LISA DESJARDINS, PBS MODERATOR, WASHINGTON WEEK: President Biden's troubles at home and abroad.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For an American president to be silent on the issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am.

DESJARDINS (voice-over): President Biden meets face-to-face with the Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a leader he once promised to make a pariah.

While across the world, a key Democratic senator deals the president and his agenda a major blow.

Plus -- REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): This was not a spontaneous call to action, but rather was a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president.

DESJARDINS: Alarming new details from this week's January 6 committee hearing.

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: I think it got to the point where the screaming was completely out there.

And what they were proposing I thought was nuts.

PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I don't think any of these people were providing the president with a good advice.

DESJARDINS: Explosive testimony, including for the first time from President Trump's White House counsel as the committee gears up for what maybe the last in this series of public hearings.

Next.

(BREAK) DESJARDINS: Good evening and welcome to "Washington Week".

I'm Lisa Desjardins.

Yamiche Alcindor is away.

A high stakes dance on the world stage is underway as President Biden meets with Saudi Arabia's controversial crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a powerbroker in the Middle East, and also the man U.S. intelligence agencies determined approved the brutal murder of "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

BIDEN: With respect to the murder of Khashoggi, I raised it at the top of the meeting.

He basically said he was not personally responsible for it.

I indicated I thought he was.

DESJARDINS: But here at home, the president's domestic agenda and hopes of climate change activists have again crashed into a Joe Manchin wall.

This comes as inflation numbers out this week showed a historic spike, the highest since 1981.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more is my colleague, Nick Schifrin, PBS "NewsHour's" foreign affairs and defense correspondent.

He's in Saudi Arabia.

And joining me here at the table in studio, Hans Nichols, political reporter for "Axios", and Tarini Parti, White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal".

Thanks to both of you.

Nick, let me start with you with a set 3:00 a.m. local time, let's get going with you, staying awake for us.

We appreciate it.

Bring us the latest there from Saudi Arabia and what is President Biden getting out of this trip?

NICK SCHIFRIN, FOREIGN AFFARIS CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Well, he's getting a few things.

He certainly wants to get out more Saudi and OPEC plus oil production to bring down gas prices.

We can talk about it, whether it is even possible.

I think he's getting, as U.S. officials would put it, avoiding a vacuum in the Middle East when it comes to the United States.

Te U.S. has receded, its influence has receded in this region over the last few years.

Biden trying to stem that tide, questioning -- I think a lot of people questioning whether that's possible, too.

And in Israel, it is important for Joe Biden to be seen politically supporting Israeli officials.

Frankly, he believes in it.

He has been for a half-century a big supporter for Israel.

And, of course, Israel getting what it wants also that presidential visit.

So I think it is on those three levels.

An overarching this is more regional cooperation, product of the Abraham Accords during the Trump administration.

But also, military and intelligence services across the region taking it upon themselves to cooperate because they see a common enemy in Iran.

DESJARDINS: Tarini, we just heard Nick talked about the goals from the Biden administration.

But, you know, a picture sometimes can dominate things.

Let's talk about the fist bump.

We knew we were going to wonder the interaction between President Biden and MBS, Mohammed bin Salman.

They did have a fist bump.

And that is getting attention from some Democrats.

He is someone who is known for human rights abuses, the U.S. has said that, involvement, according to CIA and others in a murder.

Did the Saudis get what they wanted just from that photo?

Did the U.S. concede something?

TARINI PARTI, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: There is clearly a lot of discussion beforehand, whether it was going to be a handshake, whether it was going to be a fist bump.

And, of course, we got that answer today and the photo, of course, the Saudis released it pretty quickly thereafter.

And, you know, it does raises questions depending on what the president is able to accomplish from this meeting, whether it was worth it or not.

And we are already hearing some Democrats, including Congressman Adam Schiff raised that point.

He tweeted today basically saying that the photo shows the grip that autocrats in the Middle East still hold on the U.S. and foreign policy because of they're oil-rich and can sort of have that grip on the U.S. DESJARDINS: Hans Nichols, let's get into the why of this.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yeah.

DESJARDINS: I know your reporting is that the president was not skipping and leaping into this visit.

But his administration said he had to go.

Why?

NICHOLS: Oil, right?

I mean, they had been talking about this since February.

They've been debating this.

