in other ways too. 08:26.550 --> 08:30.630 align:start Today she won the endorsement of AFSCME, the Democratic-leaning mega union. 08:30.630 --> 08:34.900 align:start And two other Democrats, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee, dropped out of the race, 08:34.900 --> 08:38.200 align:start surprising no one, but Joe Biden did surprise. 08:38.200 --> 08:43.010 align:start After sending clear signals of presidential ambition for months, he decided against 08:43.010 --> 08:46.820 align:start challenging Clinton. And with the president at his side in the Rose Garden, 08:46.820 --> 08:49.580 align:start he offered his party a little advice. 08:49.580 --> 08:53.660 align:start VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: (From video.) This party, our nation, will be making a 08:53.660 --> 09:00.060 align:start tragic mistake if we walk away or attempt to undo the Obama legacy. 09:00.060 --> 09:07.790 align:start Democrats should not only defend this record and protect this record, they should run on 09:07.790 --> 09:12.320 align:start the record. GWEN IFILL: By the way, this was Clinton's response today as she was 09:12.320 --> 09:16.160 align:start taking her victory lap. HILLARY CLINTON: (From video.) I'm not running for 09:16.160 --> 09:19.450 align:start President Obama's third term. I'm not running for Bill Clinton's third term. 09:19.450 --> 09:22.620 align:start I'm running for my first term. (Cheers.) 09:22.620 --> 09:26.120 align:start GWEN IFILL: The truth is, the vice president was deliberating until the very last 09:26.120 --> 09:28.520 align:start moment, wasn't he, Carol? CAROL LEE: He was. 09:28.520 --> 09:32.700 align:start This was a three-month-long parlor game, probably the most intense that we've seen in 09:32.700 --> 09:35.320 align:start some time, but it really went down to the wire. 09:35.320 --> 09:40.030 align:start You know, people around him said that there was one day he would be really in it and 09:40.030 --> 09:44.000 align:start they felt like he was going to run, and the next, you know, hour or next day he would 09:44.000 --> 09:45.980 align:start feel differently. 09:45.980 --> 09:50.810 align:start And, you know, in the weeks that ran up to this he was back and forth like that, but the 09:50.810 --> 09:56.020 align:start whole time he was making all of the steps that anyone who is seriously thinking about 09:56.020 --> 10:01.100 align:start running would take, which is he was - I mean, up until he decided Tuesday night he was 10:01.100 --> 10:05.550 align:start making phone calls to key supporters and, you know, trying to figure out if people were 10:05.550 --> 10:07.540 align:start really going to be behind him. 10:07.540 --> 10:10.430 align:start GWEN IFILL: As a matter of fact, you said in your story that every time they talked 10:10.430 --> 10:13.270 align:start about it he would ask the same question: Who are my supporters again? 10:13.270 --> 10:15.140 align:start CAROL LEE: Who are my supporters again? 10:15.140 --> 10:17.110 align:start Yeah, and so he kept saying that in these meetings. 10:17.110 --> 10:22.130 align:start So they got to a point a few weeks ago where he felt like the family had come around and 10:22.130 --> 10:27.080 align:start that they had reached a point in their grief - which has been substantial and ongoing - 10:27.080 --> 10:30.430 align:start they had reached a point where they felt like they could all do this. 10:30.430 --> 10:34.220 align:start And so he really started to drill down on the nitty-gritty of the campaign - what the 10:34.220 --> 10:37.310 align:start operation would be, who he would hire, where he would get his money. 10:37.310 --> 10:40.860 align:start And so he started asking those questions more and more, but in that whole time he was 10:40.860 --> 10:42.980 align:start still not making a decision. 10:42.980 --> 10:47.300 align:start And so they had a meeting - he went home to Delaware last weekend, and all of his staff 10:47.300 --> 10:50.540 align:start thought that he was going to come back and say that he was running. 