President Trump is taking extraordinary steps to exert power and influence over what he thinks of as the country's elite institutions as we approach the 100 day mark of his second term, we are seeing that defiance has a price, a price best summed up by one of his fellow Republicans.

because retaliation is real.

Next Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

There's too much going on, of course, and it's our job tonight to try to make sense of some of it and to try to analyze the broad themes of this administration so far.

One issue of paramount concern, conflict between the judicial branch and the executive branch.

President Trump quite obviously believes that the executive branches first among equals, but most judges don't.

We'll discuss this tonight and more with Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times.

Laura Baron Lopez is the White House correspondent for PBS Newshour.

Eugene Daniels is a senior Washington correspondent, and next month we'll become a co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend.

And Mark Leibovich is my colleague and a staff writer at The Atlantic who will not be co-hosting the weekend.

Um, welcome, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

One week it's gonna be David Rubinstein in the chair and the David Rubenstein studio and you guys, your minds are going to be blown.

I just realized that at the open.

Yeah, yeah, he has a great show.

Um, let's start, um, by talking about Lisa Murkowski, um, senator from Alaska, just for a moment, uh, and, and listen to a little bit more of what she said earlier this week.

We are all afraid.

OK I'm Oftentimes very anxious.

about About using my voice.

Um Um, because retaliation It's real.

Laura, do other senators feel this way?

Yes, they do, and other senators have said it or expressed it in some form.

Senator Thom Tillis has talked about the many death threats that he's getting, but she is voicing something that many will say more in private than they do in public.

I mean, that being said, this shouldn't really be a surprise to her or to others that she, that Republicans are in this situation because the administration, even before Trump took office, have repeatedly emboldened extremists and used hate speech to talk about their political enemies and, and so this is something that Any Republican, you know, you think of the Liz Cheney's, Adam Kinzinger, others of the world that they've had to deal with for years because they spoke out.

Lisa Murkowski is one of the few Republicans left in On the hill who voted to who voted to convict she has immense power with that, with that as well.

Yeah, is she, is she the closest thing now in the Senate to a Mitt Romney, now that Romney's gone.

I think she is.

I think she's one of the few left out of Republicans in the Senate who is willing to vote against the administration who is willing to voice opposition to things that they're doing.

She has also expressed frustration about the actions of Elon Musk and Doge and was very vocal about that early on.

Mark, let me ask you because something struck me as odd about that statement.

Um, not Not that it's a reflection, not that it's not a reflection of a certain reality, but you know, it's odd because she's like supposed to be a leader and being a leader means not Expressing that that you're scared to, to lead.

Is there, is it, is what's going on here?

Is that just a moment of like honest honesty.

I, I think so.

I mean, it is so pervasive what she is talking about.

I mean it was like almost blurting out that like the sky is blue in some ways.

I mean, I think just to be clear too, she's not talking about intimidation, political intimidation like Elon Musk throwing a bunch of money at an opponent opponent or or someone being primary she's actually talking about physical, physical, and you know the death threats, um, you know, doxing.

Um, swatting all the stuff that goes on or at least threats thereof that goes on and just to be clear, I mean that is a a, you know, that goes on a lot these days.

I mean, threats certainly go on a lot, especially since January 6th.

Um, it's been a real hallmark of this era, and just to point out, you know, what should be clear, um, you know, politics, you know, you're supposed to governing is supposed to take place by politics, by persuasion, by debate, authoritarianism is government by intimidation by.

threat by violence in some cases, right, Peter, let me, let me frame this out a little bit more, and I'm not trying to be uncharitable to Senator Murkowski.

I understand the nature of the threats that we all live with these days, and but she's almost talking about the Josh Shapiro level issue where we saw earlier this week of physical intimidation.

The question for you, maybe it's a naive one, is.

Aren't senators among the most protected.

Americans, the most protected critics of really not.

I mean, the Capitol Police does not shadow every member of Congress, certainly, certainly when they're out of town, only occasion the leadership, yes, and then occasional uh instances where particular members have particular reasons for threats they might provide protection.

