Brooks and Capehart on 2023 election takeaways and Manchin’s Senate shakeup

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• Geoff Bennett:

  As the war in Gaza continues, the Biden White House is facing fresh pressure over how to approach its relationship with Israel.

  On that and more, we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

  It's good to see you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  You too, Geoff.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, David, I want to start with your reaction to Israel agreeing to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its assault on Hamas in Northern Gaza.

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think it's a start.

  I think that Israel has to do a few things here. The first is obviously defeat Hamas. There can be no peace in the Middle East as long as Hamas is there. And so that's what you might call the near enemy. But the real enemy and the far enemy is Iran.

  And I was with a group of foreign policy experts last week, and one of them made a smart observation, which was, of all the nations of the world, who's had the most effective foreign policy in the last several years? And it's been Iran. They have surrounded Israel with a bunch of terror groups, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas.

  And in order to defeat Iran, or at least stand up to Iran, you have got to have help in the neighborhood. And so you have got to have help in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt. And those regimes want to help you. They don't like Iran at all. But their populations are getting more and more furious about what's happening in Gaza.

  And so in order to defeat Iran and keep your allies in with you, you have just got to be as humanitarian as possible. And so I think, even aside from the moral reasons to spare the suffering of the people in Gaza, there are strategic reasons Israel should be as humanitarian as possible.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jonathan, when David talks about the moral and strategic reasons, the administration was pushing for a multiday pause.

  And John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said that these four-hour-long pauses were a direct result of President Biden's contacts and conversations with Netanyahu.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right. This is the — this is public manifestation of hours, if not weeks, of private consultations, I was going to say lapel-shaking, but of the president, the secretary of state and his shuttle diplomacy, trying to impress upon Prime Minister Netanyahu that you must have — if you're not going to do a cease-fire, which the administration is against, at least do a humanitarian pause.

  Gaza is suffering. There's no water, there's no food, there's no fuel, there's none of the basic necessities. You must defend yourself against Hamas, but you also must do so in a manner befitting a small-D democratic nation.

  And so it'd be great if it were over several days, but the fact that there is a — there will be pauses over hours, it is the result of the president pushing Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the right thing, and, hopefully, that that will lead to more.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What's your assessment of the way in which President Biden has navigated these competing interests and competing pressures?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think he's done quite well.

  I think the clarion call that Hamas has to be defeated, Hamas is a threat to the region, I think he — frankly, he might be alone in his administration in feeling that so strongly, not quite alone, but he's certainly been a force.

  And so I think he's put America and rallied the West into an idea that Israel, there was a — there was relative stability. And Hamas is not like Fatah. Hamas is something different. And I think one of the tragedies of what's happened over the last month is, in a lot of people's minds, that difference between Hamas and Fatah has been elided.

  And Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, they recognize the state of Israel. They have been trying to get to some sort of two-state solution. They play rough. And even in the Yasser Arafat days, there was terrorism. But often it was terrorism with the purpose of building leverage to get to a better settlement.

  Hamas is not like that. Hamas is about homicide. And it's about genocide. It's about mass murder. And I think the president's been very clear about that. And it's because he's been doing this in the region for a long time. So I think this is a case where his age has really paid off.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Let's shift our focus to Tuesday night's election results.

  One thing was certainly clear, that abortion rights, reproductive rights, abortion access is politically popular, no matter where it appears on the ballot, post the Supreme Court overturning Roe. What were some of your other takeaways?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  That was the main thing, whether you are in a so-called blue state, but especially if you are in a red state.

  I looked at sort of — let's just take Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, who made it a point of saying, I will go for a 15-week abortion ban. Just give me both. Give Republicans control in both bodies of the legislature, and I will get it done.

  So, on Earth 2, that plays well,because that's what they want. But the rest of us on Earth 1, and particular — particularly suburban white women in the Northern Virginia suburbs, looked at what happened with Dobbs, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We have seen what has happened in other states around the country, particularly Florida with a six-week ban. We do not want that to happen here.

  So, Glenn Youngkin didn't get what he wanted in Virginia. Ohio Republicans didn't get what they wanted. Ohio, that Trump won by double digits, now has in its state constitution, ruby-red Ohio, access to abortion.

  Kentucky, Governor Beshear reelected with that unbelievably powerful ad at the very end of the young woman who looks directly at the camera and blames David (sic) Cameron for wanting to institute a policy that would force her to carry her stepfather's child after he raped her.

  For Republicans who think that running on abortion is going to be the winning formula in 2024, Tuesday night should have been the wakeup call.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, David, you wrote a column this past week where the thesis was pretty evident, based on the headline. It was: "Democrats, You Can Chill Out Now."

