Robert next. Announcer this is Washington Week. Corporate funding is provided by life isnt a Straight Line and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. Fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected with Financial Planning and advice for today and tomorrow. Kaiser permanente. Additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and Patricia Yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. The corporation for public broadcasting and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. Robert good evening. We start with sobering numbers. An update on the health of the nation. More than 95,000 americans have died due to the coronavirus paemic with nearly 1. 6 million nfirmed cases in the United States. Next, a spike in the joblessness rate, almost 2. 5 million americans filed for unemployment last week, pushing the total to more than 38 Million People who have sought out support. States are working to reopen and President Trump on friday declared churches and other places of worship essential and threatened to override states that refused to allow them to open. Pres. Trump the governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important, essential places of faith to open right now, for this weekend. If they dont do it, i will override the governors. In america, we need more prayer, not less. Robert as the president works to fire up his base and reignite the culture war, a divided congress sits paralyzed by dysfunction over the scope of the next stimulus. Res a Heated Exchange this week between Ohio Democratic senator Sharrod Brown and treasury secretary steven mnuchin. How many workers should give their lives to increase the g. D. P. Or dow jones by 1,000 points . No workers should do that, mr. Senator, and i think your characterization is unfair. Weve provided equipment, worked with the governors, done a terrific job. Robert the campaign is a big part of the story. President trump has hit the road stopping in swing states and at times refusing to wear a mask. Polls show joe biden is pulling ahead while camped out at home. With 164 days until the election, and devastation in towns and cities, the question remains what will leaders in washington do next to address the crisis. We begin tonight on the economy with four well sourced and insightful reporters. Stephanie ruhle, Senior Business correspondent for nbc news and anchor forsnbc. Dan balz of the Washington Post, Ayesha Rascoe of National Public radio, and jonathan swan, National Political reporter for axios. Jonathan, beginning with you. I have been following yr reporting all week on President Trump and leader mcconnell. Tell me whats next on what congress will do, what the white hoe will do to address this economic dilemma . Jonathan theres some disagreement. Theyre trying to present a united front but the fact is within the republican conference there are differing opinions about what needs to be done, how big it needs to be and how quickly it needs to be done. Sources to spoke to me told me that the meeting yesterday with Mitch Mcconnell and President Trump, the main message that Mitch Mcconnell conveyed to President Trump is that this next package, phase four, needs to come in under one trillion dollars. As you know, nancy pelosi has just passed a 3 trillion package. Mcconnell has set one trillion as a red line. Hes also told President Trump that hes hearing from Business Owners who are telling him that the unemployment boost is making it too hard to get workers back. Mcconnell is telling trump that the unemployment payments are disincentivizing people from returning to work so that appears to be another red line that hes drawing. And the third thing hes trying to do is pour cold water over the idea of a huge infrastructure package. President trump has always been seduced by the idea of a massive infrastructure bill and there are some in the republican senate, like lindsey graham, who support that. Mcconnell h never been a fan of this and is trying to head this off before it gains momentum. Robert jonathan laid out a lot right there. As washington debates that, americans are struggling. Earlier this week, ayesha asked President Trump about minority communities. Ayesha you continue to talk about helping minority communities. What specifically are you looking at to help those communities . What actions . Pres. Trump one of the things i was most proud of was the Minority Community and all the work weve done for the minority communities. Black unemployment, hispanic unemployment, asian unemployment was the best ever in the history of our country. Right now were opening up areas and a lot of people are getting jobs. I heard some numbers yesterday that were really incredible and i think next year will be an incredible year economicay. You can never make up for all of the loss of life. Robert stephanie spoke with new York Governor Andrew Cuomo about the challenges in States Stephanie what tight rope are you walking as it relates to your states budget . Governor im not on a tight rope. I fell, im falling. Im just hoping theres a net before i hit the ground and the people of the state of new york hit the net. The net would be federal funding for state and local governments because youre right, i would have to cut if i dont get funding, what happens . I cut schools, i cut hospitals, i cut aid to local government, local governments are police, fire, et cetera. Robert but the trump white house, theyre taking a hard line on state aid and Unemployment Benefits. Heres my the Washington Post live interview with the president s top economic adviser, larry kudlow. What about extending the 600 unemployment benefit . Could you support that in a deal . One of the things we learned this is not