10:50.540 --> 10:55.410 align:start And they activated this campaign-in-waiting under that presumption, and Monday morning 10:55.410 --> 10:58.240 align:start he came in and said he wanted more time. 10:58.240 --> 11:03.040 align:start And there was a very contentious staff meeting in which his aides finally said, you 11:03.040 --> 11:06.330 align:start have to make a decision; you don't have the luxury of another delay. 11:06.330 --> 11:09.510 align:start And he agreed to make a decision within the next two days. 11:09.510 --> 11:13.400 align:start MOLLY BALL: At the risk of another maddening round of speculation, is there any chance 11:13.400 --> 11:15.210 align:start he reconsiders? 11:15.210 --> 11:19.270 align:start I mean, if something - if Hillary, you know, has another really bad stretch or if 11:19.270 --> 11:22.220 align:start there's - it looks like a void in the race for whatever reason - 11:22.220 --> 11:25.820 align:start GWEN IFILL: At the risk of another round of speculation, Molly - (laughter) - 11:25.820 --> 11:31.310 align:start CAROL LEE: Well, there are folks who think - who read into some - there is some people 11:31.310 --> 11:35.640 align:start talking about his comments that, you know, he didn't formally say no; he said, there's no 11:35.640 --> 11:38.620 align:start time now. You know, they've run out of time. 11:38.620 --> 11:43.290 align:start And so, you know, conceivably could he, if she was - you know, completely stumbled? 11:43.290 --> 11:47.640 align:start You know, perhaps, but he's certainly not actively pursuing the nomination. 11:47.640 --> 11:50.800 align:start MANU RAJU: Carol, how much do you think that it's a matter of timing? 11:50.800 --> 11:53.590 align:start And we all know that Joe Biden really wants to be president. 11:53.590 --> 11:56.760 align:start I mean, this would have been his third possible run. 11:56.760 --> 12:00.300 align:start If the timing were a little bit different, if it were August, do you think he could do 12:00.300 --> 12:03.750 align:start the run, or is it just because we're getting so close to the Iowa caucuses? 12:03.750 --> 12:08.490 align:start CAROL LEE: He didn't have - I mean, he just didn't have any of the infrastructure that 12:08.490 --> 12:13.910 align:start you would need for a campaign, and to be able to rev that up in that short of amount of 12:13.910 --> 12:18.090 align:start time - and, look, his polls - we had a poll that came out on Tuesday after the debate and 12:18.090 --> 12:20.780 align:start his numbers were down. He was not going up. 12:20.780 --> 12:24.170 align:start GWEN IFILL: Well, Hillary Clinton had a $77 million head start too. 12:24.170 --> 12:26.650 align:start CAROL LEE: Right, and he - GWEN IFILL: That's not a small - 12:26.650 --> 12:30.100 align:start CAROL LEE: He doesn't - he didn't even have a super PAC. I mean, he had nothing. 12:30.100 --> 12:33.470 align:start He had the Office of the Vice Presidency, and that's a big platform, but it's very 12:33.470 --> 12:36.050 align:start expensive to run a campaign when you're a sitting vice president. 12:36.050 --> 12:39.230 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Why was there so much tweaking of Hillary in the lead-up to this 12:39.230 --> 12:42.760 align:start announcement? Is there really a substantive disagreement there or was this just 12:42.760 --> 12:45.800 align:start a way to stir the pot while he was making this decision? 12:45.800 --> 12:48.400 align:start GWEN IFILL: When you say tweaking of Hillary, you mean the part where he talked about 12:48.400 --> 12:51.980 align:start you shouldn't be running against - Republicans are not your enemy, taking aim at 12:51.980 --> 12:54.320 align:start something she said in the debate? 12:54.320 --> 12:58.030 align:start CAROL LEE: I think there's a genuine disagreement there. It's not unintentional. 12:58.030 --> 13:04.300 align:start And, you know, if he were to - if he did run, he was going to be the standard bearer of 13:04.300 --> 13:08.400 align:start the Obama legacy and he was really going - I mean, that was the only path for him. 13:08.400 --> 13:13.750 align:start And I think that there is some frustration among him and others in the White House that 13:13.750 --> 13:18.890 align:start she is splitting from them in ways that just appear to be for political gain and not 13:18.890 --> 13:23.680 align:start necessarily for actual policy changes or position changes. 