Otherwise, no.

They provide their own protection, which they have to pay for out of their campaign funds or whatever else, but there's not Mitt Romney had to do, he did have to do that.

Liz Cheney does that to this day as far as I know.

I mean, a lot of people have had those kind of threats and forced them to live there.

lives in a very different way than there used to be, and senators don't want to, by the way, live with security, trailing around.

They want to be open and accessible to their people.

It goes against the nature of what our representative government is supposed to be like, but this is the reality today.

Jeff, I think there is what you're trying to get at here is that if this is what senators are feeling.

If they're this scared and they're willing to tell that to people.

How should the normal American feel, right?

So how should the normal American that is watching what's happening in the country and doesn't like it and feels scared for different reasons.

They're looking to those.

senators and those members of the rest of the members of Congress to say, you're the leaders of our country.

Help us, right?

Those Republicans that are in Alaska that are talking to Lisa Murkowski, who are fearful for whatever reason they're looking to her for some kind of like for her to be sturdy and and sure of things and so that sure, be honest with folks and talk about how scared scared we things are, but there's another element to this to where it doesn't ensure that the people around you feel more confident in you as a leader, right.

Right.

I mean, does this lead to other senators, Republican senators saying, you know what, Lisa, you're right.

We should band together.

No.

We should band together like the law firms have banded together, no, I, I, I think like you're not one, you're not going to see that because as we were just saying, there's less and less members of Congress in general who are not, um, who are not a part of the, the Trump train who aren't excited about the things that are happening, who aren't going to go.

out front and, and do what Lisa Murkowski is doing.

She's part of a dying breed of members of Congress and Republicans willing to do that, to do the thing.

Um, so no, you're not gonna see a bunch of people get up and stand up and stand outside and do this, talk about how they don't like what Trump is doing, how they don't like what Elon Musk is doing, because they're scared and whether they're scared of the physical violence or the political on the physical violence part and that has also been seen on both sides too, of course, President Trump was the target of two different assassinations attempts last year, just this last week, I think this the would-be the assassin of Brett Kavanaugh was sentenced, I think, in court.

Steve Scalise several years ago, but it does seem at times that Trump and his people seem to be more willing to use words like traitor and treasonous that might excite people to take action, and I think that's the worry what level of responsibility you have as a president, as a leader of this country, to try to tamp down the kind of passions that arise, rather than stoke them something I've been curious about on the Josh Shapiro attack, which is a serious Attack a serious arson attack, um, obviously we're understanding now that it was an anti-Semitic attack in in in uh in in its in its nature.

Um, the kind of a muted response generally to it.

I, and I'm wondering if you think that if it had been a right winger and not some anti-Israel guy or something, um, it would have been a louder, a louder outcry.

It's a good question.

JD Vance did express his concern for Governor Spiro.

It was an awful thing that happened, but the president talk about it much and, and I think you know, what you would have seen under a lot of different precedents is a is a reckoning, a way of like, let's talk about why our society is like this today and what we can do about it to come together even as we argue as we should about big and serious issues.

That's just not Trump's nature as a leader, and he would set the tone.

He set the tone.

I mean, President Biden often tried to do that.

The former president, you know, he ran on that saying that he was trying to tone down the rhetoric, but I think what you're seeing from President Trump is whether it's in the type of language he uses.

by calling people a traitor or treasonous.

He puts a target on multiple people's backs when he specifically names them when he repeatedly attacks people by name, be it judges, be it lawyers, be it any political enemy that I don't know anything about that, you know never experienced that.

I mean, I remember well, I'm sorry, Mitt Romney himself told me, he once said, you know, the first job of a president is not to say something that's going to inflame the random nut and Trump doesn't have that, and I think he went farther to say something to the degree that he actually will sort of possibly, you know, try to communicate in some way to incite, you know, things that will make people who he disagrees with scared, and that is, you know, that is out there and Romney has told people that he was told by other Republican senators that they voted against conviction in the 2nd impeachment trial specifically because they were afraid of their families, for their families, that has a real impact beyond just, you know, a nervousness on.

