1 00:00:01,433 --> 00:00:02,933 JOHN YANG: It has been quite a week in Washington 2 00:00:02,933 --> 00:00:05,800 And here to analyze it all are Shields and Brooks. 3 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:10,666 That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks. 4 00:00:10,666 --> 00:00:11,800 Gentlemen, welcome. 5 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:13,800 It has been quite a week. 6 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:18,000 We saw this unusual coalition of opposition to the president's policy on the border, the 7 00:00:21,433 --> 00:00:25,733 president digging in, defending it, and then changing course. 8 00:00:25,733 --> 00:00:27,533 David, what have we learned this week? 9 00:00:27,533 --> 00:00:28,533 (LAUGHTER) 10 00:00:28,533 --> 00:00:29,533 DAVID BROOKS: Chaos. 11 00:00:29,533 --> 00:00:30,533 (LAUGHTER) 12 00:00:30,533 --> 00:00:32,633 DAVID BROOKS: Chaos reigns. 13 00:00:32,633 --> 00:00:33,600 If you have an administration -- usually, when you go into a White House, you say, well, 14 00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:34,900 why didn't you guys do this? 15 00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:36,200 And they say, well, how exactly would that work? 16 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:38,000 And they try to walk you through the details. 17 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:39,533 It seems nobody is asking that question. 18 00:00:39,533 --> 00:00:43,066 And so how we do take kids away from parents? 19 00:00:43,066 --> 00:00:44,366 How do we reunify? 20 00:00:44,366 --> 00:00:46,366 No one is asking the practical questions. 21 00:00:46,366 --> 00:00:48,933 It's just -- this is what you have when you have government by tweet. 22 00:00:48,933 --> 00:00:52,833 What is infuriating about it is, the Republican Party exists for a few reasons. 23 00:00:52,833 --> 00:00:57,800 One of them is to understand that government is at its most abhorrent when it can't see 24 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,166 human beings as human beings, and when it treats them as mere data points or as something 25 00:01:04,166 --> 00:01:06,333 in a bureaucratic game. 26 00:01:06,333 --> 00:01:09,233 And that's what we have seen this whole policy. 27 00:01:09,233 --> 00:01:12,033 It's not treating the people as the human beings. 28 00:01:12,033 --> 00:01:17,000 It's treating them as just sort of pawns in some sort of larger protest movement. 29 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:18,500 And that's what happens. 30 00:01:18,500 --> 00:01:20,666 When government does that, you get horrific pain and suffering. 31 00:01:20,666 --> 00:01:21,666 And that's what we're seeing. 32 00:01:21,666 --> 00:01:24,033 JOHN YANG: Mark? 33 00:01:24,033 --> 00:01:27,666 MARK SHIELDS: Every administration is inevitably a mirror reflection of the man at the top. 34 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,033 Sadly, in this case, the Republican Party has become a reflection of the man at the 35 00:01:33,033 --> 00:01:34,266 top. 36 00:01:34,266 --> 00:01:37,333 It is a combination of malice and incompetence. 37 00:01:37,333 --> 00:01:42,333 It is shameful beyond description. 38 00:01:44,300 --> 00:01:47,500 The idea of separating children, anybody who's been a parent or a child or a sibling and 39 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:55,166 knows the pain, the inconsolable pain of homesickness when a child is separated from the mother, 40 00:01:58,366 --> 00:02:03,333 even sometimes for a brief period, to do this as a matter of policy is unthinkable. 41 00:02:06,533 --> 00:02:11,533 The one bright light to me, quite honestly, in a dark, dark picture has been organized 42 00:02:13,533 --> 00:02:16,866 religion speaking up and speaking out, with the exception of some of the president's most 43 00:02:18,033 --> 00:02:21,666 ardent followers in the evangelical community. 44 00:02:21,666 --> 00:02:26,666 Give credit to the Southern Baptists, the Protestant denominations, to Catholic Bishops, 45 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:29,100 across the board. 