- [Voiceover] This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
- Hi there, I'm Pete Williams in for Gwen Iffil
this week and joining me around the table are
Joan Biskupic of Reuters, Yochi Dreazen,
of Foreign Policy, Michael Sherer of Time magazine,
and Robert Costa of the Washington Post.
On the campaign trail earlier this
week Hillary Clinton took on the
issue of trust, or more pointedly,
why people don't trust her.
- A lot of people tell pollsters they don't trust me.
Now I don't like hearing that and I've
thought a lot about what's behind it.
And you know you hear 25 years
worth of wild accusations anyone would
start to wonder and it certainly is true
I've made mistakes I don't know anyone who hasn't.
You can't just talk someone into
trusting you you've got to earn it.
- So Robert what's the strategy here
is this the so to speak elephant in the room
and she has to address it?
- She does have to address it.
There's a divide within Clinton's
orbit about exactly how to handle
the trust question because long time
Clinton loyalists think this is
a baked in effect, this is something
from a lot of right wing attacks
over the years and others who are
not necessarily the long time
loyalists they say look this email
server issue has been lingering for
over a year it needs to be addressed
in a more formal way and in a better way
to get these swing voters over to their side.
But there's just not a clear strategy on the trust question.
I think the VP pick will have something
to say, of signalling, what kind of person
she'd surround herself with as President
but in terms of her messaging and her
rhetoric she just is someone who
kind of navigates around the question
and tries to prove herself rather than taking it head on.
- Well are you saying there's nothing she can do about it?
- I think in terms of concrete statements I'm not
so sure anything would be a silver bullet
but I think just on the campaign trail
and how she talks about things,
in how she talks about her plan and her agenda
she can maybe convince some people that she's not
this secretive former Secretary of State because
unfair as that may be to some Clinton supporters
that is the caricature that is the
impression being tasked on many Republicans.
- Getting away from Presidential politics
just a little bit, Congress left the town
for the Fourth of July holiday without coming
to any agreement on funding to combat the Zika virus.
So Michael why is money to fight Zika such
a big contentious issue?
- It's Congress. (all laughing)
There's two reasons, one is that
there's a policy dispute over how to
pay for this money, it's about a billion dollars
and whether or not it's appropriate to
tie things to this bill about the Confederate flag
or about contraception and Planned Parenthood.
Because it's sort of a must pass piece of legislation.
But there's also a political fight here.
You know Republicans are looking for issues
with which to attack Democrats and McConnell
engineered one essentially this week.
And you have, you look at some of the close
Senate races, you have Republican Senators
going home this week and saying I'm trying to
save American lives and Democrats are blocking
the bill for Zika.
The sad truth of this is it's probably already
too late for a lot of this country--
- We're already swatting mosquitoes.
- We're swatting mosquitoes, this is money
that will go to states and localities
to actually fight mosquito breeding.
It's expected right now, it hasn't been confirmed,
there's Zika cases across the USA but whether
they've been transmitted by a mosquito that's
already here, as expected hasn't been
confirmed across the South.
And this is a disease for 70% of the people
who get it not really much of an impact,
maybe you have a little bit of a fever,
but it's also one that can cause serious
fetal brain defects and can cause horrific conditions
for young children.
It's kind of the thing that you want the government
however dysfunctional it is to say we got this,
you know we're gonna go take care of this.
And they're saying now that because of the
delay in funding not only are mosquito eradication
efforts gonna be delayed, funding for making more tests
available, right now it's kind of hard to get a quick
test on Zika, and funding for the vaccine which is
very promising right now is months away from arriving
here will also be delayed.
- So will they do this when they
come back and when will that be?
- They're going to take it up again and
there's going to be as there often is in Congress
quite a lot of light and heat and I'm sure
they will come to some settlement.
I think the idea that we would go through the
entire summer without them coming to some terms,
I think they left town both thinking, the Democrats
thinking they could go home and say
this is about contraception and the
Republicans who want to stop funding
for Planned Parenthood and how outrageous they are,
and the Republicans saying this is about health and
Democrats won't let us stop you from the deadly mosquito.
