This is what President Trump seems to enjoy the most.

Holding court in the Oval Office, Mara Lago North, and hosting and sometimes lecturing world leaders.

Scenes projecting power, potency, and his central role in the conduct of foreign affairs.

But there's a different reality outside the Oval Office.

One in which polls are showing him unpopular with the majority of American voters.

One in which Democrats just swept key races, indicating people are impatient and unhappy with the country's direction.

Next.

This is Washington Week with the Atlantic.

Corporate funding provided by.

In 1995, two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all.

With no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage, and 100% US-based customer support.

Consumer Cellular Freedom Calls.

Certified financial planner professionals are proud to support Washington Week with the Atlantic.

CFP professionals are committed to acting in their clients best interest.

More information at let'smakemakeplan.org.

Additional funding is provided by Coup and Patricia Euan through the Euan Foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

Sandra and Carl Delay Magnus, Rose Herschel and Andy Shreves, Robert and Susan Rosenbomb, Charles Hamoy through the Charles Hamo Fund, Steve and Marilyn Kerman, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you once again from the David M. Rubenstein studio at Weta in Washington, editor-inchief of The Atlantic and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

The main topic of concern this week for the practical-minded at least is this.

Does the American air traffic control system still work?

And if it isn't working, who's to blame?

We'll talk about the government shutdown, now the longest in history.

And we'll talk about some other bad signs for the president's political standing tonight with Leanne Caldwell, the chief Washington correspondent at Puck.

David Ignatius is a foreign affairs columnist at the Washington Post.

Mark Leovich is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

And Jeff Zelony is the chief national affairs correspondent for CNN.

Chief, be careful the way you address him.

Uh, thank you all for being here.

Leanne, let me start with you.

So, America, our country is the world's sole remaining superpower.

It can project force into any corner of the world.

It has the world's largest economy, but we can't seem to get people to work in the air traffic control system.

So, the flights are being cancelled um left and right.

I guess this is because the government doesn't work.

But what I need to know from you is who to blame?

Who do we blame?

Blame?

Well, that's a good question.

Um, if you ask the Democrats, it's the Republicans.

I'm asking you.

I'm asking you as the Republicans that this is the Democrats fault.

So, um I'm not going to put any blame except for all of them are to blame because uh the Democrats are absolutely right.

Republicans control the three branches of government.

They need at least seven Democrats in order to get votes to fund the government.

But the Republicans have not until now negotiated with Democrats to find those votes.

The Democrats are bringing in a completely unrelated issue, this issue of health care, because they have no leverage at any other time in this government because they have a president who will only work with Republicans.

And so they are using this to try to make a point and to get Republicans to the table to negotiate on an issue that is important to them, and that's these Affordable Care Act subsidies.

So now we're 38 days into a government shutdown.

Um, it is really starting to hit the American public.

people are starting to feel it and uh you know probably most impactfully are the people who can't afford food who are in food stamps the SNAP program and the administration tonight is trying to appeal a court order to pay those benefits up now that doesn't make the government look so great that doesn't make the Trump administration look so great Jeeoff I mean who is forget the uh the the the reality of it from an optics perspective.

Who is in the most danger here?

Who's in the most political danger?

The snap issue seems more dire for obvious reasons than the air traffic control system, although that is a sign of dysfunction.

I mean, particularly going into we're three weeks before Thanksgiving, we're kind of like focused on uh right as we're going into the holidays and the idea that the administration has chosen to not find money to fund the food assistance program for some 42 million Americans, one and aid Americans, but they have found money uh for military payments and ICE officers and others.

That's a choice.

It's a choice by the administration, but it is beginning to catch up with the administration and Republicans.

You heard the president say it him um himself this week when he blamed the election fallout on the shutdown and he uh had an a previously scheduled lunch with Republicans on Wednesday morning, the morning after the election and he was very angry and he's angry about the shutdown.

Uh but he's not really doing anything to um sort of bring it to an end.

But look, I think this week felt to me like a turning point.

Who knows how long it will go, but the president was angry today talking about um you know how Americans just aren't seeing all what he's doing.

I brought down costs.

He hasn't.

