Kamala Harris will soon hit the road with her running mate, but in the meantime, she seems to be enjoying taking the fight directly to Donald Trump, who just this week questioned her racial identity.
I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.
So I don't know, is she Indian or is she black?
If you've got something to say.
Trump's Biden playbook is no longer operative, and he's struggling to find a way to stop Harris's momentum.
Next.
Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.
So, first of all, congratulations, America.
You survived July.
You remember July, right?
Joe Biden announced he wouldn't run again, a woman of color became the nominee of a major party.
Someone tried and failed to kill Donald Trump.
Trump picked JD Vance to be his running mate.
And meanwhile, Joe Biden, who was written off as a political force, somehow managed one of the most complicated prisoner swaps in history, the result of which is that our Wall Street Journal colleague Evan Gurshkovich is now.
Joining me tonight to discuss all of this and more, Anne Applebaum is my colleague and a staff writer at The Atlantic.
She's also the author of the new bestseller Autocracy Inc.
The dictators who want to run the world.
Elizabeth Be Miller is the Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, Steve Inskeep is a co-host of NPR's Morning Edition and the author of Differ We Must, and Vivian Salama is a national political reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Welcome all.
Vivian, let me start with you.
It's uh, it's just, it's a great week at the Wall Street Journal.
Tell us, tell us how it feels.
I mean, every emotion that you can imagine all at once, obviously we are beaming.
I saw his parents yesterday.
I saw a sister and brother-in-law and to see after a year and a half of such a weight that was on them lifted.
They were smiling from ear to ear.
We all were, I mean, cheers, celebrations, um, Evan is finally free.
He never should have been behind bars in Russia in the first place and that comes A little bit of frustration for us that that just never should have happened, but at this point we're looking forward.
We want him to be well.
We're happy that he's free and we wish him the best.
He's a kind of a stone cold reporter.
He asked Putin in an official document for an interview as he was being taken out of Russia, correct?
Part of the sham protocol as he was leaving was to request clemency directly to Vladimir Putin and so in that request he did ask for an interview and today the spokes.
For the Kremlin responded and said that it is under consideration, so there you go.
Mind you, I don't think they would even entertain the idea publicly if they thought he was guilty for a second, but they got to get their story straight.
Either he's a spy or a journalist, obviously, and so, but Evan is free and that's what matters.
Anne, could you talk a little bit about the geopolitical implications of this.
I mean, obviously we're you know, all Americans are excited about the release of Evan, the other two Americans, plus a group of Russian dissidents, but You know, this is a Putin got a reward for essentially kidnapping, among others, an American journalist.
I mean, there's there's a dark cloud here.
There's a dark cloud.
I mean, it's in a way you have there were two things going on.
There was the moral imperative to release Evan, to release the Russian dissidents, you know, and on the other hand, there's this moral hazard, you know, we, we, we let go a contract killer, a bunch of cyber criminals and several other spies, and in exchange we got hostages.
I mean, there were, you know, Girkowitz was not obviously a was not a spy, you know, and so there's a, there's a fundamental unfairness and of course the risk is now that Putin thinks, well, I can capture anybody at any time whenever I need to get somebody back and that's, uh, and, and you know, and that's the big risk here, right?
I mean, I have to, I mean, everybody here is uh has been foreign correspondent and traveled extensively for their jobs.
Elizabeth, I have to ask you as someone who runs a large operation.
Sending reporters to Russia in the future.
No, we don't do that.
We, uh, uh, our Moscow bureau chief is in Berlin, who was determined that it's just not safe for a New York Times bureau chief to be working right now in Moscow and he's obviously right, so no, it's a, it's a real problem and uh I mean the one, the one another positive thing that came out of this is that Biden, it was interesting.
Biden said it, which is that allies matter and I think he said that obviously.
The nod to former President Trump to point out that he worked very closely with the German Chancellor, with the Slovenians, uh, right, you know, as he was about to drop out of the race.
Are you suggesting that Biden was trolling Trump?