13:23.680 --> 13:29.810 align:start And, you know, one of the things that's lingering out there is will he endorse her? 13:29.810 --> 13:33.590 align:start And if so, when, and what would that mean? 13:33.590 --> 13:36.590 align:start And we'll see if that happens in the coming weeks. 13:36.590 --> 13:39.520 align:start GWEN IFILL: Joe Biden has a way of quoting his relatives a lot. 13:39.520 --> 13:43.910 align:start One of his father's quotes was, "Reality has a way of intruding," and it sounds like 13:43.910 --> 13:46.530 align:start that's what happened to him this week. 13:46.530 --> 13:50.220 align:start Well, depending on your point of view, another standard bearer had a pretty good week. 13:50.220 --> 13:54.790 align:start Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman who was the Republican vice presidential nominee 13:54.790 --> 14:00.380 align:start in 2012, said he would run for speaker but only as a unity candidate. 14:00.380 --> 14:03.290 align:start REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (R-WI): (From video.) I've shown my colleagues what I think 14:03.290 --> 14:07.950 align:start success looks like, what I think it takes to unify and lead, and how my family 14:07.950 --> 14:13.810 align:start commitments come first. I have left this decision in their hands. And should they 14:13.810 --> 14:18.110 align:start agree with these requests, then I am happy and I am willing to get to work. 14:18.110 --> 14:22.770 align:start GWEN IFILL: This seemed to be a tall order for a fractured caucus that chased first 14:22.770 --> 14:27.760 align:start Speaker John Boehner and then Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy away and out of the top job. 14:27.760 --> 14:31.880 align:start But by week's end, Ryan had the votes. How did he pull it off, Manu? 14:31.880 --> 14:35.120 align:start MANU RAJU: Well, I mean, the House Republican Caucus has just been in turmoil since 14:35.120 --> 14:37.320 align:start that Boehner announcement last month. 14:37.320 --> 14:40.380 align:start Boehner is going to resign of course by the end of October. 14:40.380 --> 14:44.370 align:start And when McCarthy, you know, who was expected to succeed him, announced that he would 14:44.370 --> 14:47.560 align:start not run, Paul Ryan did not want to take this job. 14:47.560 --> 14:52.840 align:start He actually turned in that conference meeting - surprisingly he turned to John Kline, a 14:52.840 --> 14:56.670 align:start Minnesota Republican, and said you do this job because I don't want to do it. 14:56.670 --> 15:02.050 align:start But it was clear that there was nobody within the Republican Conference who could appeal 15:02.050 --> 15:06.850 align:start to the various factions - the moderates, the conservatives, the hard right conservatives 15:06.850 --> 15:11.900 align:start - get them all on board, at least some of them, to assemble a coalition in order to get 15:11.900 --> 15:17.090 align:start the necessary votes on the House floor, the 218 votes you need to become House speaker. 15:17.090 --> 15:20.570 align:start Now, a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's a national name. 15:20.570 --> 15:23.320 align:start Of course he was the vice presidential nominee in 2012. 15:23.320 --> 15:28.340 align:start He has that profile and he's got a lot of support on the right. 15:28.340 --> 15:32.970 align:start Maybe some folks on the far right do not support him because of his views on immigration 15:32.970 --> 15:38.190 align:start and other issues that kind of stray from that conservative orthodoxy, but he does have 15:38.190 --> 15:43.840 align:start the core conservative bone fides that makes him popular among that segment of the base. 15:43.840 --> 15:48.630 align:start GWEN IFILL: Was he really as reluctant to take this job as he signaled? 