And that's what he promised to do one year ago.

So to me at least, this week seemed somewhat different.

We'll see if it sort of brings an end to the shutdown.

The Senate is staying in this weekend, which is something they've not done for any of the other what five weekends, four or five weekends.

So I think by next week there'll be movement.

Sure.

tough work.

The uh I just realized that the way you phrased it.

Uh what what we're right now in the season of people in large numbers flying home to eat vast quantities of food.

Um and it's it's interesting that that that SNAP is directly affecting people's ability to eat and this this fly and fly home.

I mean, that's that doesn't make the people in charge look um very good.

I mean, Mark, do you expect them to actually come to uh come to a conclusion soon on this now that the president seems to be seized by the idea that this is not good for him?

I mean, not necessarily.

I mean, one, Democrats seem to be much more dug in than they were before Tuesday.

I mean, I think they seem emboldened by Tuesday's elections, which Democrats did very well in.

Also, I mean, Trump might be angry and frustrated, and he might be telling Republicans this, but it's not like he's coming to this from a place of humility.

Maybe we should back off on A, B, or C. No, he's doubling down.

He's saying, "No, let's kill the filibuster," which is a complete non-starter.

So, it it seems like wasted energy at this point and also something that's counterproductive within, you know, within the Republican party.

David, you watched Washington for quite a while.

There probably been other other periods of kind of dumb dysfunction.

This one has to rank pretty high.

This is the breakdown of our government.

this shutdown stretching toward two months uh heading toward Thanksgiving when everybody wants to fly home.

Our air traffic system is is you know having to slow down you want to say is on the verge of of of beginning to to to break.

Uh and I worry that the Democrats effort as Leanne said to try to make a point.

Um the the point that they're trying to make is is through causing pain for the people by, you know, holding fast and, you know, showing that Trump is a is a, you know, refusing to make concessions on healthcare.

I just worry that that strategy is about to crack up.

that the Democrats could could uh take the win that they had this week.

You know, this is a week Democrats just rolled in the Tuesday elections.

And this is a moment when they as a party that's confident, I think, could find a path towards a compromise that would make them look good and and make the country feel like where they simply come out and say, "We want everybody to eat and fly around and they're the party that's going to solve this problem."

I I can easily see, as I say, a way to take a win, and they don't seem to want to do that, right, Mark?

The big victories this week, how big were they?

I I would say, um, so you're talking about New Jersey, Virginia governor's races, there's a New York mayor's race, which doesn't really count because that was sort of an intrade-mocratic I mean, New York is not I'll put a pin in that.

Put a pin in that.

I'll talk about that later.

Challenge that.

I think they're big.

I mean, I think both in some I mean, Spanber Abigail Spanberger was basically seen as the favorite in Virginia.

She won and Mikey Cheryl less of a favorite in Virginia.

Both of them won res in sorry in New Jersey.

Both of them won resoundingly.

I think the margins are what has gotten everyone's attention.

They both won by double digits.

Um you know the California ballot initiative passed um pretty easily.

So and also in some some smaller district races.

I mean there it was across the board.

So, I do think that it was such a route.

It has to get pe get people's attention more than your normal off-year election would.

Jeeoff, what does it mean to you this victory?

I mean, look, the margins are so key here.

I think two things, the message and the margins.

How did they win?

I spent quite a bit of time on the campaign trail the last few weeks with both Spanberger and Mikey Cheryl as well as their opponents.

And how they were talking about President Trump was totally different.

not talking about arguments of democracy, not talking about uh sort of bigger picture things.

They were talking about tangible things.

The Trump administration has and has not done in New Jersey, for example, the Gateway uh tunnel project.

The president angry at Chuck Schumer, so he's going to stop that project.

A huge infrastructure project that's jobs for New Jersey.

In Virginia, the shutdown was front and center.

But more than that, just everything this administration has done to scientists, to federal workers.

But uh Abigail Spanberger rarely talked about Donald Trump um in ways that Democrats were a year ago.

So I think the message how they won and the size of the victory is absolutely um it a gives Democrats a shot in the arm, but it's a bit more than that.