46 00:02:29,100 --> 00:02:33,100 Cardinal Cupich of Chicago put it so well. 47 00:02:33,100 --> 00:02:38,100 He said, this is not moral, this is not American, this is cruel, and it is a shame on all of 48 00:02:41,033 --> 00:02:43,000 us that it is done in our name. 49 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:45,400 And I just think that's where it is. 50 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:50,100 Beyond the political, which I think is a disaster for the Republicans, for the reasons, many 51 00:02:50,100 --> 00:02:55,066 of which David has spoken of, is just immeasurable. 52 00:02:57,066 --> 00:03:01,000 JOHN YANG: But, David, the president seems to want the make this the center point of 53 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:05,800 the midterm election campaign. 54 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:07,733 DAVID BROOKS: Yes, the Republicans are having a debate. 55 00:03:07,733 --> 00:03:09,833 Normally, you go with your strength. 56 00:03:09,833 --> 00:03:11,733 And the Republicans have a clear advantage. 57 00:03:11,733 --> 00:03:14,433 The country trusts the Republicans on the economy. 58 00:03:14,433 --> 00:03:17,500 And so, on the normal thing, you would play up the economy. 59 00:03:17,500 --> 00:03:20,266 Trump says, no, immigration is going to be our issue. 60 00:03:20,266 --> 00:03:24,166 And the data point that backs him up -- I doubt he's seen this data point -- is that 61 00:03:24,166 --> 00:03:28,333 if you ask voters what issue is top most on your mind, right now, it's immigration first 62 00:03:28,333 --> 00:03:29,866 and health care second. 63 00:03:29,866 --> 00:03:32,466 And so he can say, listen, the people care about immigration. 64 00:03:32,466 --> 00:03:37,466 I think it's what his people care about or what he thinks his people care about. 65 00:03:37,466 --> 00:03:41,600 But the broader trend here is worth pointing out, that over the last two years and over 66 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:46,600 the past 10 years, support for immigration in principle has been rising, not falling. 67 00:03:48,666 --> 00:03:49,500 The number of people who say immigrants are good for the country, we should have more 68 00:03:49,500 --> 00:03:51,500 immigrants been rising. 69 00:03:51,500 --> 00:03:54,133 The number of people say we have fewer immigrants, that's been falling. 70 00:03:54,133 --> 00:03:56,966 And so this is not the rise of nativism. 71 00:03:56,966 --> 00:04:00,733 It's the rise of Donald Trump mobilizing a certain portion of the electorate. 72 00:04:00,733 --> 00:04:05,700 JOHN YANG: And yet you say the support for immigration is rising, but Congress can't 73 00:04:06,433 --> 00:04:07,966 figure out what to do. 74 00:04:07,966 --> 00:04:12,233 They have punted again this -- a vote on a bill in the House. 75 00:04:12,233 --> 00:04:15,600 MARK SHIELDS: No, it's actually -- David's right. 76 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:17,733 It's 17 years it's been improving. 77 00:04:17,733 --> 00:04:22,166 In fact, there's a 6 percent drop just from last year in the Americans who think that 78 00:04:23,033 --> 00:04:24,166 we ought to cut immigration. 79 00:04:24,166 --> 00:04:27,666 It's down to 29 percent, which is a low. 80 00:04:27,666 --> 00:04:32,666 So, Americans really are, if anything, more welcoming, more enlightened, more acknowledging 81 00:04:34,100 --> 00:04:37,666 of the value and importance of immigrants to our country. 82 00:04:37,666 --> 00:04:40,133 But, in Congress, it's been a political failure. 83 00:04:40,133 --> 00:04:45,133 There's been no public common consensus established on this issue. 84 00:04:45,866 --> 00:04:47,400 It's been a failure. 85 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:48,400 President Bush tried. 86 00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:49,700 President George W. Bush tried. 87 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:50,800 President Obama tried. 88 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:52,700 They failed. 89 00:04:52,700 --> 00:04:57,366 And President Trump has been like an arsonist in a gasoline station on this issue. 