Part of elected official, it seems to be impacting their votes, and I think part of the muted response from on the Shapiro of the situation that happened this week is also that we're unfortunately getting used to a lot of this, right?

It was a part of the news for a little bit, but you know, a few 5 years ago, 10 years ago, this would have been the only thing we talked about as reporters the only governor's man it would be the only thing that other members of that members of Congress to talk about the populist political violence is a trait of authoritarianism.

Well, speaking of authoritarianism, good transition.

Good all-purpose transition.

Let me talk about another Republican this time, a judge, Jay Harvey Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Obviously not an active Republican now but appointed by Ronald Reagan, a well-known conservative jurist.

This is part of what he wrote in his um in his order and his decision upholding the lower court decision on the Abrego Garcia, um, issue.

The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.

Further, it claims in essence that because it had rid itself of custody, there's nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking, not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses, still held dear.

Uh, Peter, the, the judges are pushing back.

I mean, maybe other people aren't, um, but Contrast this, contrast what's going on in the judiciary with what's going on in the Republican side of the Senate.

Yes, in fact, what's really fascinating about the Abrego Garcia case is that every judge who has heard this from the district court all the way to the Supreme Court, liberal and conservative has had the exact same response.

I mean, there's some semantic differences in some of their rulings, but basically they're saying you, the government admit you screwed up and violated the law by saying this mandate in El Salvador, even though there was an order saying you shouldn't do it.

Therefore, you have responsibility to do something about it.

And Trump is basically saying is, no, I really don't, you know, I've got nothing to do with this, even though I have the president of El Salvador sitting next to me in the Oval Office.

I have no idea how I could possibly convince the guy and instead now they're launching essentially a character assassination against a brigo Garcia himself.

Now look, do we know if he has ties to MS-13 or not.

They haven't presented new evidence.

They're basing it on police reports from 2019 that did not charge him with any crime and a subsequent 2022 interaction with police, where he was also again not charged with any crime.

But Judge Wilkinson says this also in that opinion.

He says, uh, Is he a member of MS-13?

Perhaps, perhaps not, but if the government is so confident in their case that they need to bring it through to the court of law.

and bring him back and bring him back and so that he can go through the due process.

That's the whole point of due process is you go through all of the points that you need to, the, the government and then the defense, um, come together, they go back and forth and then we figure out what actually happened and whether or not someone is a member of this gang or that gang or whatever.

Well, but also the essence of this, and I'm pretty I'd be shocked.

This wasn't part of Donald Trump and the White House's calculation is that the judiciary ultimately doesn't have an army at their disposal.

I don't have any way to enforce, you know, their positions.

I mean, they can, you know, launch contempt proceedings and so forth, but ultimately, you know, they see this as sort of an argument that will play out in a political spectacle that could benefit.

Let me, let me go to this larger point, um, and, and let's start by, by, uh, I want to show you something that Judge Wilkinson said 12 years ago, speaking at, at Duke University.

I want to show you that, um, very uh interesting uh moment, and then I want to go to Donald Trump talking about judges.

Let's let's play Wilkinson first.

When the tyrants of the 20th century, these monsters.

Like Hitler and Stalin and Mao wanted to take over society chief among their targets.

Is the is the rule of law.

They don't want independent courts and You know, this is a A sacred trust that we have here and there ought to be a reverence for the law is the law.

And now let's watch Donald Trump this week talking about judges as annoyances or impediments.

I was elected to get rid of those criminals to get them out of our country.

Or to put them away, but to get them out of our country.

And I don't see how judges can take that authority away from a president.

So the million dollar question is, have we reached an emergency.

That you're alluding to.

Well, you know, is this a constitutional crisis, I mean, to use the word, I mean, it seems like it.