They both left town thinking they could get
political gain but at some point that'll,
that dynamic will go away.
- Okay so elsewhere in Congress the House Committee
investigating the attacks in Benghazi, Libya in 2012
issued it's final report of the week.
Many of the revelations on blame readiness
and the role of the military were expected
but was there something Yochi that you noticed that was
surprising in this report?
- Yeah I want the hours of my life back
that I spent going through it but there was
one table that I found very interesting,
which was that during the chaos of the attack
that the Libyans who came to the compound
and tried to save the Americans who were
at that point wounded and were trying to get out
were former Gaddafi loyalists who'd gone into hiding
after the US toppled Gaddafi and when you think
about just the sort of meta nature of that,
that first of all the US didn't know that force existed
but the US went in, toppled Gaddafi, flash forward,
in the chaos of post Gaddafi Libya Gaddafi loyalists
were the ones who then tried to save
the US personnel and obviously failed--
- And they did that one their own we didn't ask them.
- Correct, we didn't even know they
existed as an organized militia.
- And does the report say anything about
how effective, how hard they tried,
what sort of effort they made?
- From the way the report is written
it seems like they put their lives at risk
to try to do it, that they fought hard to try
to do it and then tragically they failed.
- Thank you very much.
Finally the last decision of the Supreme Court term,
it also may not have gotten your attention
as much about abortion but the very last ruling
was a unanimous one overturning the conviction of
former Virginia Governor Bob McDonald.
It was an ethics case involving Rolex watches and rides
in fancy cars but Joan what did the Justices say?
- Pete have you ever remembered a last day in June
that we had a unanimous ruling?
And I can tell you why because they said that
Prosecutors were too aggressive in his case.
In terms of what's required under
federal bribery and fraud law.
You probably remember back in 2014 former
Governor, then Governor Bob McDonald and his wife Maureen
received a lot of gifts, really fancy gifts, the Rolexes,
money to help his daughter's wedding reception,
loans I think a total of $175000
from this man named Johnny Williams--
- [Pete] No relation. (laughing)
- You say, yes, from this man who was promoting
a nutritional supplement and he wanted, he wanted
state help, he wanted the University to do
some research on it, basically for promotion.
And then Governor McDonald had done held some
meetings, had hosted some things, and he
was prosecuted on a law that says you can't take
a bribe for what's known as an official act.
And what the Supreme Court said unanimously
is that an official act has to be something that's
concrete, discrete, specific, that isn't
just hosting something, it has to be--
- [Pete] And about some pending government decision.
- Yes it has to be almost like as if there were
a lawsuit pending or some meeting, not a meeting,
some sort of government action that was
about to happen that was imminent
that you actually took action toward not some
sort of just loose idea of maybe promoting
some constituents project here.
So it was during oral arguments in April
as you probably remember all the justices
across the ideological divide which rarely happens
all seemed to think the government had gone too far here
and there was a certain, we'll hold our nose
on what Bob McDonald might have done here,
but in terms of the law it's, he didn't break
it, at least with what we've got right now.
- So very briefly, one can he be tried again and
two does this make it harder for the government
for the federal government to prosecute corruption?
- Easy one for number one, he could be tried again.
It depends, the Supreme Court said that we're
not saying whether there's any evidence below
that could actually meet our new standard.
In fact it said, go back go back to the lower
court and see first of all if the standard could be met
and if it can't be met the government
could also always come in and retry it, retry him
if it actually thinks it's got a case.
I mean obviously the guy's political career
you would presume has been ruined but you don't know
what's going to happen legally.
But in terms of prosecutors yes this makes it harder
because any time prosecutors have some wiggle
room where they can say something, holding a meeting,
doing acts that weren't towards some specific event such as
a prosecution or some sort of lawsuit can't be
held as grounds, I think it is a big deal for prosecutors.
- Alrighty interesting facts from you all thanks very much.
For more on the Supreme Court and abortion check out our
blog post at PBS.ORG/WashingtonWeek .
That'll wrap it up for now, I'm Pete Williams
be sure to join us once again around the table
for another edition of the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
(mellow music)