They've been mulling it.

They've been trying to attach and find some moment for President Biden to go smooth things over for the Saudis and convince them to pump more oil, because it's just a basic fact of hydrocarbons.

They have more underneath their ground and they can pull them out really quickly, with they just flick a switch.

And so, officials always knew the world needs oil.

They know they are facing energy shortages, natural gas, how cold the Europe winter is going to be.

It's a big issue of concern inside the White House, and they were willing to risk the -- at least had the prospect for more oil, and the risk being this photo.

And, you know, we -- it is hard to say the long-term damage of this photo is, if it's just going to be glossed over, if it's going to stick with people.

I generally have a theory that when you're covering some foreign trip, the side that releases something first is the side that's happier with it, all right?

So, sometimes you get statements that come out and say the leaders had a productive conversation, which is code for that they were yelling at each other, right?

So, whoever releases the photo first or something first tends to want to get out front and wants that image.

And I think that tells us here.

DESJARDINS: And here was the Saudis releasing it first.

NICHOLS: Yeah.

Now, to be -- I should have the caveats here.

And here are my caveats, it was a Saudi photographer, right?

And it was an official photo.

But like the White House wasn't dying to release it.

You can check out the feeds to what extent the photos to what extent this photo plays in to the overall Biden mythology that they want to put out there.

So, yeah, point taken.

DESJARDINS: I'm going to follow up from what Hans is saying, Nick, and go to you.

You raised this earlier, saying, we could talk about oil and we can talk about gas prices.

So, Nick, talk about it.

Does this trip -- will this trip have any effect on oil and gas prices in reality?

SCHIFRIN: So, a couple of points.

One is that I asked Adel al-Jubeir, the deputy foreign minister basically in Saudi Arabia, just a few minutes ago about whether they would push OPEC Plus to release more oil as the national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, suggested, or they would release more of themselves, as the president suggested tonight.

And he did not say yes.

He didn't say no.

But he did not say yes, and he actually said they have been producing more oil in the last nine months, that they have taken steps to think about high gas prices, and that they were not committing to take further steps to try and release enough oil to make a difference.

So, that's point number one.

Point number two is that whether the UAE and Saudi Arabia can release more oil.

We know Mohammed Bin Zayed, MBZ, the head of UAE, told President Macron just a few weeks ago when all the leaders were at the G7 that he did not think that there was enough oil that the UAE and Saudi could pump in the next six months to actually affect gas prices in the U.S.

I mean, that is from the horse's mouth in Abu Dhabi.

And so, we know that regional officials do not think that they are pumping more will lead to the kind of political benefit that you guys are talking about in the studio.

So, between those things, you know, possibly.

It seems like the national security advisor and president would not be confident about more oil coming if they were to get private reassurances.

But whether we'll actually see a difference is another question.

DESJARDINS: And Nick began talking about an official neither saying yes or no.

Hans, I want to ask you, but an American official not exactly saying yes or no, verbally, that's Joe Manchin.

NICHOLS: Right.

DESJARDINS: Behind the scenes, he is saying that right now, he is a no on the climate change portion of the Biden agenda.

And I think a lot of Democrats think that means he's a no forever.

NICHOLS: Yeah.

DESJARDINS: But can you take us into what is happening and how big of a deal is this?

NICHOLS: So, he's a no this month, is what Manchin would tell you.

So, this was this last 24 hours, the big discussion about this, because Manchin went to Schumer, and Manchin said I'm just not going to be there this month on a broader package for climate and energy.

And we can just do the numbers really quick.

He had always talking about $300 billion.

That was generally a ballpark.

This morning, Manchin clarifies his comments, calls into a West Virginia radio show that we all listened to for the first time, great show.

DESJARDINS: It was a good show.

NICHOS: It was good show.

It's dynamic.

It's fun.

He calls in and says, actually, I'm for Medicare doing -- renegotiating drugs for Medicare.

I'm for something for the health care exchanges, and I'm for taking a lot of money, $240 billion if you back it out towards deficit reduction, but nothing on climate and energy this month.

He wants to wait for the inflation numbers, which we all know are going to come, the July numbers will come later on in August when the CPI number hits.

And that has always been the barometer for Joe Manchin is inflation, inflation, inflation.

He has been talking about this for months.