15:48.630 --> 15:52.740 align:start MANU RAJU: I think he really was. I mean, he had a decent job as the House Ways and 15:52.740 --> 15:55.310 align:start Means chairman, which is the tax-writing committee. 15:55.310 --> 15:59.340 align:start He was really invested in tax reform. He's 45 years old. 15:59.340 --> 16:02.840 align:start He could potentially maybe one day run for the White House again, and we know the 16:02.840 --> 16:05.550 align:start speakership is a very, very bruising job. 16:05.550 --> 16:09.730 align:start But he came under very, very heavy pressure over the one-week congressional recess. 16:09.730 --> 16:13.740 align:start And when he came back to Washington on Monday he went to his conference and he said, I'm 16:13.740 --> 16:17.920 align:start going to do this but under my conditions, and one of which was he needed to have unity 16:17.920 --> 16:23.610 align:start among the various Republican factions and make sure that he did not live sort of week by 16:23.610 --> 16:27.300 align:start week the way John Boehner did and the way Kevin McCarthy eventually did. 16:27.300 --> 16:30.400 align:start And when he went to these factions and he appealed to them, they all sort of realized, 16:30.400 --> 16:32.300 align:start we've got nobody else. 16:32.300 --> 16:35.810 align:start He was the guy and he ended - you know, Thursday night he said, I'm going to run. 16:35.810 --> 16:39.560 align:start MOLLY BALL: Well, once he gets in there, once he wins that vote to become speaker, does 16:39.560 --> 16:44.140 align:start he have a strategy for dealing with this incredibly divided conference that so frequently 16:44.140 --> 16:47.160 align:start defeated John Boehner? MANU RAJU: I think this was the easy part. 16:47.160 --> 16:51.920 align:start As hard as it was to find unity in this very divided conference, he still has to - he's 16:51.920 --> 16:55.980 align:start going to have the same problems that Boehner had and then McCarthy had. 16:55.980 --> 16:59.710 align:start I mean, what McCarthy has been telling these - sorry, what Paul Ryan has been telling 16:59.710 --> 17:04.500 align:start these guys is that he's willing to work with them and include them in the process, do 17:04.500 --> 17:07.260 align:start sort of a bottom-up approach to legislating. 17:07.260 --> 17:12.060 align:start But that does not deal with all the policy conflicts that they're going to have to deal 17:12.060 --> 17:16.550 align:start with - fiscal issues coming up this fall, the debt ceiling and compromising with the 17:16.550 --> 17:20.160 align:start White House - and appealing to that far-right segment is going to be very, very 17:20.160 --> 17:24.090 align:start difficult. So he's going to soon figure out why John Boehner had such a hard time. 17:24.090 --> 17:29.070 align:start CAROL LEE: So when John Boehner stepped down - and if you talk to folks in the White 17:29.070 --> 17:32.510 align:start House, a lot of them are saying Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan, and they felt like he 17:32.510 --> 17:36.200 align:start would be their best bet. Would anything change in terms of the relationship between 17:36.200 --> 17:38.840 align:start the White House and the House speaker? 17:38.840 --> 17:41.950 align:start MANU RAJU: Potentially, because you know, Paul Ryan did cut a big budget deal a few 17:41.950 --> 17:45.870 align:start years ago with Senate Democrats and that got the White House onboard that avoided the 17:45.870 --> 17:49.480 align:start threat of a shutdown, at least up until this past threat of a shutdown. 17:49.480 --> 17:53.880 align:start (Laugher.) And you know, he has been known to be a guy who could reach across the 17:53.880 --> 17:57.300 align:start aisle, cut a deal. He did that earlier this year, too, on a Medicare deal dealing 17:57.300 --> 18:01.760 align:start with physician reimbursement payments with House Democrats and that got the White 18:01.760 --> 18:03.830 align:start House's signature as well. 18:03.830 --> 18:07.710 align:start He is known to be able to do some of that, but he has - those are - you know, that's 18:07.710 --> 18:10.010 align:start just the tip of the iceberg. 