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- [Voiceover] This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
- Hello, I'm Gwen Ifill.
We pick up online where we left off on the air.
I'm joined by Jeanne Cummings of the Wall Street Journal,
Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times,
Manu Raju of CNN,
and Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post.
You would really kill to know
what we were talking about off the air.
(laughter)
But I'm not gonna do it.
Instead we're gonna start with Karen,
who did what she does best this week,
writing a story that explains the political backdrop
behind policy fights.
In this case, it's happening in the States,
where Georgia and North Carolina have made
LGBT rights a real issue for Republicans in 2016.
Explain how, Karen.
- Well, in a couple ways.
In North Carolina, the governor, Pat McCrory,
signed a bill that would undo some legislation
that cities had passed that would have protected
people from discrimination based on their gender,
based on their orientation at birth,
and essentially this brings up the whole
where should transgender people be allowed,
which bathroom should they use.
Well, what happened is that, there's a real,
North Carolina is a center of commerce, a center of banking,
and all of a sudden there's a big backlash from
the national and international business community,
including Paypal announced that they are
canceling a facility that they were
going to be expanding there
that would've employed 400 people.
- NBA is making hints about the All-Star game.
- And so what you're seeing is tension between
the corporate wing of the Republican party
and the social conservative wing.
- But Nathan Deal went the other way in Georgia.
- He vetoed a bill that would have done
essentially the same thing, but a difference,
McCrory is up for reelection, Nathan Deal is not.
And in Mississippi, you also have legislation
that would allow businesses to discriminate,
allow businesses where they have religious objections
to homosexuality to, for instance,
refuse to provide services to gays,
to bake gay wedding cakes, whatever.
So what you're seeing essentially is a backlash
to the Supreme Court decision of last year
legalizing gay marriage, but I think beyond that
there is a real concern on the part of
a lot of leaders in the south of
how are you gonna mobilize evangelicals
to come out and vote in this election.
- Does that percolate up to the presidential race at all?
- It's been really interesting.
- [Gwen] Not yet.
- The Democratic candidates have been
out there denouncing this.
The two leading Republican candidates
have basically been silent upon any of this.
Again, not wanting to wade into what is
looking like a war in some places
between the corporate wing of the party
and the social conservative wing.
- Let's talk about another internal fight in the party,
and this is involving the Democrats,
and of course, the person we're all looking at
in this case is Bill Clinton.
There has been a consistent,
running theme with the Black Lives Matter movement
to hold Democrats' feet to the fire
on Black Lives Matter issues.
They've shown up at Bernie Sanders rallies,
put him in a corner,
they've showed up even backstage
at Hillary Clinton events, put her in a corner,
and yesterday, or earlier this week
we saw Bill Clinton confronted by protesters
at a Black Lives Matter,
well, actually at a Hillary Clinton rally,
where the Black Lives Matter movement folks
were holding up signs saying,
"Hillary Clinton called young black men super-predators,"
which she has since apologized for.
He got very, we're watching it now,
he got very unhappy about it.
The finger waving came out, the red face came out,
and I wonder whether that's helpful, Jeanne.
- Well, I think it is,
I don't think we know yet.
I think we have to see how it plays out.
Because what he was doing,
now Clinton was defending his own record there
as much as he was his wife,
and that explains some of the passion.
- The crime bill and things like that.
- That's right, they complained that that
created extended prison terms
and broke up Black families,
and so they had a number of grievances
that they were raising with him.
And what he tried to do in his remarks
was take them back into the '90s,
take them back to when crack cocaine was really
a serious threat in the urban areas
and the gangs were roaming in some cities,
and the primary victims of that crime were Black people.
And so his point was that his legislation
actually saved Black lives because crime went down
during that period.
- Do I give the Clintons too much credit
if I suggest that perhaps he is speaking to
a part of the Democratic party
and a part of politics at large right now,
White men, disgruntled White men on both ends of the party,
who see some reasoning in that,
and also to a lot of Black voters who think the same thing?
- Well the thing to, that's why I say
it's hard to judge how this will turn out.
This was a rally in downtown Philadelphia.
The crowd cheered him,
and that was a mixed-race crowd and they cheered him.
And so a lot of those people cheering
were indeed African-American voters.
So I think we'll see.
Some have said it's a Sister Souljah moment,
that he was bringing in some truth
to try to break through stereotypes.
I don't know that it amounts to any of that.
He's not the candidate.
- There was certainly some pique, we know that for sure,
whether he was speaking something he meant to say or not,
it was some personal pique.
Doyle, I want to talk to you a bit about Bernie Sanders,
because after the nomination,
yesterday I saw him asked at a town hall meeting,
I think it was on The Today Show or something,
by someone who was identified
as a Bernie Sanders supporter,
"What are you gonna do if you don't win?
"What happens to your movement?"