He felt his theory of the case has been validated, every time the numbers go higher, and he's not in the position to really move when inflation is this hot.

DESJARDINS: So, they're not moving warmly toward anything.

Tarini, I want to ask you, Joe Manchin has effectively had a veto pen on this president.

This might sound like -- kind of a joke, but I mean it quite sincerely.

Like is Joe Manchin defining the Biden presidency?

How much is he defining the Biden presidency?

PARTI: He certainly is.

I mean, he's basically, you know, Prime Minister Joe Manchin at this point.

And, you know, the president knows that and has tried to work with him -- tried to negotiate directly with Joe Manchin.

And it hasn't really worked out.

He was asked - - the president was asked today if he thinks that Joe Manchin is negotiating in good faith.

And the president basically said I don't know.

I haven't done the negotiating on this myself.

So, he didn't really answer yes or not on that front.

But, you know, Joe Manchin has -- every senator in the Senate, of course, has so much power and Joe Manchin is certainly wielding that power over and over again.

And this is just the latest.

And, you know, the fact the White House pitched this massive proposal, and, just mainly because of Joe Manchin, a little bit also because of Kyrsten Sinema, this package has slimmed down over the months.

And right now, it's basically to the bare minimum.

The president said today that the Senate should go ahead and move forward on it because it seems all that they're going to get.

DESJARDINS: Without the climate provisions on it, right.

PARTI: Exactly.

DESJARDINS: So, Nick, I want to bring all this back to you in Jeddah and our president.

And I'm curious.

You spent a lot of time in the region.

You've been trotting around the region right now, how is President Biden seen there?

SCHIFRIN: I think it's not just President Biden.

I think we have to call a spade a spade.

And that a lot of governments in the Middle East see the United States as a receding power, you know?

I think the Trump administration's efforts were to try and stem that tied and were to try and accelerate what was already happening, which is cooperation between Israel and the Sunni governments, as a response to the Iranian threat and as a response to what they saw as the Obama administration's apathy to the region.

And as some of the regional actors told me during the Trump administration, as a response to not -- not being sure what Trump was actually up to.

So we saw the Abraham Accords, we saw all this momentum between Sunni-Arab governments and Israel that saw Iran as a mutual threat.

The Biden administration is jumping on that momentum.

They are simply trying to accelerate things.

And Saudi is the crown jewel of that effort of normalization.

Israeli officials, Saudi officials, all Arab officials say that if Saudi took any kinds of steps toward normalization, it really would be a game changer militarily, intelligence and certainly politically.

That's just not going to happen, frankly, according to officials across the region until King Salman, and it's not going to happen until Saudi Arabia and the U.S. really do have a better relationship.

But that's clearly where the momentum is going.

And the U.S. is part of that right now.

But, frankly, that momentum was started irrespective of U.S. policy.

DESJARDINS: Fascinating, these tectonic plates around the world of power, sometimes defined by one man, sometimes not.

Sometimes one man has to go along with them.

Nick Schifrin, I want to thank you for joining us, for sharing reporting, staying up past your normal waking hours for us.

We appreciate it.

SCHIFRIN: Thanks very much.

DESJARDINS: On Tuesday, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack held its seventh public hearing.

They charged that President Trump planned in advance to call on his supporters to march on the Capitol but wanted it to seem impromptu.

We heard a salvo of sound bites about an unhinged Oval Office meeting including discussions of declaring martial law and the federal government seizing voting machines.

Since that hearing came news from a government watchdog that the Secret Service deleted text messages from January 5th and 6th of 2021.

Joining us now to discuss is Luke Broadwater, congressional reporter for "The New York Times", my colleague there in the halls on the Hill.

Luke, thank you so much for joining us with our panel here.

Hey.

I want to start with a question about thinking about the narrative arc of this committee over seven hearings so far.

What do you think they were trying to connect?

What dots were they trying to connect this week?

LUKE BROADWATER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Sure.

I think if you look at each of the hearings sort of as a big picture, they suggest almost every time a different avenue of wrongdoing by President Trump.

If you look at some of the earlier hearings, they were suggesting the fake elector scheme as a matter for investigation.

They were suggesting obstructing an official proceeding of Congress.

They were suggesting defrauding the American people, and even his own donors.

And so, I think what we are going to see at this next hearing is a lot of talk about dereliction of duty.