I mean, along with other things that could could be getting into the neighborhood, but isn't it only a constitutional crisis if the White House says Yes, we've read your ruling, and we're not following it.

Sure.

It's pretty close to that now now how close they are making the argument, and this is a distinction that they are in keeping with the Supreme Court's ruling as they interpret it.

Now it's a pretty strained interpretation because the Supreme Court says you shall facilitate.

The return of him.

Well, we're facilitating if he happens to show up on our border, we'll let him in.

It's a spurious argument most lawyers would say, but they're not saying that they're disobeying the court.

They may come to that point next though if at some point Justice Roberts or the or the court, you know, in in Mass makes some kind of very succinct statement about their position here, not open to interpretation and just sort of take it from there bring him back and put him through the process.

I mean, the Supreme Court made pretty clear that the action that The administration took was against the law to deport all of these people without due process.

It's against even the alien Enemies Act, which is what they use to deport them, uh, and, and so, you know, there are many constitutional scholars who already say that we're in a separation of powers crisis, a rule of law crisis.

I mean, Judge Wilkinson himself in that opinion said that maybe he's naive.

He used the word naive to believe or have hope that the president will and the executive branch will respect the rule of.

law and understand that it is vital to America.

So he's already saying that he believes that the country, if it isn't, is on the precipice of a crisis.

Is there a chance that Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court are not writing it so clearly because they don't want to know what might happen.

There's a little Murkowski quality maybe here.

Maybe they don't want to find out.

Well, because like the way that Donald Trump and his team works because they want, if you, if you need them to do something, you have to say it, right?

You can't kind of wink and nod at it.

You can't Do the gray area like you've done in the past with other presidents who are who say they respect the rule of law and are going to do what the Supreme Court says to do with a district court says this is a group of people who, if you don't make it black and white, they're not going to do it and that's what's happening when you're talking about their their interpretation of it.

They also believe in the unitary executive theory that they have more power than other presidents have both exercised and believed that they've had in the past, I think to your point and what Mark's point is because these judges are wary of the conflict.

They're really Being careful trying not to provoke a situation where they are basically ignored because what is the credibility of the courts.

Well, then it happens and Judge Bosberg, for instance, says, I'm going to have a hearing on whether you've committed contempt in this other case, for instance.

It's pretty clear they did.

It seems like you could make a most judges would have said you're in contempt, period.

He's trying to say, I'm giving you a chance to tell me how you're not and we get out of this or a puppy he's trying to say don't push me, don't push me, but at some point they have to make a decision.

I have to ask the question then.

What happens the day after.

They actively ignore a clearly written order in a constitutional crisis and then nothing happened.

What happened?

There's no army.

The, the, the, well they would be found in contempt potentially criminal contempt, but to your point earlier, they don't, right, and then no, but then I guess there would be some Supreme Court version of the Boasburg statement, you know, sort of go up the ladder.

I mean, I guess they can probably threaten contempt and maybe future disbarment or lawyers who work on this case and the government.

I don't know.

I'm just can also level financial penalties against specific government officials if the judges are able to figure out which government officials violated their order and you see that Bosberg is kind of heading down that path right now.

But again, yes, Justice Department in many of these situations would be in charge of enforcing uh any of the judge's orders.

I'm trying to deduce what the Supreme Court is doing and and might do, but let me you all cover the White House.

Does the, does this White House want an open confrontation with the Supreme Court where that question is put on the table in front of I don't think the Supreme Court would engage in such a thing, or at least in a way that would be.

I don't know that would, that would be obvious or that would actually put them in Congress.

I mean, I disagree a little bit.

Donald Trump want a confrontation with the Supreme Court.

He probably doesn't, I would guess, partly because he sees them maybe as an ally.

What are they telling you inside?

I think they do want a confrontation or they want certain things, uh.

To be brought fully to the Supreme Court, whether it's birthright citizenship, which we're seeing in the Supreme Court deciding that they're going to take up, or, you know, they want to reverse the impoundment Act, which, which makes it so the president can claw back a bunch of money when he decides I don't want to spend federal funds.

