JUDY WOODRUFF: And now to the
analysis of Shields and Brooks.
That is syndicated columnist

Mark Shields and New York
Times columnist David Brooks.

Hello to both of you on this
Friday night. We haven't seen
you since the election was

declared, Joe Biden was
declared the winner, Mark.

So, what do you make -- we
have to ask you, what do you
make of the result and how some

of these final states went,
Arizona, Georgia and the others?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, I
think I predicted every
one of them, Judy.

No, I...

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS: I guess I'm
not surprised. Surprised
at the margin, and the
margin, that it was

so close.

And I think that, in retrospect,
reflection, the campaign of
Donald Trump deserves enormous

credit for identifying
and motivating and
turning out voters who
had -- were not regular

voters and gave Trump the number
of votes he had, and probably
made the difference almost

surely in the Republicans
picking up House seats and
in retaining the Senate.

But the victory, it was rather
remarkable to be here in
Washington at the time. It had

a V.J. Day quality to it, I
mean, not to that dimension,
victory over Japan in World War

II, but sort of the public
exhilaration, people smiling,
just a goodwill, which had to be

rather unsettling for the
president as he came back from
a golf club, because he had

to go right by it
in Lafayette Park...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

MARK SHIELDS: ... and to see
this sort of sense of gaiety
and New Year's Eve festivity

that was felt.

JUDY WOODRUFF: David, what
did you make of the result, of
the call, the final call, how

it ended?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, there
was people playing "Glory
Days," a Springsteen
song, in my neighborhood,

too. And so, at least in urban
America, there's a lot of joy.

Five points is a pretty good
victory, bigger than I thought
it would be on election night

or thereabouts. And so
it's a good Biden win.

I happen to think Joe Biden was
the only Democratic nominee who
could have won this election.

There was a lot more pro-Trump
support than we thought. There
was not a great pro-Democratic

Party generic support
as much as we thought.

I think the Democrats need to
get over this idea that they
are the emerging majority party.

This idea has been around
because of demographic
things or other things.
And there's been an

assumption that demography is
on our side, and I think it's
just time to accept that's

just not going to happen.

We're going to be a pretty
50/50 country. I will believe
a change when I see it. And

it's becoming more polarized
on education, with Democrats
becoming the party more and

more of the college-educated,
the Republicans becoming more
and more the college -- the

high school-educated.

And, geography, the urban/rural
divide is wider than ever.
And so we are just locked

into some sort of either
gridlock or compromise. We will
see. But it's 50/50 almost.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, what about
that? I mean, you mentioned
that the Democrats didn't do

as well as they thought they
would in the Senate or in
the House. They lost seats in

the House.

MARK SHIELDS: No. No,
that's right, Judy.

David makes a good
point. This has been a
year of expectations.
If you recall -- and

raised expectations. Donald
Trump raised the expectations
going into the first debate that

Vice President Biden was non
compos, that he couldn't finish
a sentence, that he would

fall asleep on the stage, none
of which, of course, happened.

Senator -- Vice President Biden
handled himself well, prevailed.
And that may have been the

defining event of
the fall campaign.

Democrats had expectations,
great expectations,
about winning the
Senate, about enlarging

their House majority, all of
which came up quite short.

And it -- I think the
argument that one-party
control is strong, that
there was a resistance

to that, the Republicans made
the case. And I think just
language like defund the police

really came back to haunt
Democrats and hurt them in
suburban and marginal districts.

And I think you will see a
fractiousness and a division.
It's already there within the

Democratic House Caucus, within
the Democratic Party at large
over this, and that there isn't

a natural Democratic
majority that is
inevitable in the country.

And I think that was a lesson
to be learned on November 3.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, David, is
there a way to put a finer point
on it? The country is divided,

as you're both saying.
There's not a natural
Democratic majority.

So, what is -- what do we have?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, we probably
have gridlock, but I hope not.

I spent a bunch of this week
calling around the Senate,
speaking to senators like Mitt

Romney, and ask him, is there
any way to get 60 votes around
some issues, just so we can

pass some things and
help some people?

And Romney came up with a whole
bunch of topics. There were
the dreamers, the immigration,

some budget stuff, some
immigrant -- health
care stuff, prescription
drugs. He said, sure.

And then I talked to
other aides, and they
came up with national
service, infrastructure.

And so there's at least a
eagerness on the part of a lot
of senators to actually vote

for legislation, something they
have not been allowed to do
under Mitch McConnell, and pass

things.

Will McConnell allow votes
to come to the floor? Will he
cooperate and play ball? Well,

nobody would bet on that.
But I'm struck by a desire to
get out of the stuckness that

has marked legislative bodies
for the past couple years.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Interesting
about what Romney.