18:10.010 --> 18:14.250 align:start It's going to be much more difficult when he's the guy who's in charge of managing the 18:14.250 --> 18:18.210 align:start House, managing all these different personalities, and facing that segment on the right - 18:18.210 --> 18:20.990 align:start that House Freedom Caucus, that controls about 40 votes. 18:20.990 --> 18:24.530 align:start If they decide to vote no on things, then he has - he needs to rely on Democrats. 18:24.530 --> 18:28.490 align:start And this is a very unwieldy process when you start going down that road. 18:28.490 --> 18:30.580 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: How long is his honeymoon? 18:30.580 --> 18:33.450 align:start Does he get through this debt limit issue in the next few weeks? 18:33.450 --> 18:36.570 align:start Where do you see him possibly being tripped up by these same issues? 18:36.570 --> 18:39.060 align:start MANU RAJU: Yeah, I think it's very short. 18:39.060 --> 18:43.000 align:start You know, John Boehner wants to - what he said - clean up the barn before he leaves. 18:43.000 --> 18:47.340 align:start So next week is going to be a very important week on Capitol Hill because it's Boehner's 18:47.340 --> 18:50.950 align:start last week. The leadership elections are Wednesday and Thursday. 18:50.950 --> 18:57.100 align:start So assuming Boehner cannot clean up the barn, it'll be up to Paul Ryan to do that. 18:57.100 --> 19:01.830 align:start And then we'll see how he manages to raise the debt limit - there's no consensus on 19:01.830 --> 19:06.270 align:start how to do that - and also fund the government past December 11, not to mention highway 19:06.270 --> 19:08.270 align:start funding is about to expire. 19:08.270 --> 19:12.100 align:start Congress just has a lot of problems to deal with, and Paul Ryan needs to figure out how 19:12.100 --> 19:15.450 align:start to do it now. GWEN IFILL: Cleaning up the barn. What an evocative term. 19:15.450 --> 19:18.310 align:start (Laughter.) Makes you wonder what's - never mind. (Laughter.) 19:18.310 --> 19:22.620 align:start As the Democratic primary jockeying narrows, uncertainty reigns on the Republican side 19:22.620 --> 19:24.470 align:start - or does it? 19:24.470 --> 19:29.320 align:start Polls now consistently show Donald Trump - who loves polls when he's leading them - and 19:29.320 --> 19:33.740 align:start Ben Carson, who actually took time off from the campaign trail for a book tour, they're 19:33.740 --> 19:35.860 align:start both way out front. 19:35.860 --> 19:39.240 align:start BEN CARSON: (From video.) It's going to be the most clear-cut election in the history 19:39.240 --> 19:40.960 align:start of America. 19:40.960 --> 19:45.950 align:start People will be able to decide, do they want a nation that is dominated by a government 19:45.950 --> 19:51.640 align:start that tells you what to do, or do we want a nation that is of, for, and by the people with 19:51.640 --> 19:54.800 align:start a government there to facilitate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? 19:54.800 --> 19:59.880 align:start GWEN IFILL: A clear-cut election, but where does this leave Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, 19:59.880 --> 20:02.520 align:start John Kasich, and half a dozen more? 20:02.520 --> 20:06.750 align:start Molly Ball wrote this week that it's finally time to believe that Trump is running a 20:06.750 --> 20:09.450 align:start serious campaign. What's your reasoning, Molly? 20:09.450 --> 20:12.710 align:start MOLLY BALL: Well, I - what I actually wrote was I think Trump has been running a 20:12.710 --> 20:14.950 align:start serious campaign almost from the beginning. 20:14.950 --> 20:18.430 align:start It's just taken the media a while to sort of have this sink in. 20:18.430 --> 20:23.750 align:start You know, very shortly after he announced, he hired some well-credentialed operatives 20:23.750 --> 20:26.560 align:start in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. 