I think it offers a bit of a road map when you look at the blue arrows that show that every county in Virginia with the exception of one and all 21 counties in New Jersey uh went bluer.

places like Lowden County, right outside DC here.

It's uh it's interesting and that's why Republicans are are rattled by this.

I want to come back to this issue of the New York City mayoral race.

Uh my my the obvious observation people are making is that New York, as Brooklyn goes, so goes Queens.

Uh it's uh which is not actually true, but uh but the point is is that New York City's electorate is so different than the average American county electorate.

um that it doesn't mean what democratic socialists might want it to mean, but tremendous amount of energy and and young people like seeing a person who's not 85 uh be uh smart and intelligent and talk about fairness.

So, Spanberger leading indicator or something or Mum Donnie maybe meaning something too.

I I think both in that first of all, they're both under 85.

They're both under 55, I guess.

I mean, I don't know how old they're both under 50.

They're both under.

So, I I do think you can get away with a lot with it when there's a seen as a youth movement, especially given the gerontocracy that's been in control of the Democratic party for the last.

The Democrats debate this week, I think, has to be, you know, who did win in the party.

If if you're a moderate national security Democrat like Mike Cheryl, like Abig Abigail Spanberg, you'd say our our view of where the party should be, you know, absolutely dropped.

If you're a progressive, you you point to Mumdani and I think the Democrats are going to have to struggle to work that out like what is this soul the identity party and I think that um uh it's absolutely true that the the the winner was youth and the idea of turning the page to something different.

You know, that's the one thing that unites all these races.

So the the thing that most Democrats that I talked to say is that this is finally a realization that that they all can win as being a Democrat.

They all ran on the issue of affordability.

They all met their districts or their states where they were in the sense that they represented the people that they were trying to get votes from adequately.

um Mandanian very liberal New York City uh Abigail Spamberger who was also talking to rural voters in Virginia and the suburban voters in New Jersey with Mikey Cheryl.

And so Democrats feel very confident that after years and years of requiring litmus tests on if you are a good Democrat or not where the party moved to the left that it's now for the first time point case points that that you can be a Democrat and win as long as you are representing your district.

I was talking to a Democratic source yesterday and they said one of the things that they're most excited about are two G uh Democrats flipped seats from red to blue in Georgia for the public service utility comm the public service commission but it was a statewide election and that in in red Georgia that could certainly turn out to be more important than the New York City mayor you know that could be bigger than the mayors right I mean we don't know but but speaking Speaking of of the mayor, Jeff, the uh the idea that the Republicans are going to hang Mum Dani around the necks of the party's reputation.

Obviously, people are talking about this.

Um, does Manny pose a threat to the Democrats in the sense that the Republicans will say this this guy is the face of the Democratic party?

Forget all these moderate national security Democrats.

the mayor of New York is going to show up in more midterm election ads in races that are hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Uh, without a doubt.

But I think it's a lot it's a much harder argument for Republicans to make because of Spanberger and Cheryl.

If they had won one of them and lost the other, I think it would have been um sort of easier.

But Mami is one of the faces of the party.

But to your point, it's a big tent.

But Spanberger, Abigail Spanberger, I was thinking to an an interview she gave just a few years ago, uh, talking about socialism and socialists.

I mean, she said that is not part of the party.

So, it's a very different wing of the party.

But the question for Democrats going forward, how big can their tent be?

We used to talk about Republicans having a big tent.

Now, their tent is smaller.

Um, but I think that we'll see.

But, yes, he's going to be an issue in the midterms, of course.

Yeah.

I just think that it's easier to get away with a big tent in the midterms when you I mean, you're obviously not going to run Zoron Mandani in Texas, right?

I mean, you can actually cater, you can pick candidates that that work for your state, for your congressional district, and what have you.

I think the real reckoning is going to come in 2028 when you actually have to pick one candidate and one ticket.

And I mean, is there going to be like an AOC versus a I don't know, Governor Pritsker, Governor Nuome, uh, whoever.

I mean, I think that's really when the the debates come.

I mean, are are we going to see this kind of blow apart?

Like, now we now that the fight has been joined.