a traditional macroeconomic recession, because of the virus story. But i think weve learned in the last recession, the socalled great recession, that increasing and extending Unemployment Benefits are disincentives to work. Id rather people went back to work. Robert ayesha, you asked the president about minority communities. You hear larry kudlow there drawing another red line on Unemployment Benefits. At is your reporting telling you about where the white house is ready to go to help minority communities that are struggling . Ayesha when i asked President Trump that question, he talked for a long time but never really gave an answer on what specifically he was planning to do. I did talk to a white house official, jauron smith, whos been a point person on minority issues and on things like criminal Justice Reform and opportunity zones. What he does is that the white house is looking at a host of options but one option in particular theyre looking at is extending opportunity zones which basically give tax credits to investors who invest in lowincome neighborhoods so the white house is looking at that and they say this will help give a boost to those areas that are already struggling and will be struggling even more now that the economy has completely slowed down. What critics, though, say, is that a lot of that tax credit, what it has done, is that its helped very wealthy investors and that it hasnt helped local residents, as much, and theres a real question of whether most of the money is going into real estate, not into operating businesses so how much will that help an economy thats on ice right now. Robert stephanie, how much is the Business Community leaning on congress to not give more in Unemployment Benefits . Stephanie the Unemployment Benefits is a tricky one because youd like to say, oh, the Unemployment Benefits are so good, people dont want to go back to work. Thats a huge overstatement. Remember, we have a Health Crisis that sparked an economic crisis. We turned the economy off. So just because businesses are reopening and theyre trying to rehire their employees, this isnt like a snowday and we can run back outside and go back to work. We dont have schools open. We dont have camps open. For working families out there, its not just oh, theyre getting so much money, they want to hang together. They dont have anyone to watch their children and they are getting more Financial Security being on unemployment because even as businesses are reopening, they dont need as much of a staff. If you work in the Restaurant Industry and you need tips, most likely youre only doing takeout so there is more Financial Security but it doesnt mean that people dont want to go back to work. Its a complicated issue. Robert stephanie, to follow up about your intervie with governor cuoco, is the cuomo, is the picture in new york different than in nebraska . Not every state is having the same experience across the country. Stephanie absolutely. Thats whats caused this economic crisis thats inflamed a culture war. If youre not in one of the hot spots, you are getting angrier because you dont feel covid in the backyard but you feel the pain of staying home. If you ran a Small Business in nebraska and you had to shut that business down you ran a gift shop or retail store you would be getting no business, you cant pay your rent but down the block walmart or target is allowed to be open because theyre considered essential where you can buy bikes and books and jewelry. So if you ran a Small Business in nebraska, you would be getting more and more furious with your State Government because you dont get to be open or to a limited capacity so the fact that many states havent been hit as hard as places like new york has made the Cultural Divide and anger even worse. Robert the cultural point, dan, is so important, the political point. Jonathan mentioned the trillion dollars, leader monnell doesnt want to go beyond a trillion dollars in the next round. You cover the campaign. Will republicans be forced to buckle weve seen deals in prior weeks with nancy pelosi and steven mnuchin. Dan i assume we will. One of the things to remember about the packages put together so far is that they were done very, very quickly and i think with a sense that this was not going to be as elongated as it has turned out to be and as stephanie says correctly, it is a very complicated process about reopening. So in trying to design the next phase of the support, i think everybody is to some extent backed in traditional corners and not thinking about what they need to do that is different in structure and in support than they did the first time around. But they will have to come together because if you listen to fed chaman powell, hes made clear, as have many economists, that the pain is going to be longstanding, that this is likely to be a slow recovery and that if nothing is done, it could be terribly, terribly damaging to businesses and to individuals. Robert dan, what about the debt issue and deficits . Is that even part of the equation in american politics anymore . Dan as a voting issue, bob, it is not. It has not been for some time. And i think one of the things thats happening is that a lot of people who have talked about it as an issue of concern he had to revisit it in part because we have considerably grown the size of the National Debt over the period of time of the Trump Administration and yet because of low interest rates, service on that debt is not that high and the United States is still able to continue borrowing. So as an issue, i dont think it is a dramatic issue. There are conservative republicans who still talk about it and still talk about it as if it is something that is going to have to be dealt