20:26.560 --> 20:29.880 align:start Since then he's been staffing up, not just in those early states but in the Super 20:29.880 --> 20:34.700 align:start Tuesday states, in the so-called SEC primary states that vote after that, all the way 20:34.700 --> 20:37.260 align:start into some of the late March primaries. 20:37.260 --> 20:41.260 align:start So he's doing the things that a real candidate would do, and yet we continue to have 20:41.260 --> 20:45.080 align:start this suspicion that this is all a lark, that it's not real, that he's just sort of flying 20:45.080 --> 20:46.420 align:start by the seat of his pants. 20:46.420 --> 20:48.110 align:start GWEN IFILL: We keep waiting for the numbers to collapse, and they don't. 20:48.110 --> 20:49.490 align:start MOLLY BALL: And they don't. 20:49.490 --> 20:52.230 align:start And in fact, what happened after the last debate, where he seemed to have sort of a weak 20:52.230 --> 20:55.000 align:start performance, he did dip a little bit, and then he climbed back up again. 20:55.000 --> 20:58.410 align:start And what seems to be happening is some of those Trump voters look around for someone 20:58.410 --> 21:01.980 align:start else they could support and they come back to him because they don't see anybody better. 21:01.980 --> 21:05.920 align:start MANU RAJU: Molly, you know, Trump's part of - so much of Trump's campaign has been 21:05.920 --> 21:10.300 align:start this bravado, him always saying I'm winning in the polls, I'm doing great, you know, look 21:10.300 --> 21:12.200 align:start at everyone else, they're terrible. 21:12.200 --> 21:16.320 align:start But we've seen recent polls that Ben Carson is rising and winning in Iowa. 21:16.320 --> 21:20.020 align:start What do you think this will do to Trump's campaign when he can no longer say I'm the guy 21:20.020 --> 21:21.730 align:start who's winning in all the polls? 21:21.730 --> 21:24.330 align:start MOLLY BALL: Well, what you forget is that Donald Trump can say whatever Donald Trump 21:24.330 --> 21:26.180 align:start wants to say. (Laughter.) MANU RAJU: At that particular time. (Laughter.) 21:26.180 --> 21:28.190 align:start MOLLY BALL: He doesn't have to say what the objective reality is. 21:28.190 --> 21:31.010 align:start You know, and what we've seen from him a lot in the past is that he'll cherry pick the 21:31.010 --> 21:32.810 align:start poll that makes him look good. 21:32.810 --> 21:38.110 align:start There was one very suspect, very small sample, like online poll once that showed him 21:38.110 --> 21:41.590 align:start winning Hispanics somewhere and he continues to cite that as proof that he will win 21:41.590 --> 21:44.330 align:start Hispanics everywhere, even though no other poll shows that. 21:44.330 --> 21:47.820 align:start So I think what you'll see from him, it will be interesting. 21:47.820 --> 21:52.370 align:start As you say, Ben Carson now ahead in Iowa according to a couple of well-respected polls. 21:52.370 --> 21:56.290 align:start Trump still leading everywhere else, still leading nationally. 21:56.290 --> 22:01.430 align:start So far he hasn't wanted to go on the attack against Ben Carson because he says Carson 22:01.430 --> 22:05.260 align:start hasn't attacked him, but I wonder if that'll change if Carson 22:05.260 --> 22:07.340 align:start starts gaining on him some more. 22:07.340 --> 22:10.850 align:start JOSH GERSTEIN: Molly, is there a change among Republican strategists in their thinking 22:10.850 --> 22:15.560 align:start about not whether Trump's running a serious campaign, but whether he can actually win? 22:15.560 --> 22:19.760 align:start Because many of them thought, oh, it's impossible, and that therefore he will have to 22:19.760 --> 22:23.760 align:start collapse because somebody who's not electable can't win. Is that true? 22:23.760 --> 22:26.590 align:start GWEN IFILL: And we saw in an interview this week with Mike Murphy, who works for Jeb 22:26.590 --> 22:30.400 align:start Bush and has worked for other mainstream candidates, saying, oh, he's still not to be 22:30.400 --> 22:32.050 align:start taken seriously. 22:32.050 --> 22:35.420 align:start MOLLY BALL: Well, there's always been this feeling that he - that he would inevitably 22:35.420 --> 22:37.780 align:start collapse, but nobody ever knew how it would happen. 