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  Yes.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Why?

• David Brooks:

  We go for subtlety in our headlines at The New York Times.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes.

  (Laughter)

• Geoff Bennett:

  Right. Right.

• David Brooks:

  Yes.

  And I — it was kind of, it was an emotional roller-coaster week. So, in the beginning of the week, there's the Times/Siena poll, which shows Trump in a bunch of battleground states, and Democrats are like, ah, hair on fire, those who have hair.

  And then the election results come in, and yet again, as consistently since Donald Trump has been elected president, Democrats have a good night. And so my — one of my points was that the polls have to be looked at with a grain of salt, and not just because all polls have to be looked at with a grain of salt, because we're in a different culture now.

  Through most of our careers, presidential approvals go up and down. But over the last — since 2005, the country's been in such a sour mood, presidents have spent 77 percent of their time with their favorability ratings underwater. People just blame the president.

  So when a pollster calls them and people are upset with the country, they say, yes, I'm against the president. They're venting. They're not voting. And so my point was, in this kind of climate, you have to — we have to understand that what people tell pollsters could be about how they feel, but it's not necessarily the decision they're going to make in a year.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Meantime, Democratic Senator from West Virginia Joe Manchin announced this past week that he's not going to seek reelection. In some ways, it's not surprising, given that it would have been really difficult, if not impossible, for him to win reelection.

  But what's the impact on the Senate and on the party?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, the impact on the Senate is, the Democrats are going to lose a seat that they pretty much thought that they were going to lose. And that was going to be a very tough, very tough reelection effort on Senator Manchin's part if he went for it, most likely was going to lose.

  Immediately, it means that their chances of hanging on to the Senate just diminished, because it's basically 50/50. And so that means that Senator Tester in Montana, Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, at least it gives the party, the Democrats, more time, more energy, more money to focus on those races, but I would also say focus in on Texas and Congressman Colin Allred, who's looking to unseat Senator Cruz.

  Tough. That's going to be an uphill battle. Everyone thought that they were going to be the one.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Beto O'Rourke thought he was going to be the one to be the next senator from Texas.

  But I think Congressman Allred could be that person. And Senator Manchin getting out maybe frees up some resources for the DNC to push his way.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What's the legacy that Joe Manchin leaves behind?

• David Brooks:

  He saved the Biden administration. And so the Biden administration, and, if you remember a few years ago, wanted to spend $4 trillion to pump up the economy. And he said, no way, no way. It was more like $1 trillion.

  And as a result, if we had spent $4 trillion, instead of $1 trillion, the inflation, which we really suffered from, would have been astronomical, and the Biden administration would be in much worse shape if our inflation had hit like double digits, which it could have overstimulating to that degree.

  So Democrats don't like Joe Manchin, but he did save their bacon.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Before we wrap up, I want to put a marker on these latest comments from former President Donald Trump, who in an interview with the Univision last night threatened to weaponize the DOJ against his opponents if he's reelected.

  Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: They have done indictments in order to win an election. They call it weaponization.

  And the people aren't going to stand for it. But, yes, they have done something that allows the next party. I mean, if somebody — if I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say, go down and indict them. Mostly, that would be — they would be out of business. They'd be out. They'd be out of the election.

• Geoff Bennett:

  I spoke with Devlin Barrett, a Washington Post reporter, this past week, who not only reported that former President Trump wanted to do it, but that there are lawyers, conservative lawyers, who are putting together a plan and writing executive orders for how he could do it if he wins reelection.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  It's called — it's got a name. It's called Project 2025.

  Those plans, it's called the 180-day playbook. They — people who want to be a part of that administration, if it comes in, they can send in their resumes to that particular project. And what the president — what the former president said there, what he is saying is are things he tried when he was president.

  Remember, at the very end of his administration, he was upset with Bill Barr because Bill Barr didn't move to arrest Joe Biden when Joe Biden was his political opponent.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Yes.

• David Brooks:

  The word for it is authoritarianism, indicting your political opponent.

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  And I do think there's another Republican or a Trumpy plan which would — right now, in the federal government, there are 4,000 political employees that the president appoints and thousands and thousands of civil servants.

  And there's a plan afoot to gut as many as 50,000 of the civil servants and replace them with partisan political people.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  That's Schedule F.

• David Brooks:

  Yes, Schedule F.

  And that would decimate our civil service, but it would also lead to, apparently, the complete politicization of the Justice Department. And so it's not just idle talk by Trump. There's actually plans afoot, as Jonathan said, to put this into effect, and that is truly scary.

• Geoff Bennett:

  David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, thanks, as always.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Geoff.

• David Brooks:

  Thank you.