WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:06.860 align:start ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra. 00:06.860 --> 00:09.100 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Hello, and welcome. 00:09.100 --> 00:11.200 align:start I'm John Harwood, filling in for Gwen Ifill. 00:11.200 --> 00:15.210 align:start Joining me around the table, Juliet Eilperin of The Washington Post, Michael Scherer of 00:15.210 --> 00:20.010 align:start Time Magazine, Manu Raju of Politico, and Nancy Youssef of The Daily Beast. 00:20.010 --> 00:25.210 align:start Nancy, let's start with your exclusive story about the wife of an ISIS leader who is 00:25.210 --> 00:29.490 align:start being held in U.S. custody. Why is she being held? And what's going to happen to her? 00:29.490 --> 00:31.330 align:start NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, she's an interesting case. 00:31.330 --> 00:35.950 align:start She has a nom de jure, Umm Sayyaf, and she was captured with her - when her husband was 00:35.950 --> 00:38.690 align:start killed about a month ago in what was really celebrated by the U.S. 00:38.690 --> 00:42.110 align:start military as a treasure trove of intelligence and everything else. 00:42.110 --> 00:45.240 align:start It's a unique case because, remember, they've been fighting this war primarily from the 00:45.240 --> 00:49.970 align:start air, through airstrikes, and so the whole idea in doing that in part was that they would 00:49.970 --> 00:53.150 align:start not confront captives and what to do with them and whatnot. 00:53.150 --> 00:59.610 align:start Now the argument that they're holding her on is that she was an ISIS operative, that she 00:59.610 --> 01:02.850 align:start was not just the wife of one of the top ISIS officials but someone who knew things about, 01:02.850 --> 01:07.060 align:start for example, Western hostages who was taken and overall ISIS operations. 01:07.060 --> 01:09.670 align:start And so she is being held in Iraq and the U.S. 01:09.670 --> 01:13.800 align:start has determined that they have the legal grounds to hold her, but it's opened a whole list 01:13.800 --> 01:16.470 align:start of questions about what happens in future cases. 01:16.470 --> 01:18.970 align:start Can you apply her case to other cases? 01:18.970 --> 01:21.840 align:start Are there going to be new legal groundworks that need to be set? 01:21.840 --> 01:25.610 align:start And it really brings the Obama administration right back to where it didn't want to be: 01:25.610 --> 01:29.920 align:start at the end of the Bush administration of having to deal with terrorist detainees, what to 01:29.920 --> 01:33.060 align:start do with them, what are the options once they've been interrogated. 01:33.060 --> 01:35.260 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Fascinating. Thanks, Nancy. 01:35.260 --> 01:41.590 align:start Juliet, you cover the White House, which had a quite extraordinary moment this week 01:41.590 --> 01:47.470 align:start when, mid-briefing, they sounded an evacuation order of the Briefing Room. 01:47.470 --> 01:52.340 align:start Now, I will say - I actually tweeted this - I'm not sure that the evacuation of the room 01:52.340 --> 01:56.270 align:start affected the amount of actual news that would - was conveyed in the briefing - (laughter) - 01:56.270 --> 01:57.610 align:start JULIET EILPERIN: Right. 01:57.610 --> 02:00.780 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: - but it was still an extraordinary thing to see. What happened? 02:00.780 --> 02:04.180 align:start JULIET EILPERIN: Basically, a couple of Secret Service agents came into the briefing. 02:04.180 --> 02:07.650 align:start They looked a little nervously over at Josh Earnest, the press secretary, who was in the 02:07.650 --> 02:12.160 align:start middle of answering a question about the data breach of personnel records. 02:12.160 --> 02:17.430 align:start And they said that there's been a threat and we needed to evacuate, and we dutifully got 02:17.430 --> 02:21.200 align:start up and got out of there and walked across the street. 02:21.200 --> 02:23.000 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Was anybody scared? 02:23.000 --> 02:26.840 align:start JULIET EILPERIN: People were not scared, and part of it was - I have to say, one of the 02:26.840 --> 02:31.370 align:start funniest moments is that all the press folks got up and then they just went back into the 02:31.370 --> 02:33.750 align:start press offices within the White House. 02:33.750 --> 02:37.680 align:start So we felt like it couldn't be that seriously - serious if they were not immediately 02:37.680 --> 02:40.850 align:start exiting with us. So that kind of made us feel better about it. 02:40.850 --> 02:45.190 align:start But it was this conundrum that we felt like this was perhaps the one time it seemed that 02:45.190 --> 02:49.660 align:start the Secret Service was taking the security of journalists more seriously than the 02:49.660 --> 02:51.600 align:start president of the United States, so - 02:51.600 --> 02:55.500 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: And the idea that I read about that the cameras, the television cameras, 02:55.500 --> 03:00.410 align:start were covered or tilted while reporters were out, what was the reason for that? 03:00.410 --> 03:04.750 align:start JULIET EILPERIN: They never provided an explanation, although one assumes it was so 03:04.750 --> 03:08.610 align:start that we would not be able to record what happened in terms of the security sweep. 03:08.610 --> 03:12.280 align:start But we were pleased that at least they used the Washington Post Sports Section to block 03:12.280 --> 03:14.560 align:start out one of ABC's cameras. 03:14.560 --> 03:17.630 align:start (Laughter.) So that at least made us feel like there's a use for the newspaper. 03:17.630 --> 03:20.500 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Very nice. MICHAEL SCHERER: Print's not dead. (Laughter.) 