22:37.780 --> 22:39.880 align:start It was just going to be sort of like magic. 22:39.880 --> 22:44.670 align:start And there's now, I think, a dawning realization or a turning over of the conventional 22:44.670 --> 22:49.890 align:start wisdom, if you will - a lot of Republican establishment types, sinking in that, whoa, 22:49.890 --> 22:52.800 align:start this could actually happen, he could actually win the nomination because we don't have a 22:52.800 --> 22:54.440 align:start way to stop him. 22:54.440 --> 22:57.660 align:start You had Joe Scarborough saying that this week, a lot of other Republicans that I speak 22:57.660 --> 23:01.830 align:start to - top Republicans - saying I don't know how this is going to end, I don't know how 23:01.830 --> 23:06.400 align:start he's going to be derailed. So this is - this is frightening to those people. 23:06.400 --> 23:10.550 align:start But again, I think part of the problem is that there isn't another candidate who's 23:10.550 --> 23:13.630 align:start compelling enough to a broad enough swath of the party. 23:13.630 --> 23:18.170 align:start And the candidate who thought he was going to be the Trump alternative, Jeb Bush, has 23:18.170 --> 23:21.030 align:start really plummeted and has not been very strong. 23:21.030 --> 23:24.680 align:start GWEN IFILL: And today is actually cutting back his - or start cutting pay for his 23:24.680 --> 23:27.420 align:start campaign staff. MOLLY BALL: Cut salaries across the board, yeah. 23:27.420 --> 23:31.250 align:start CAROL LEE: So how does Donald Trump's, like, organization compare to the other 23:31.250 --> 23:35.870 align:start candidates, his competitors? I mean, is it still the same rudimentary campaign 23:35.870 --> 23:39.620 align:start operation? Is there some bling to it? Like, is he - is he everywhere? 23:39.620 --> 23:43.920 align:start Is he actually, you know, on the ground in these states? MOLLY BALL: He really is. 23:43.920 --> 23:48.850 align:start He's got these operations in all of these states. He also is building a voter file. 23:48.850 --> 23:52.830 align:start So he's - when you go to a Trump event it's very professionally done, and he's taking 23:52.830 --> 23:56.630 align:start everybody's information. He's gathering a list of these people. 23:56.630 --> 24:00.670 align:start You know with 16 Republican candidates it's hard to - they're all over the map in terms 24:00.670 --> 24:02.420 align:start of what they're building. 24:02.420 --> 24:05.860 align:start We've seen Marco Rubio building a very lean campaign and taking some criticism for that, 24:05.860 --> 24:08.730 align:start that he doesn't have enough of an operation on the ground. 24:08.730 --> 24:12.730 align:start On the other hand, you saw Scott Walker get overextended building out his staff, 24:12.730 --> 24:17.050 align:start building out these offices, and then not be able to sustain that and sort of being felled 24:17.050 --> 24:19.230 align:start by his own overhead. 24:19.230 --> 24:22.960 align:start So there's a - there's a sort of broad spectrum, but I would say that Trump is building 24:22.960 --> 24:26.460 align:start at least among the most robust and extensive national organizations. 24:26.460 --> 24:30.320 align:start GWEN IFILL: OK. Well, we'll be watching to see who decides to take the first shot 24:30.320 --> 24:32.790 align:start and whether it lands. Thank you, everybody. 24:32.790 --> 24:37.090 align:start We have to go now, but as always the conversation will continue online on the Washington 24:37.090 --> 24:42.450 align:start Week Webcast Extra, where among other things we'll talk about the brief, unspectacular 24:42.450 --> 24:45.400 align:start Lincoln Chafee campaign. 24:45.400 --> 24:50.220 align:start You can find it all later tonight and all week long at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. 24:50.220 --> 24:54.660 align:start Keep up with developments with Judy Woodruff and me on the PBS NewsHour, and we'll see 24:54.660 --> 25:15.750 align:start you right here next week on Washington Week. Good night.