I think they want those confrontations because they're hopeful, maybe not that they'll clash with the Supreme Court, but that the Supreme Court will rule in their favor.

I think they want a conference, particularly on this immigration case, for instance, because they think it's a political winner, right?

They could have made this go away.

They could have brought the guy back from El Salvador and still deported him under a different process that would have been seen as legal by the courts, presumably, but they didn't do that.

Why did they not do that?

Because they like the idea of saying you guys aren't defending the rule of law.

You're defending bad guys who are members of gangs and thugs and all that kind of stuff more issues I want to get to, um, the first Eugene, sorry, but you're the, you're the head of the press, um, in America.

You're the president of the White House correspondents Association.

We're not going to talk about the White Correspondents' dinner, but, but you're, you are one of the people leading the charge to make sure that uh the press has autonomy and freedom to cover the White House.

What's the state of play?

Um, I, I think the state of play is not great.

I'm going to be honest.

I'm Lisa Murkowski and be honest here.

Um, part of the reason is because you have, um, in the White House, folks who believe that the govern the people who are doing the governing should also pick who are, who's covering them, right?

In the past, even during his first, um, term, Donald Trump believed that, or at least allowed, that the people doing the covering picked who did the coverboard, who who'd covered them.

And I think the The reason is because you don't want government officials to be able to have viewpoint discrimination like we've seen with the Associated Press, them choosing people who are gonna bring it into the Oval Office.

We're going to ask easy questions who aren't going to push him back on it and the press and the White House going back to the 60s to the television era, the beginning of the television era, just accepted that these are the norms.

And there's always been tension, right?

Like, you know, I tussled with the, the Biden folks on many a phone call, right, that that part of it is normal, right?

Even with the WHCA um and the White House.

The difference is that the kind of ham-handedness of we are going to control this because and, and frankly lying and saying, you know, the WHCA has been closed off and hasn't brought in people.

We have brought in a place that both of us used to work at, political, and digital outlet, um, the Daily Caller, right?

Um, Christian Broadcast news, all these different types of organizations who are members of the association, good members of the association, um, and have been who have gotten chances to and have continued to be in the polls.

and all of that.

So we're in a position right now where we are ready at any time to continue to take over the pool and do all of that because it's not about us, it's to make sure that the American people have people in the Oval Office who are asking questions, um, who are asking easy questions, who are who are pushing the president to defend the things that he wants to do in this country.

It will come back to this because this is going to be going on and, and on and on.

I'm afraid, uh, Peter, uh, one last question for you.

I want to stay on the subject of the Chris Krebs, uh, ran, um, digital, ran, ran for Homeland Security in the Biden period, um, an organization that looked at, um, disinformation campaigns now is being targeted by the Trump administration and part of the EO directed against him, the executive order directed against them, blamed him, said that one of the reasons he is unqu qu al ified to even hold a security clearance is that he argues that Donald Trump lost the 20 election.

He's had to now leave his job in the private sector because of this um this kind of pressure campaign.

Um, what does it mean for the health of our democracy that is going on, says a lot.

Chris Krebs, of course, worked actually under the Trump administration, was fired by Trump when he said at the end of the 2020 election there was no evidence that the election was in any way.

unfair or rigged, and you're right, this executive order which directly targets him by name.

I've never seen any president ever until this one signed executive orders targeting people he did not like by name, saying the Justice Department should investigate this person, and you're right to say the Justice Department should investigate Chris Krab because he refuses to accept that the 2020 election was rigged.

In other words, my version of reality, what the president is saying he should be investigated.

In effect, he's saying it's a crime.

To say the 2020 election wasn't rigged.

So That's straight Orwell territory.

It's pretty up there that we're in to tell the truth is what we are going to have to leave it there thanks to our guests for, for joining me and thank you at home for watching us.

Um, for a closer look at Elon Musk's complicated family situation, please visit theatlantic.com for a fascinating story.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.