with but in the middle of this crisis, i think even has kind of put that to the side as something, well, well have to deal with that down the line. Right now we have to deal with the problem of people being out of work and businesses being shuttered. Robert back to the culture war question, jonathan. Whats the real story with the president s decision to make an announcement about churches and places of worship being essential gathering places. Is this something hes ready to enforce with the department of justice or not . Jonathan its part of you have to see it in a larger picture. Obviously theres a huge political dimension to it and its not just about his base, about evangelicals. Its also a much Bigger Campaign strategy theyre following. What theyre trying to do is create a contrast with joe biden and this is not my opinion. This is from talking to people who are close to the president , who are talking to him about this. They are trying to create a situation where President Trump is the candidate, the incumbent, the candidate of reopening, of action, of dynamism, getting out there, no mask, striding boldly into this reopened future. And theyre going to keep hammering. I expect theyre going to make this a point in some of their advertising of biden hiding away in his basement, et cetera, et cetera. And one thing theyre already talking abt privately is the optical contrast of the conventions. So theyre sort of salivating over this idea of having a Republican Convention thats much more inperson with people packed in not packed in but to the largest extent possible and democrats doing a more viual convention. Again, same theme. There are huge risks involved in this strategy. One of them being, if you look at the polling data, trump is slipping among seniors, among senior voters and dan would have more detail and insight on that th i do but its clear to anyone looking at those polls, trump is not doing well again biden with seniors and theyre the group most vulnerable. So its a huge risk. Robert jonathan, youve piqued my interest because youre right, the campaign hovers over everything. Former Vice President joe biden sparked controversy on friday with comments he made to a radio host about African American voters torn between him and President Trump. Its a long way until november. We got more questions. If you have a problem figuring out if youre for me or trump, you aint black. It has to do with the fact that i want something for my community. Take a look at my record, man. I extending the voting 25 years. I have a record second to none. Robert former Vice President joe biden later walked back those comments and said he should not have been so cavalier. Ayesha, what did this moment reveal about the Biden Campaign . Ayesha it revealed they have a lot of work to do with the former Vice President and how hes able to talk about these issues. The African American part of the electorate is the huge part of the democrats base and you need to be able, as the democratic nominee for president , to talk about these issues, to talk about race and to talk about your record and especially when you have a record as long as joe bidens, to expin, maybe your evolution and the changes that you might make or things you might do differently now. For him to get caught up into questioning peoples blackness or to say that he was kind of joking, like, that is something that will need to be addressed and something hell have to talk about. It doesnt mean, i dont think this is going to soften his support from African Americans. But it is something that hes going to have to address. How do you talk about these issues . Robert stephanie, get in here. I see you want to jump in. Stephanie you knowhat else he did today, he made news. Had former Vice President joe biden given a thoughtful, mature explanation, which would have been the correct answer, do you think we would be talking about it right now . The answer is no. And President Trump, with his threeword slogans and the overthetop things he says, good or bad, controls the narrative. And joe biden has to figure out how to get into that narrative so while his word choices were not the best choices, he is trying to inject himself and get people to Pay Attention and were paying attention. Robert dan, whats your view . What does your reporting tell you . Youve been covering campaigns for decades. Dan a couple of things. One was this was not a smart statement, to put it mildly. It is not the right of any white person to tell black people whether or not theyre black and i think the Vice President , former Vice President and his team, realizeduickly this was aistake and that if they didnt deal with it right away, it could be a more serious mistake. I think it cld have implications. Im not predicting this but it could have implications on his choice of a Vice President. But beyond this, in talking to people who are involved in the Biden Campaign, one of the things they see is that in this period when people are saying he needs to get out of the basement and he needs to engage more, what theyve seen is that President Trump, as jonathan mentioned, President Trumps Approval Rating on handling of the coronavirus has gonerom slightly positive to notably negative. In one 538 summary i looked at today, it had gone from two points positive to 10 points negative. Theres other polling that underscores that. If youre the Biden Campaign, you have to say, the president is doing all of these things and, in fact, hes going backwards, while we are sitting here bng criticized for not doing much but were holding our own and in many of the background states he has a slight lead so their view is they are not going to engage in the traditional way with President Trump. They hope