I'm suggesting he he had a very good day at the end of a really bad month.
Steve, let me ask you about that.
The uh, I mean, it's interesting, Biden obviously had Been involved in trying to figure out this very complicated formula for the release of uh Evan and and the others, um, he seems to still have it.
In some way it's a good thing to remember anybody who's president, if they're doing their job properly, we don't know 90% of what they're doing, and it turns out we did not know the details of this until it came out.
It's also interesting who he brought along for the ceremony of arrival and for other occasions in the last several days, the vice president is with him again and again and again.
She made her own statement which Republicans criticized as word salad.
It was a little wordy, but the statement is very clear actually.
It's clear what she meant.
She said, This shows the importance of having a president who understands diplomacy and the value of alliances and so in a way that was almost a campaign stop for Vice President Harris to be at the center of the you don't often see them at 11:30 at night walking together across a tarmac and a dark, steamy night in Maryland, you know, and I think that was a very striking tableau that by the way, I mean this is one of the criticisms you never, you very seldom saw Joe Biden at 11:30 at night, period.
But he seemed, you know, very energized by, I mean, it's what's, what's done is done.
But you know there is a, he seemed to be very involved in the guts of this negotiation.
I have one question for Anne, who's a professional criminologist.
I don't know if that's fair, but I'll just say it anyway, yeah, uh, but a little Kremlinology here about, about the response.
There was a feeling, um, that, uh, Putin was going to reward Donald Trump when he becomes president and Putin was assuming perhaps that Donald Trump would win that Trump would be rewarded with this release and I know there's a lot of speculation and among people who study Russia and the Byzantine ways of Russian foreign policy.
There was this assumption is, does the timing surprise you at all?
So the only, my only guess is that it may even be that Putin is now worried that Trump won't win and I think he really wanted this his contract killer, this guy Krasakoff, who was in Germany, he wanted him back.
Tell us what he did and he was, he murdered.
Uh, um, uh, it was a Chechen dissident, you know, in cold blood in the middle of the day, in the middle of Berlin, and was caught immediately and Putin really wants him back because he's he's one of the, you know, top secret police had sort of an honor guard at his arrival, he really wanted him back.
It's thought that he has some older connection with him that he knew him from his, you know, KGB days, and he really wanted him back and it may be that you know, and the only way, by the way, he got him back was because Biden convinced Schultz to release him, so the German chancellor had to make the decision to release him and originally the Germans didn't want to do it because you know the guy was a murderer.
He murdered someone in the middle of the German capital and they didn't want to let him go.
And so I think it was maybe the fear that if Trump won that Schultz wouldn't release him, so it may I think a lot of this was about him and you know this one particular person who he wanted back and the rest of it is just sort of making other people happy and making the Germans.
A bunch of Germans who were released too, right, right, it's fascinating because we come back to this point about, about allies I think when, when Vice President Harris said that, I think that was top of mind that the idea that what Joe Biden did was work the phones intensely with other foreign leaders in a way that those of us who have covered the Trump the first Trump administration would find unlikely, uh, he did call Ukraine, remember, just keep in mind there was a there was a perfect I think.
the so-called perfect phone call.
Let's move to the behavior of another autocracy.
I'm going to stay on the theme because of, uh, Ann's book, um, Iran is threatening very openly to uh seek vengeance on Israel.
There's this expectation that some large scale uh action is going to happen sometime soon with Defense Department just announced that America, America moving more assets.
To the region defensive shields over Israel, etc.
I'm, I'm curious to know if you all think that this is the moment when things spin even more out of control in the Middle East.
I mean, Steve, you've been to Iran many times number of times at a minimum things get closer to spinning out of control.
I have a memory of being actually at an earlier version of this table months ago and we discussed this.
We discussed how it was not in Iran's interest as Iran saw it to.
Go into a wider war and it seemed they would avoid it as long as they could.
Nevertheless, they have been struck in this way.
Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, who we should remember was the political leader of Hamas, widely regarded as a terrorist group, but they killed him in Tehran at a particularly embarrassing moment to make a point, to make a point perhaps, but in any case to kill him and leaving Iran with no choice really but to respond in some way.
Well, there's a choice.
Well, from the Iranian point.
Of you and so the question is, can if Iran still sees it in their interest not to engage in a much wider war with Israel.
Can they find some way to respond as they have in some other recent incidents that fall just a little bit short of an utter conflict that was the expectation that's the expectation right now of, you know, national security officials in the United States, but nonetheless, the Pentagon has moved, is moving combat aircraft and warships into the region.
In preparation to perhaps do what happened but maybe more so than happened in April.
Yes, there was this is round 2 of the missile when there were all these drones and the US and the allies Britain and other allies Jordan, Saudi Arabia all were involved but to also remember that this comes at a moment where the US has been trying to broker a ceasefire agreement and Gia was in in a large way involved in those talks as is Netanyahu and just Hamas in general and to have this happen at this moment.
brings us further away potentially from achieving that goal which Biden would love to see, which is to achieve that.
I want to come back to in a second, but Vivian, stay on that point because it's interesting, you know, there's a lot of criticism in Israel or in national security circles in Israel that there's no love lost, uh, here.
There's no, there's no sympathy for Ismail Haniyeh who's responsible for the murders of a lot of Israelis, but there is a belief among Netanyahu's many critics that he is trying to for and political reasons extend the war and he's not paying attention to the hostages.
There's more than 100 Israelis still being held hostage in Hama.
Do you have any insight into the, the, the salience of this kind of idea that Netanyahu did this very much on purpose in order to slow to slow this down and and get the confrontation with Iran that may be coming.
I certainly can't read Netanyahu's mind, but I can tell you that numerous US officials who I've spoken to have speculated that that is his intention.
Obviously he has a lot of political battles at home that prolonging any kind of conflict might put off kind of hit him ultimately having to face the music, but at the same time you have this tit for tat that continues with Iran and Lebanon and Israel, and whether or not it escalates into a full blown war.
A lot of these parties don't necessarily want it to, but ultimately what it does do is delay a ceasefire.
Biden himself said at Andrew's at Joint Base Andrews last night when he was when the hostages were coming.
He was asked by the pool of reporters, does this, how does, how does this affect the negotiations this this assassination because it doesn't help, you know, and it was like, uh, it was a, a quick, uh, quick, uh, sentence full of meaning.
He's been through it a lot.
If I can add one other little piece of the story that's that's fairly new is there is beginning to be evidence that the Russians are beginning to help the Iranians with new kinds of weapons, these Iranian drones that are going to Russia are being.
Using the word in Ukraine are being remade and remodeled and possibly sent back to Iran, so it could be that if the Iranians are bolder than they used to be.
It could be because they have more allies in the.
What a convenient way for me to introduce the main topic.
A the theory of the theory of which is that you are looking at a tacit alliance of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran for for starters, I.
Talk about the risk here that if the US, let's say in the coming hours, days, uh, has to come in in the defense of Israel and maybe Jordan as well if Iran is firing rockets and does something kinetic as they say, against Iran is that bringing the US closer into an open confrontation even with Russia or other elements of this.
Autocratic alliance.
It's a network.
It's not a, not an alliance.
Explain the difference.
It's they, they don't have, they, they don't have anything in common ideologically, so this is theocratic Iran and communist China and nationalist Russia, and they don't have a special room where they meet and make decisions.
They just cooperate when it's in their interests at at particular moments and right now Russia is very interested in confronting the US and challenging the US wherever it can because of the war in Ukraine.
So you say.
It's not an alliance, but it sounds like Russia would benefit from having Iran act as a proxy.
Yes, of course.
OK, so but you're saying that the coordination is looser than we think they didn't sign a treaty somewhere where it says, you know, like the NATO treaty, I will help you in case of X, but are they interested in the US being dragged into a war in the Middle East?