You got your national security moderates, which are the majority of the party elected officials, and you've got the squad 2.0, Mandani, and his godfather AOC.

So, there there's going to be a battle for for the soul of the party.

On Wednesday, uh the the day after this amazing Democratic set of victories, I went up to Capitol Hill to a gathering of uh candidates who want to flip uh Republican seats.

They were in for the the Democrats had a week for for candidates.

It was fascinating talking to them how each of them was uh as one person said almost running for mayor of their district focusing on local issues.

The advice they were getting from some some prominent Democrats who hosted this was you know distance yourself from the national party.

Don't hang national Democratic party issues around your neck.

You know see what's happening in your district.

talk about affordability issues and and so my takeaway was, you know, that is probably going to be the unifying spirit for the party is be local.

You know, don't get dragged down that by the issues that were so so prominent in 2024.

One of the most important Democrats in generations announced that she's retiring this week.

Obviously, a grand strategist of the party, very successful speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Jeff, uh, who replaces her as as as a tough strategist in this party?

The short answer is no one.

I mean, Nancy Pelosi has been at this for four decades.

Uh, the Affordable Care Act would not have happened without her.

The opposition to the Iraq war uh, in ' 06 and 07 was brewing because of her.

there's no one with the longevity or depth of uh I mean her range across the you know from national security views to domestic policy views really isn't replicated by um anyone that I can think of on Capitol Hill but I do think that she has many uh people who are in her wake and we've talked about a couple of them right now Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Cheryl two examples of people who came into Congress in 2018 Alyssa Slotkin for example these national security uh Democrats so in some respects they do but in terms of the pure raw politics of it.

I don't see anyone any one individual replacing her.

She did um sort of install Hakee Jeff.

I mean, he was uh her choice, so she'll be with him.

But Hakee Jeff is not Nancy Pelosi, and he knows that.

I think he'd be the first to say that.

Leanne, would he be the first to say that?

Uh he would be the first to also say he is so tired of being compared to Nancy Pelosi, too.

But yeah, she had the confidence to make sure that he was the next Democratic leader.

uh but uh he also faces the curse of having to be compared to who the person who is considered by Republicans and Democrats to be the greatest speaker that there has been in the House of Representatives.

Um and it's it's it's a tough task for Democrats moving forward, especially as the redistricting is happening.

The country is more polarized and the margins in the House of Representatives are going to be perpetually extremely small for the foreseeable future.

and it makes it very difficult to govern, makes it difficult to keep the party together.

And that's those are things that Nancy Pelosi was masterful at.

I want to talk about a figure on the Republican side who was as important a Republican politics as Nancy Pelosi was to Democratic the vice president Dick Cheney who died uh this week.

Uh it's interesting if you're 20 or 25 years old now, you you if you're thinking about Dick Cheney, you think, "Oh, that's the guy who endorsed Kla Harris."

But Mark, you you've you that's me.

I'm the 25-year-old who that's you.

Um, but you you you spent a lot of time thinking about Dick Cheney.

Um, Hawk Hawk, conservatives, conservative, uh, totally alienated or the the party, the MAGA party is totally alienated from the Dick Cheney legacy.

Give us a little sense of the meaning of his life and his post vice presidential.

I mean, he was again I mean, this is sort of generational, but he was such a giant in the in the Bush years.

I mean, first of all, there's never been a vice president like him in terms of power, in terms of profile, in terms of the agenda he had, but also he he so welcomed the the Darth Vader image, the the sort of prince of darkness thing, uh, you know, both within the party, but certainly among Democrats, and he he I think took a lot of heat from it, but he welcomed it.

He was I don't think I've ever covered anyone who was so sure in his position, so had so little self-doubt, which in our in in politics is so rare, than Dick Cheney.

And I think he was secure enough to really flip in the other direction and not only um condemn Donald Trump, but actually go the whole nine yards and endorse Kla Harris, which you know, even like John Bolton wasn't endorsing.

David, you have to you have to acknowledge the the idea of Dick Cheney endorsing a liberal Democrat was probably 10, 15, 20 years ago.

If we were talking about that, we were like, "Yeah, no, that's never going to happen."

Hard to Politics is very strange these days.