But speaking of Mitch McConnell,
Mark, he is staying with
President Trump's insistence

that he's not only within
his rights to challenge
the election, he's
not conceding, that he

needs to pursue
every legal avenue.

In fact, Republicans are
virtually in lockstep.
Only a few of them don't
support the president.

What lasting impacts of that?
Is it just -- are we going to be
over it soon? What do you see?

MARK SHIELDS: Judy, that
Donald Trump is going
out as a sore loser.

I think he's making a serious
mistake. And his future
obviously is not bright. I mean,

he could talk about '24,
but there's an awful
lot of investigations
and judicial action

between now and 2024.

But Mitch McConnell is kind
of fascinating. If you go back
to December of 2008, which

I did -- and you're free to
look at it -- the Senate had a
send-off for Joe Biden, who had

just been elected vice
president. And senators
made their statements.

Mitch McConnell wrote his
own statement. It was quite
moving and quite personal about

Joe Biden, and that Joe Biden
was the rare creature who
could reach across the aisle

to Jesse Helms or to
Strom Thurmond or to me,
and he became my friend.

I think this will be tested. I
really do. I think he's awfully
-- he's key. He's important

in this.

And one thing that was lost in
the campaign is that Joe Biden
is one of the great retail

politicians of his
generation. He is wonderful
with people, people of
all sorts. He was deprived

of that in the campaign. We
never saw it. We never saw him
with people in the campaign.

They ran a good campaign,
a disciplined campaign.

But I think, when you get Joe
Biden in the White House, as
president, and bringing those

personal skills together,
I think the chances are
improved. And I'm more
optimistic, I guess,

maybe than David is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, David,
I want to ask you about
the Biden prospects.

But just quickly on the
president's refusal to concede,
is this something that leaves

a lasting scar, or does it go
away quickly? What do you see?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think
Trump has left a lasting scar.
The whole entity, the whole

entirety of the existential
presence of Trump has
left a lasting scar
on our norms, on the

way we feel with each
other, about the way
the world looks at us.

Dictators around the
world are happy to see
an American president
denying election results.

That gives them encouragement
and gives them a set of
norms they can hew to.

I expect him to go. You
can feel the air coming
out of the balloon, the
stages of grief. What

is it, denial, then rage, and
then acceptance, though, with
Trump, there's more rage and

more denial. But you feel
the Republicans walking away,
rightly or wrongly, just not

wanting to get in front of
the train and push him out.

That's the wrong metaphor.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: But you feel him
losing momentum. And I do think
he will eventually whimper

out, probably without ever
admitting defeat, and probably
without attending Joe Biden's

inauguration.

But that is the way the man is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A lot of
people wondering like that.

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, David...

MARK SHIELDS: Oh.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I just wanted
to ask David to -- on Biden's
prospects, to respond to

Mark, what you
said a moment ago.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well,
I'm maintaining my posture
of unrealistic optimism.

And so I do think there's
some chance of actually
working together. You
look at the people Joe

Biden is hiring. They're
experienced, Ron Klain,
his chief of staff,
experience, experienced

at pandemic fighting,
experienced at Washington.

You look at the people running
the Task Force, the COVID Task
Force, Vivek Murthy, the former

surgeon general. Atul Gawande
is on that task force. We're
just getting an A-team.

With Trump, we never got the
Republican A-team. With Biden,
it looks like we're going to get

the Democratic A-team.
So, that's got to
make you feel good.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And I was struck,
Dr. Murthy, when we talked to
him a few minutes ago, used

the term humility several times.

Mark, I interrupted
you. Go ahead.

MARK SHIELDS: No, I was
just following up on the
point of President Trump.

Here in Washington, Judy, power
is the perception of power. If
I think you have got power, and

David thinks you have got power,
and people think -- you have
power. And that's the reality

now. You can feel the
power has moved from
Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

And the world has called.
Erdogan has called. The only
unheard -- Kim Jong-un is on the

line. No. But he is -- he
will be probably writing
a letter to Joe Biden.

But he and Putin are kind of
the holdouts, the bitter-enders.
But that's the reality,

that the power has left Donald
Trump. And so the question,
when does that reality set

in with him?

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, David,
to put a punctuation
mark, you see it coming?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I don't think
we're going to -- I don't know
if it'll be before Inauguration

Day, but Republicans
are beginning to urge
Trump to give Biden the
press -- the intelligence

briefings.

And so, as they begin to
do that, that's just part
of a process of withdrawal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will
see about the inauguration.

David Brooks, Mark Shields,
on this Friday night, we
thank you both so much.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you.