And he said, "That's an excellent question,"
that I didn't hear an answer.
- Well he sort of answered it, actually,
and even the fact that Bernie Sanders,
asked "What if you don't win," says,
he said, "That's not just an excellent question,"
he said, "And it's a fair question."
Most candidates wouldn't go near that question
with a 10-foot pole and in this case,
Bernie Sanders then said of course,
"Of course, we plan to win,
"and we're confident we're gonna win."
But, he then said, leaving out the, if we don't win,
but what he meant was, "If we don't win,
"we've started a political revolution,
"lots of young people have turned out,
"and we will work to continue the political revolution."
It's no secret, never been a secret,
it's not even a secret now if you ask people
in the Sanders campaign that his campaign
has always been about two things.
The one they thought was least likely
was that he would actually win the nomination.
The one they thought was more likely was that
he could revitalize a grassroots movement
on the left wing, the progressive wing,
the Democratic wing, as Howard Dean used to put it,
of the Democratic party.
And I think they've actually been surprised
at how successful they've been on both.
We know they've been surprised at
how successful he's been in the primaries,
he's said that himself with an air
of what seems to be genuine surprise.
So anyway, we can already tell
pretty much what he's gonna do.
First, yes, he's still running to win the nomination.
In fact, they're even talking about,
at least theoretically,
if it's a tie or close to a tie,
will there be contested delegates,
will there be unpledged--
- [Gwen] Tie or close to a tie where?
- Superdelegates at the conventions.
They're actually talking about a potential delegate fight.
That's off the--
- That's a lot more distant than for Republicans.
- They're talking about getting into the platform
and trying to push Hillary Clinton to the left,
they're talking about making a strong case
that she is going to need Bernie Sanders' voters,
and Bernie Sanders' endorsement,
and Elizabeth Warren's endorsement,
and they are going to keep their list
of two million plus supporters,
and try and keep knit together
this whole grassroots thing that they have done
for the next cycle and the next cycle--
- Well, it could be argued they could have a lot of leverage
if they play their hands right,
which is why I think he kind of backed away
from calling her unqualified this week.
Okay Manu, bring us up to date on what's happening.
We've seen, on the Supreme Court front,
we've seen Susan Collins meet with Merrick Garland,
we've seen Mark Kirk say he thinks there should be hearings,
and maybe a dozen Republican senators all in all
saying, "I am willing to meet with him,"
including Lindsey Graham, most recently.
But I don't really see any movement in the big story,
about the possibility of hearings for confirmation.
- You're right, because those two senators
who have called for hearings,
Susan Collins and Mark Kirk,
are the same two senators who called for hearings
immediately after Justice Scalia died.
We really have not seen a whole lot of movement.
The White House tries to make a lot out of a little.
The fact that some senators are willing
to have courtesy meetings and tell them,
"Well I'm not gonna vote for you
"and I don't think we should have confirmation hearings."
That doesn't really, the meetings don't amount to much--
- So Grassley's having breakfast with him just to tell him.
- Exactly, just to tell him.
What has been really fascinating here is,
obviously there's a big intense
pressure campaign on the left,
but there's also a very intense
pressure campaign on the right,
and if Republicans start to wobble a little bit
they're gonna get whacked.
We saw this happen in Kansas.
Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican Senator,
up for reelection, has a primary in August,
floated over the recess saying,
"Well, maybe we should have confirmation hearings.
"Eh, not a bad idea, yeah, I should do my job."
- [Gwen] Oh no.
- He did say that, and what happens,
he gets whacked by the outside groups,
they start attacking him,
and now he may face a primary challenge,
even though he walked that back and said,
"No, I don't even wanna meet with this person,"
and "We shouldn't have hearings."
And when I asked Jerry Moran this week,
I said, "What do you think?
"Were you surprised by the backlash?"
He says, "I don't even wanna talk about this anymore."
So this is, it just shows you that these guys
do not want to cave or show defect at all,
because they know that this will hurt them on the right,
and really goes to the larger calculation
for the Republican party,
is that they believe that this is an issue that will
bring up bases for both parties,
and Independents will be narrowly divided,
or evenly divided,
and a lot of voters just simply won't,
this won't be the issue that they vote on,
which is why Republicans don't feel
much reason to move on this topic.
- Sounds like the only concession Republicans have made
is, "Maybe we shouldn't look so rude."
- Yeah, exactly, and that's why a lot of senators
who are up for reelection say,
"Well, we were meeting with them,
"we're being courteous,
"but let's look to the next president to decide."
- Let's keep going.
Well, now we know that, and we'll talk about it some more,
but it doesn't seem like the finish line is changing.
Thanks you, to everyone, we are out of here.
But there's more online, including my blog about
another Supreme Court confirmation fight
nearly 25 years ago.
And it is as shocking now as it was then.
And we'll see you next time
on the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
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