That could potentially have legal implications, but it definitely has ethical and political implications for the former president.

And so, each of these hearings is a different avenue that the January 6th committee is suggesting not only to the public but also to the Justice Department, that this is an area to investigate, and here are a lot of details and facts presenting a pretty damning case against the former president.

DESJARDINS: Tarini, can you help us with that?

The Department of Justice, what do we know about where they are and what other investigations are in terms of possible criminal charges for the Trump administration and those right around it?

PARTI: Well, we know that Merrick Garland, the attorney general, is under increasing pressure to do something.

You know, with every hearing, we see more and more evidence.

As you said, the committee has been connecting a lot of the dots here.

And so, it has put pressure on Justice Department officials to do something.

Most recently, we also heard from Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who brought another instance of witness tampering.

And she said they referred the case to the Department of Justice.

So, they are sharing more information between the committee and Department of Justice.

And so, we'll see how the case -- how the Department of Justice is able to build a case.

But they are under a lot of pressure right now.

DESJARDINS: Hans, speaking of sharing more information, Pat Cipollone sat for eight hours with the committee behind closed doors last week and we saw video of his testimony this week.

How significant of a figure is the former White House counsel in all of this?

NICHOLS: Oh, I think he's providing enormous amount of intelligence and insight on what was happening on those days leading up to and the day of January 6.

And, you know, there were questions whether he would testify or vote executive privilege.

You know, it look might be in a better position to adjudicate on what is new and what we have learned, but it seems like a lot of the facts out there on January 6, we have kind of known through some great reporting from "The Times", from "Axios", from "The Wall Street Journal".

But they are doing is they're really sort of tying it all together.

I like how they talked about different avenues, different lines of attacks on the president, if that's the right way to put it.

And I think the big question is how much are we learning new things or are the proving things that are already new?

And to me, it seems like more of a latter, but I'd be curious on what everyone else has to say.

DESJARDINS: I am going to ask you, Luke, because I have a feeling you might dispute that, despite the tremendous amount of work the New York Times has done on this issue.

Are we hearing new things?

BROADWATER: Well, we are.

I do agree with Hans that probably 80, 90 percent of each hearing has been reported.

January 6, the American press corps does a phenomenal job investigating January 6.

I mean, you have some great books that have written.

You've got sort of all-star teams in the major outlets that are digging into this nonstop.

And yet, each hearing may surprise you with something.

There'll be some text messages I've never seen, or some deposition I've heard before.

And so, you know, I think we've learned for the first time of these hearings about the names of specific Congress members who had allegedly have sought pardons.

We heard that Rudy Giuliani or Mark Meadows had allegedly sought pardons.

You know, you hear about allegations of witness tampering that we didn't know about.

So, I think each hearing does present new evidence.

The thing that really stuck out to me from the last hearing was the text messages with the rally planners, where they're having these sort of private conversations, about we're going to have this second secret rally near the Capitol.

We can't let people know about it.

It's got to appear unexpected.

I think that was some new evidence we had not heard before about people keeping the plans to bring the crowds to the Capitol quietly.

DESJARDINS: Tarini?

PARTI: I also -- I also think that, you know, it's one thing to report these things.

But as we learned in 2016, with a lot of reporters covering, now, later, President Donald Trump, people aren't reading reporting.

So, it's one thing to put in print and see it in a committee hearing and really have that message get across to the people.

I mean, some of these hearings have gotten pretty decent ratings.

So, I'd say there's a little bit of different front.

NICHOLS: I think it's a great point, is that are these breaking through to the public?

And I think the people that really have the best sort of antenna on that are Republicans who are nervous that it will their attempt to take over the House and Senate.

And from Republicans privately, you hear that these hearings have done a decent job of fairly good job, exposing what Democrats say was dereliction of duty, potential, you know, insurrection, all the different verbs and nouns that we hear.

Republicans are the ones that are saying, I think this committee is breaking through.

And I'm sure you both have been picking this up as well.

You talk to as many Republicans as I do when you're on the Hill.

DESJARDINS: No, it should.

They went into this thinking they didn't need a strategy, their strategy was no strategy.

We're going to ignore it.

But that has backfired.

And I think part of it is many witnesses have been Republicans.