Yes, they are, right?
Anything to drag America into any bad situation that will keep them away from helping one more question for you before we turn to domestic politics on this, on this question.
Of the next hours.
Lloyd Austin very publicly is moving American assets closer to where a fight could take place, um, is Iran deterrable?
I mean, can, is this the sort of action that would cause a rational or semi-rational autocratic regime to say, you know what.
Biden seems upset.
Maybe I'm not going to go do the thing.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna do.
I mean, I can't read their minds either, but I mean, yeah, I wish you all could read I can read Netanyahu's mind it more exciting show, right?
You all just mind reading No, no, I mean, but yeah, I mean the idea in all these cases is to raise the cost, you know, raise the cost for them, make them think about it harder.
That's what we didn't do, by the way, in 2022 in the run up to the war in Ukraine, we didn't, you know, the Ukrainians weren't sufficiently.
Armed and I mean I think that was a lesson that in each of these that was also a problem of the Ukrainians not believing American warnings that Russia was going to, yeah, but, but, but right, the pathway was open, I guess.
Let me, let's turn to we can come back to this, but let's turn to uh the the domestic scene for a minute.
Um, we're all waiting to find out who Kamala Harris picks, um, as vice president, the solidifying conventional wisdom in our city is that it's Shapiro's to lose the governor of Pennsylvania, um, talk for a minute, um, about his positives and negatives on this ticket.
Start with the positives are he's the governor of Pennsylvania and she has to win Pennsylvania.
There's no way for Kamala Harris to win the presidency without Pennsylvania.
That a plausible way.
Well, no, that's the, yes, uh, and, and he's got a, he's a very popular Democratic governor and uh he is well spoken.
He's good on the stump he's.
Smart, uh, on the other hand, I'm just going to repeat what the former president said today that well he's Jewish and that means that she former president meaning Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bush, OK, just to be clear, just put it right out there just like he always does, and there is some concern that um you know this will be a problem in Michigan with the Muslim groups who are Donald Trump said it, you know, the Palestinians who support Kamala Harris, I mean, he went so far as to, you know, again.
Playing this divisive strategy playing Phillo Semitic but actually sort of baiting anti-Semites what Trump's move was, I would say so, yes, OK, and so that's, I mean, how, how serious is that as a challenge compared to the positives that he brings?
They're very enthusiastic about him so far, and they see his background politically and otherwise as something that could really help and bolster Kamala Harris's appeal to voters right now, obviously the Republicans.
Elizabeth was saying have been looking for ways to kind of find division and and and set set them apart and kind of.
Show voters why this candidacy couldn't work, this ticket couldn't work, but right now there's a lot of enthusiasm.
There are a number of other potential candidates, but it seems that Governor Shapiro so far is in the lead, and he's very popular, Steve, the assiduous reporter that you are, you spend a lot of time talking to voters in Pennsylvania.
I did give us a sense of uh of why Shapiro is popular in his state, um, much more popular than uh Joe Biden.
Well, why he's popular, he's taken what is seen as more moderates.
are more realistic positions that fit with voters in Pennsylvania, people in Pennsylvania are worried about security.
Shapiro had a different view of protests and of law enforcement than perhaps some other Democrats have had in the last couple of years, and people have responded to that.
I think of one voter I spoke with in Pennsylvania in particular, and she was, she said genuinely undecided, registered Republican, uh, is generally against abortion.
Nevertheless thinks Republicans are too extreme on abortion, would like to vote for a Democrat, she said she wasn't sure she could vote for a woman for president, but then went on to say this registered Republican that Shapiro on the ticket would help.
There are Republicans that you can run into in Pennsylvania who like this Democrat, and that is such an extraordinarily rare thing to encounter anybody going across party lines.
Your question why she couldn't vote for a woman for president.
She said things that I've heard from other people, and this is out in America.
I am reporting to you what I do.
I don't doubt it.
You don't shoot the messenger here on PBS.
Her concern is like that that personal nature of being in the room with all these men?