that he will be able to, as one person suggested to me, model president ial behavior, which is to say when he goes out, hell wear a mask and do things like that. But they feel at this point theyre not taking anything for granted, certainly, but they feel at this point that trump is hurting himself. Robert to that question, whether the president is hurting himself, jonathan, i dont want forget about your reporting this week on the dismissal of the Inspector General at the state department. Is there any concern inside the white house that they will pay a political price for these kinds of moves, and secretary of state pompeo, not only his situation with the i. G. , but having these big madison fancy dinners in foggy bottom . Jonathan its not so much those episodes that concern them. If youre talking about concerns in the white house and the Political Team around trump, the thing they are most concerned about consistently is what i mentioned earlier which is the polling among seniors. They are quite dturbed by the slippage in President Trumps numbers among seniors and how, to the extent to which biden is outperforming hillary clinton, her performance among that age group in november 2016. Theyre not panicking because its may and were in the middle of a onceinacentury pandemic and terrible unemployment numbers so its not the best time to take a snapshot of the electorate but they are concerned about it because if the numbers hold, youre in real trouble. You can forget about the nuances about digital campaigning, theres something much deeper than that going on which is what theyre worried about. Robert they worried about losing the senate . My own reportersaying theres concern about the g. O. P. Ayesha i think the president s response to the pandemic, that has to be a concern across the board. At this moment, i think there is a sense for the white house that the way to get ahead of this is get the economy going again, get everything runninggain, get things up and going, but it seems like when you look at the polls, what people are concerned about is their health and being safe and a lot of times when you look at the polls, the majority of people say they support social distancing. Theyre not itching to get out and go to restaurants and do all of these things again because they want to make sure theyre healthy and safe and the white house seems to be struggling with meeting that dynamic and that could have real implications all around for the senate. Robert stephanie, follow up on that. Stephanie the white house thinks one of the reasons they can help those businesses open and get the economy going is potentially if they put togher this liability shield. So businesses wont face any liability risk if customers or employees get sick and we know Small Businesses and large are concerned about that. If you ran a small gym, you might say, you know what, i could lose everything if i open and i risk getting sued. But on the other hand, if this administration is able to move forward and give that liability protection, think of all those businesses. If youre an employee, a customer, knowing that that business only has to think about their bottom line, not your safety. You might think again about goin robert final thoughts, dan, in the closing minute, about where this Campaign Stands . Dan it stand where it has stood for some time which is biden is leading in the National Vote but we learned in 2016 that the National Vote doesnt elect a president. The background states are pretty clear. Theres probably half a dozen true background states. It is very competitive in those places. Both ses say they want to expand the map but i think in the end those handful of states determine it. Theres one other area where the Trump Campaign probably should have some concern and that is voters who have an unfavorable opinion of both candidates. In 2016, donald trump won that constituency over hillary clinton. Right now the indications are that joe biden is winning that constituency over donald trump so thats another area of concern for them. Robert dan, you got my attention with that. I have a story t tell in the extra about that point. Thats all the time we have for tonight. Many thanks to stephanie ruhle, dan balz, Ayesha Rascoe and jonathan swan. You took us as close to the news as we could get this week. If youd like more, check out our discussion o our website. Well talk about the campaign and bidens serve for a running mate. We want to express deep gratitude for all the americans who serve our country on the battlefield or in our hospitals. Im robert costa. Good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org. ] announcer Corporate Funding for Washington Week is provided by life isnt a Straight Line and sometimes you can find yourself heading in a new direction. Fidelity is here to help you work through the unexpected with Financial Planning and advice for today, and tomorrow. Kaiser permanente. Additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and Patricia Yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. The corporation for public broadcasting and by contbutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. The American Public is so polarized on certain issues. And you wonder, how are we gonna ever get the different voices to come together to get something done . There was a symbolic impact of being the first asianamerican cabinet member. I tried to depoliticize my cabinet. And theres no better Public Servant for america than norm mineta. Does our constitution indeed protect all of us . As a former inmate of an american concentration camp, norms life and norms perspective embodied the japaneseamerican experience. What drives him is the idea that being an american citizen