I want to talk about a different Republican, Republican on the committee, Liz Cheney, the vice chairman of the committee, and in the proceedings by teasing what you mentioned earlier, Tarini, sort of a bombshell.

Let's play this bite.

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Tried to call a witness in our investigation.

That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump's call.

Their lawyer alerted us.

This committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.

DESJARDINS: You know, this was a fascinating moment in the hearing room.

Not just because, of course, this was a potential criminal charge, as you're talking about Tarini, but it was Liz Cheney bringing it up at the very end, mentioning it and I don't think most committee members knew that she was going to do it.

And I want to ask, Luke, I have reporting on this.

But I'm sure your reporting on Liz Cheney's role, because I understand behind the scenes, she is very assertive.

She is really pushing the committee.

But what is your reporting on that?

BROADWATER: Yeah, I would say Liz Cheney is the most powerful behind-the-scenes driving force in the committee.

Everybody I talked to says, you know, we've got some very aggressive Democrats on this committee, people who are known as very fierce fighters against Donald Trump and sort of the reputation.

And all of them say Liz Cheney is tougher and more aggressive than we are behind the scenes.

Liz Cheney, also, because of her role with the so-called gold team, which is the team investigating Donald Trump, she is overseeing that team.

She has access to some of these depositions and interviews that other members and staff don't necessarily have.

And sometimes I hear from staffers that who are completely surprised by something Liz Cheney will bring out the last minute.

But that's part of the success and drama of these hearings is they do have teasers and they have cliffhangers.

And they embrace the sort of elements of television that are not normally present in a Capitol Hill hearing.

And that's why I think that for getting something like an average of 14 million viewers for these hearings, which I think is unheard of for your normal congressional hearing.

DESJARDINS: Certainly, the impeachment hearings did not have this kind of drama, though.

The stakes were really just as high.

I want to ask all of you, just in our parting minutes here, you know, I've said, you probably sit on panels before -- no one thinks it will impact the midterms, these hearings necessarily.

We'll see.

But I want to ask each of you, could this affect something bigger in terms of how Americans see what happened, how Americans decide they should act themselves and their neighbors?

Hans?

NICHOLS: So, it's interesting public perception question.

I suspect the most lasting impact of these hearings or whether or not they're going to result in criminal referrals and whether or not the Department of Justice will indict the former president and prevent him from running in 2024.

That is no small decision for any attorney general to make.

So, to me, that's the big question.

Are there criminal referrals, and does the Justice Department act on them?

And I don't have the answer.

DESJARDINS: Luke?

BROADWATER: The criminal referral discussion, the committee postponed until they release their report in September.

It does seem like a most people I talked to in the committee think it is a good idea.

There are some skeptics that they don't want to look like they are unduly influencing the Justice Department, and any charges against Trump and his allies should seem like they are unaffected by politics.

But the committee at this point has done so much publicly calling for a Justice Department investigation, I don't know how you put the genie back in the box.

I mean, they said Merrick Garland, do your job, and Adam Schiff was just on TV criticizing the slowness of the Justice Department and that investigation.

So they have been pretty open about what they want the Justice Department to do.

DESJARDINS: Tarini, I want to ask you in our last minute, we love tangible things like criminal charges.

But I want to ask you a big picture question, too, can this move anyone's psyche or culture?

PARTI: Yeah.

I think, you know, we always think of things politically.

And, you know, in the midterms, it is because the economy is on everyone's minds.

You know, it's not going to move things.

But I think looking ahead to 2024 and how people sort of think about government and the presidency, it might raise questions about sort of the chaotic time we went through during the Trump presidency and sort of remind people of that and whether they want to see that again, you know, given that he might be announcing sometime in the fall.

I don't know if, you know, philosophically or culturally, it will change much.

But maybe, you know, politically looking ahead to 2024, it could have a little bit of impact.

DESJARDINS: I think it could affect the idea that the election was stolen.

But we'll see.

Anyway, thank you all.

We have talked about this so long.

Appreciate it.

Tarini, Hans, Luke, thank you all so much for joining us, a really good discussion tonight.

And before we go, don't you at home forget to watch "PBS News Weekend" for the latest on the ground in Saudi Arabia as President Biden wraps up his trip to the Middle East.

That's Saturday on "PBS News Weekend".

Thank you so much for joining us.

Good night from Washington.