Will they respect her?
Will they treat her as an equal?
My first thought is if you have the power, they're going to be forced to treat you as an equal, but this voter and other people that I've talked with wonder how those interpersonal relations are going to work familiar with the life and work of Nancy Pelosi.
I could have brought it up.
I could have it.
There were people who said that about Barack Obama, you know, what a black leader be respected by other people around the world.
I heard people say that at the time, Steve, you brought up abortion as an issue and um let's talk about JD Vance for a minute.
Um, he's had an interesting mixed week, um, as a candidate, people are finding, finding different things that he said over the years that don't make him popular uh than just be diplomatic talkative on podcast.
He's, he's, you know, he.
Made the mistake of going on podcasts and talking a lot.
Um, the, um, there's a one podcast that just came out 2021.
He was asked should a woman be forced to carry a child to term after she's been the victim of incest or rape, and he answered, Look, my view on this has been very clear, and I think the question betrays a certain presumption that's wrong.
It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term.
It's whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.
So here he's arguing Against seemingly the incest or rape exception.
I've got to imagine that this is not this kind of view is not making people happy at Trump headquarters.
No, of course not.
This is, I don't know, uh, this was not a, uh, a great pick, and I, it sounds like the president, former President Donald Trump thinks that himself.
He knows when he was speaking to the NABJ convention, he went so far as say, well, it doesn't matter who's on the ticket as vice president.
It doesn't matter.
So that is what he now thinks of his uh his vice presidential pick that doesn't matter, it's all about me.
Now he's had a terrible, terrible rollout, cat ladies, we can go on and on.
There's also another issue that JDB.
was still chosen when Biden was in the race, he was chosen in a Biden environment in a Biden environment where also coupled with the fact that Trump believes that his vice presidential candidate really doesn't matter.
Biden himself was uncomfortable with the discussion of abortion, the debate of abortion, his Catholic upbringing made it a very uncomfortable subject for him to tackle.
Now Kamala Harris is leading the ticket and it's a completely different race, particularly on this issue in the last couple of minutes, I want to go to Anne with something that Donald Trump said.
At the NABJ convention.
It was not the thing that got the most attention, um, but it had to do with with January 6th when he was asked whether he would pardon January 6th rioters.
Uh, he said, he said this.
My question is on those rioters who assaulted officers.
Would you pardon what's gonna happen?
Oh, absolutely I would.
You would part of if they're innocent, I would pardon them.
They've been convicted, by the way, the Supreme Court just under Well, they were convicted by a very, a very tough system.
So Ann, they, they were convicted because there's videos of them doing crimes.
Let's just park that aside.
I'm curious interpreting what he said through the prism of what you understand about the autocratic mentality.
What do you, what are you getting from that appearance he's getting people used to the idea that courts are politicized and can be manipulated, and that's OK, that's normal that that rule of law is, is malleable and he's getting people used to the The idea that there could be something different, rule by law, which is what happens in Russia and China and North Korea, which means that the leader decides what the law is, you know, and so I proclaim them innocent and so they are and, and, and he is changing the way people talk and last question on this.
Do the Democrats benefit from talking about his lack of fealty to democratic norms, or is that not a main issue in the next 3 months?
I think they do as long as they're also talking about the future and what will change and what will happen, you know, it's not they can't run a campaign that's just about the past, right?
And what would change in terms of January 6th and you do think the American people will accept the pardoning?
Of these January 6th rioters.
Some people will, and some people will find it profoundly offensive and that it will be yet it would be an unbelievably divisive issue, of course.
Well, Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now, to cheerful note, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was trying to go up note, but here we are.
Um, but I want to thank our panelists for sharing their views and their reporting and to our viewers at home, I want to thank you for joining us and a reminder to add Anne's book, Autocracy Inc. to your summer reading list.
Talk about cheery books.
And if by remote chance you haven't already read Steve's book Der We Must, it's not too late, it's still available.
I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.
Good night from Washington.