He was the the rare politician who uh gave you the sense that he didn't really give a damn what the public thought, that he was going to do what he was convinced was necessary.

That was certainly true after after 9/11.

He believed in his gut that the country was in danger of catastrophic attacks and he was prepared to do things that as we look back we're shocked by.

He advocated an Iraq war that you know arguably was was ruinous for the country but he did it with absolute unflinching certainty.

That's the thing I take away from he's just not a man who ever seemed to be in doubt.

Is there any Jeff?

Is there any constituency in the Republican party today for the Dick Cheney style of leadership or foreign policy thinking?

Uh virtually no.

Certainly not in uh in the House.

A few remaining in the Senate, but no one really speaks widely about it.

I mean, his funeral will be an interesting which is in uh in a couple weeks will be an interesting show of of uh it's really the old guard.

But I'm also struck by right after 911.

I mean the images were so coming back to our minds this week.

He was very certain of what uh he was doing of course but the breath of his experience.

I mean he had been a secretary of defense obviously he had been a young white house chief of staff.

There's just really no one in that mold now who knows government uh um as well as he did.

And Donald Trump obviously um has created this Republican party in his own image.

So no uh a Dick Cheney Republican is not really welcomed in this.

It's interesting because there's nobody in the in the Trump universe, I think, with the wilds or savviness of Cheney.

There's nobody in the Democratic field with the wilds or savviness of Nancy Pelosi.

Maybe it's just something you accumulate over time, but it definitely marks uh a huge passage for American politics.

Um and uh well, before before uh we we end tonight, I want to um uh mention something.

Uh we we want to remember um another great Washingtonian, but this one member of Washington Week uh extended family uh Paul Ignatius uh who died this week at the heroic age of 104.

Uh Paul Ignatius served his country faithfully for years, most famously as Secretary of the Navy.

And I wanted to express our condolences to his son David uh and his whole family.

Um, David, will you talk a little bit about your father who was this very rare Washington figure and he he he served in World War II and he kept serving.

He did he did keep serving.

This is a period where there's a great disillusionment with government and my dad had an just unshakable belief in public service.

Uh I can remember over the last couple years uh friends would invite him to come to the White House or the State Department to talk to young staffers there and here here was this man over a hundred years old who would you know tell these young people just to keep believing and doing and it makes a difference.

He talk about how he came into government in 1961 working for President Kennedy and you know they seem to come away you know glowing a little bit this you know 100-year-old man had told them that it all it all made sense but it's a was a wonderful quality and I'm I'm Did he ever the this period where government is is is considered uh anthma by some Republicans and and many other Americans did he ever have doubts about where we're heading even as he's doubts doubts about about leadership.

It pained him enormously to see the military in his view becoming politicized.

He'd served in the Navy during World War II.

He he was on a carrier that was hit several times by Japanese suicide bombers.

He came to the war.

Uh I think that you know made him the person he was as as so many people in his generation.

He he really did think the mil you know the independence of the military was absolutely sacred.

Right.

Well, I just want to note that the USS Paul Ignatius, US naval destroyer is currently on patrol in the Mediterranean.

So your your father sails on.

So my my dad was asked to give a motto for the ship and he he chose his USC motto, always ready, fight on.

And that that's true about about Michael.

Well, a great man.

And um alas, that's all the time we have.

Uh thank you for that uh memory and thank you to our guests for joining me.

I want to thank you at home for watching us.

Please visit the atlantic.com for Mark Leovich's analysis of life and times of Dick Cheney.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Good night from Washington.

Corporate funding for Washington Week with the Atlantic is provided by Consumer Cellular.

Certified financial planner professionals are proud to support Washington Week with the Atlantic.

CFP professionals are committed to acting in their clients best interest.

More information at let'smakeupplan.org.

Additional funding is provided by Coup and Patricia Euan through the Euan Foundation committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

Sandra and Carl Delay Magnus, Rose Hershel and Andy Shreves, Robert and Susan Rosenbomb, Charles Hamoy through the Charles Hamoy Fund, Steve and Marilyn Kerman, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

[Music] You're watching PBS.

[Music]