03:20.500 --> 03:24.100 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Michael, I want to talk about Rand Paul and some of the fallout from what 03:24.100 --> 03:28.940 align:start he did on the surveillance issue, where he allowed those authorities to expire. 03:28.940 --> 03:33.940 align:start And you've got now the potential for the conservative Bush/Cheney foreign policy 03:33.940 --> 03:40.780 align:start apparatus to come back at him hard because that's their surveillance regime which he was 03:40.780 --> 03:43.590 align:start targeting. What can he expect? 03:43.590 --> 03:45.920 align:start MICHAEL SCHERER: Well, you know, a couple years ago when he had that filibuster over 03:45.920 --> 03:49.560 align:start drones, it seemed like the party was shifting, that there was this big titanic movement 03:49.560 --> 03:52.790 align:start happening and he was clearly rising. 03:52.790 --> 03:57.660 align:start And he had tried to prepare himself for this moment by since then sort of moderating 03:57.660 --> 04:01.860 align:start some of his foreign policy views. He's now in favor of fighting ISIS, for instance. 04:01.860 --> 04:07.180 align:start He's fighting the claim of "isolationist." But it became apparent a couple weeks ago 04:07.180 --> 04:11.650 align:start now that the party has not moved, and I think a lot of it has to do with ISIS. 04:11.650 --> 04:18.120 align:start And when he stood up and did, you know, very bravely, courageously in his way, stop the 04:18.120 --> 04:23.260 align:start Senate in its tracks, force McConnell to take a bill on the NSA that he didn't want to 04:23.260 --> 04:27.590 align:start take, no one on the Republican field stood up with him. 04:27.590 --> 04:31.970 align:start And on top of that, clearly several people on the Republican side are just raring for 04:31.970 --> 04:34.540 align:start the fight. They can't wait to come after him. 04:34.540 --> 04:37.930 align:start And it - and it puts him where he didn't want to be at this point. 04:37.930 --> 04:41.980 align:start He wanted to be this expansionist candidate who's going to break out of his father's 04:41.980 --> 04:46.710 align:start box, and it very much looks like at this point in the race that the box is being rebuilt 04:46.710 --> 04:50.350 align:start around him. JOHN HARWOOD: Does not feel like that's happening, you're right. 04:50.350 --> 04:57.730 align:start Manu, Ted Cruz has been famous for his all-out, over-the-edge-of-the-cliff fights 04:57.730 --> 04:59.990 align:start against Obamacare. 04:59.990 --> 05:05.290 align:start Now Republicans have the prospect, if the Court rules against the president, of, to 05:05.290 --> 05:12.840 align:start avoid flack being directed to them, passing some sort of alternative plan, fix, extension 05:12.840 --> 05:16.140 align:start of subsidies. He says he's going to fight. What are the implications of that? 05:16.140 --> 05:18.740 align:start MANU RAJU: It's pretty significant. It really shows the divide within the 05:18.740 --> 05:22.420 align:start Republican Party right now and the challenges of Congress responding in case 05:22.420 --> 05:26.690 align:start they do lose - the administration does lose this court case. 05:26.690 --> 05:31.130 align:start What Ted Cruz told me is that he's going to oppose all Republican plans 05:31.130 --> 05:34.570 align:start to extend subsidies for 18 months. 05:34.570 --> 05:37.200 align:start This is a leading proposal right now in the Senate. 05:37.200 --> 05:40.420 align:start What they would do is that they would extend those subsidies for the millions of people 05:40.420 --> 05:44.840 align:start who would lose them for 18 months, but at a cost: they want to also force the 05:44.840 --> 05:51.420 align:start administration to kill the employer mandate, the individual mandate, pretty - the central 05:51.420 --> 05:56.710 align:start core of Obamacare. They want that in exchange for temporarily extending the subsidies. 05:56.710 --> 05:59.390 align:start But that is not even enough for Ted Cruz. 05:59.390 --> 06:03.090 align:start He wants to fight even that because he doesn't think that the subsidies should be 06:03.090 --> 06:08.160 align:start extended. He said at the very least states should be allowed to opt out of Obamacare. 06:08.160 --> 06:10.360 align:start That seems to be his bottom-line demand. 06:10.360 --> 06:12.930 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: And how do other Republicans feel about this idea of his? 06:12.930 --> 06:15.370 align:start MANU RAJU: They're divided. They're all over the map. 06:15.370 --> 06:19.880 align:start I mean, you're seeing a lot of House Republicans align with Ted Cruz on this and not 06:19.880 --> 06:23.050 align:start really like what the Senate Republicans are proposing. 06:23.050 --> 06:26.310 align:start And then you have Senate Republicans saying, look, we got to do something because the 06:26.310 --> 06:29.580 align:start system is going to be in chaos and we're going to take a brunt of the blame if people 06:29.580 --> 06:32.660 align:start suddenly see their health care coverage skyrocket. 06:32.660 --> 06:37.750 align:start It just really shows that if there is a(n) administration loss, the Republicans are 06:37.750 --> 06:42.060 align:start still struggling with a plan to replace Obamacare. 06:42.060 --> 06:45.430 align:start They're been saying repeal and replace for so many years; they still don't have a plan 06:45.430 --> 06:48.570 align:start to replace. And they may soon have to come up with one. 06:48.570 --> 06:52.410 align:start JOHN HARWOOD: Little bit easier to oppose something than it is to take something away 06:52.410 --> 06:55.070 align:start after people already have it. MANU RAJU: That's right. JOHN HARWOOD: Thanks, Manu. 06:55.070 --> 06:58.350 align:start Now, stay online all week long and check out the news you need to know on the Washington 06:58.350 --> 07:03.110 align:start Week website. That's, of course, at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek. 07:03.110 --> 07:17.370 align:start And that's all for this edition of the Washington Week Webcast Extra.