- [Voiceover] This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
- Hello, I'm Gwen Ifill,
and welcome to the Washington Week Webcast Extra,
where we pick up where we left off on the weekly broadcast.
Joining me around the table:
John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times,
Peter Baker of the New York Times,
and then Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post.
This week we saw two, long-awaited candidate endorsements
and both were of the lukewarm variety.
California Governor Jerry Brown who has had
a long and fractious relationship
with both Clintons, waited until a week
before his state's primary before endorsing Hillary, saying,
"'This is no time for Democrats to keep fighting each other.
"'The general election has already begun.
"'Hillary Clinton, with her long experience, especially as
"'secretary of state, had a firm grasp of the issues
"'and will be prepared to lead our country on day one.'"
And even then, he praised Bernie Sanders.
And House Speaker Paul Ryan came around to the inevitability
of Donald Trump, but it wasn't exactly an embrace.
Here's how he put it in an interview
with the associated press.
- There is no kind of an agreement of sorts.
It was just needing to spend time
with our presumptive nominee to get comfortable
with the notion that he would be supportive
of the direction we wanna go, as a party, as a country.
- So whether they are lukewarm or not
to these endorsements even matter anymore?
- I think what's interesting is normally endorsements
are about the endorser trying to help the endorsee.
In this case, I think both of them and particularly Ryan
was doing it for his own purposes.
There's a real institutional struggle about what
the Republican Party stands for.
And Paul Ryan wants it to be the congressional wing
of that party that defines it.
So essentially he's realizing there's only one guy left
as the nominee, but if he wants to advance his ideas,
he's gotta get this whole argument off the table.
- Which is interesting because that (mumbles)
Jerry Brown doesn't quite have the same situation,
but I do remember, we all remember in 1992,
when he actually ran for president, and took a real shot
at Hillary Clinton, which made Bill Clinton not happy.
And they have never been warm ever since.
But I guess he was left in the situation
if he did endorse her, it would've been a bigger deal.
- Right, and he is governing California as I think
in many ways much more of a model
than he was back those days.
So I think he also represents more of the Clinton brand
of democratic politics than maybe he might have
at an earlier phase in his life.
- Which it leaves it to the two candidates
to really slug it out against each other.
Let's listen a little bit more
to their back-and-forth from this week.
- Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account
at his disposal when he's angry,
but America's entire arsenal.
Do we want him making those calls?
Someone thin-skinned and quick to anger
who lashes out at the smallest criticism.
Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?
- The only reason she's behaving like this
and the only reason she's been dragged so far left.
Believe me that she doesn't wanna go
to jail over the emails, okay.
I have read so much about the emails.
Folks, honestly, she's guilty as hell.
- Now that's not returning (mumbles)
what did Hillary say that he responds
to every little slight slight and
then he did it the very next day.
So it sounds like that's the deal.
- Well look, he kind of proved her point
with the tweets that he sent.
- [Gwen] Even during-- - During her speech.
- [Gwen] That's true.
- With the remarks that he made there with the interview
that he gave to the Wall Street Journal when he went after
the judge of Mexican heritage, which he said
was an inherent conflict of interest.
Each of them had material to work with.
A lot of Americans don't trust Hillary Clinton
so that is a line that we're going
to hear a lot from Donald Trump.
But Hillary Clinton has a message that is pretty broad,
saying this guy, you don't just disagree with him,
or it's not about his policies, or even his tone.
It's about his entire fitness to serve in the White House.
And I think we're gonna see her repeating
that message over and over.
- John, it's the first Friday of the month,
and we got the jobs report again.
And some of it, as usual, good news and some of it bad news.
It seems unbalanced.
Which was worse?
The fact that, or better the part
that unemployment rate dropped to under 5%, 4.7%,
or that we still can't seem to get any sustainability
in people getting jobs?
- It was a disappointing report.
The fact that only 38,000 jobs were created reflects
a slow down from the pace we've had the last couple of years
which was well over 200,000 a month.
There was not just this report.
It's recent reports.
Some of that reflects the hangover from,
slow down over the winter.
Slow down in much of the rest
of the world, China in particular.
But no, this was not a good report in the fall of
the unemployment rate came largely
because people left the labor force.
So it was not surprising that Donald Trump quickly jumped
on that as evidence of the ongoing disasters
he calls it of the "Obama Economy."
But Hillary Clinton was making broader arguments as well.
- Of course.
Well that's what happens when the news is bad.
I'm gonna tap into your historical knowledge
of the American political system, Peter.
This week we saw that there's
a full Libertarian ticket prepared to appeal
to the "Never Trump" group that exists somewhere
out there in the Republican Party.
The Libertarian king it proposes is Gary Johnson,
the former New Mexico governor.
And the vice presidential candidate, and some of it's
kind of more interesting whereas Bill Weld,
the former Massachusetts governor,
he was very, very insistent this week that he
was glad and relieved to leave the Republican Party.
So have you ever seen anything like this before, really?
Especially with a candidate for the main party who's so--
- It does add to the former governors who both
have great credibility at one point
in their careers now, taking on
this sort of marginal parties leadership.
Having said that, Gary Johnson has been running now
for president for awhile, first inside the party and out.
His (mumbles) like marijuana legalization and so forth.
He's been a marginal figure.
Bill Weld had been out of pocket for a long time.
He tried running for governor of New York.
(mumbles) after leaving Massachusetts.
They have not prominent figures lately.
But they say something about the part of the party
that's disenchanting with Trump.
I don't know they have much
of an appeal beyond a small amount.
But Ralph Neger didn't have much more than 3%.
And he argued it wouldn't made a big difference in 2000.
So we'll see if it gets anywhere.
- Except it's really, really close.
Well, who knows?
- [Peter] Yeah, and particular states, you know.
- In this year, I am so ready to be surprised
by anything that happens next, honest to goodness.
Thank you all very much.
Stay online all week long for latest developments on these
and other stories from the best reporters
in Washington, our panelists.
That's of course at PBS.org/WashingtonWeek.
And we'll see you next time on
the Washington Week Webcast Extra.