90 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:07,200 The only people who really want action right now, heading in November, are suburban Republicans, 91 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:14,800 who are in districts where their constituents are more enlightened, more welcoming, more 92 00:05:16,233 --> 00:05:20,200 humane on immigration, and oppose the Republican Party. 93 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,400 And they want to see some action to be able to go back. 94 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:26,433 But there isn't. 95 00:05:26,433 --> 00:05:29,400 I mean, Democrats have been excluded from the process, and they're not playing. 96 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:32,133 And the mainstream Republicans really don't give a damn. 97 00:05:32,133 --> 00:05:33,133 DAVID BROOKS: Yes. 98 00:05:33,133 --> 00:05:34,300 But it's interesting. 99 00:05:34,300 --> 00:05:36,266 It's been a failure on three ways. 100 00:05:36,266 --> 00:05:39,500 And there's been sort of the ultra-hawkish side on the Republican side who wants to cut 101 00:05:39,500 --> 00:05:44,000 legal and illegal immigration and build a wall and all the rest. 102 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,233 There's another part, we will call them moderate Republicans, though that may be stretching 103 00:05:47,233 --> 00:05:52,233 the term, who mostly care about just enforcing the laws and want to give dreamers a path. 104 00:05:54,233 --> 00:05:56,233 And the realities of the people that are here, they want to give them a path to citizenship. 105 00:05:56,233 --> 00:05:59,766 And those two can't get along, so you can't get a Republican policy. 106 00:05:59,766 --> 00:06:04,766 And then there is the Democrats, who say, we aren't going to play at any of these games, 107 00:06:06,666 --> 00:06:10,100 because we can't be getting rid of families, we can't be building a wall. 108 00:06:10,100 --> 00:06:13,900 And so we have -- we have -- we're going to be -- in three weeks, we're going to be exactly 109 00:06:13,900 --> 00:06:16,133 where we were today. 110 00:06:16,133 --> 00:06:20,166 And so Andrew Sullivan in "New York Magazine" wrote a piece which I have some sympathy for. 111 00:06:20,166 --> 00:06:22,000 It said, give the guy his wall. 112 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:23,300 Pay him off. 113 00:06:23,300 --> 00:06:25,333 Build the damn wall. 114 00:06:25,333 --> 00:06:28,700 It will do nothing, but build the wall, and then get a normal policy given the wall. 115 00:06:28,700 --> 00:06:33,300 And somehow there has to be some solution, or else this problem will be exactly the same 116 00:06:33,300 --> 00:06:35,000 in two weeks as it was two weeks ago. 117 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:36,000 (CROSSTALK) 118 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:37,000 JOHN YANG: Go ahead. 119 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:38,233 MARK SHIELDS: It will be, John. 120 00:06:38,233 --> 00:06:40,000 But I think you have to confront the reality. 121 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:41,566 This man is a racialist. 122 00:06:41,566 --> 00:06:43,666 He really is. 123 00:06:43,666 --> 00:06:47,833 The language he uses, Donald Trump, three years ago this week, he announced his candidacy. 124 00:06:48,700 --> 00:06:50,366 And you recall what he said. 125 00:06:50,366 --> 00:06:51,800 Mexico doesn't send us their best. 126 00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:52,966 They're not our friend. 127 00:06:52,966 --> 00:06:53,966 They send rapists. 128 00:06:53,966 --> 00:06:56,933 They send drug carriers. 129 00:06:56,933 --> 00:06:59,333 I mean, it's always been. 130 00:06:59,333 --> 00:07:02,300 The Nigerians don't want to go back to their huts. 131 00:07:02,300 --> 00:07:04,600 They come from the S-hole countries. 132 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:06,166 It's always had a racial component. 133 00:07:06,166 --> 00:07:08,666 He doesn't talk that way about Canada. 134 00:07:08,666 --> 00:07:10,866 He doesn't talk way about France. 135 00:07:10,866 --> 00:07:15,666 He talks about way about people from the Southern Hemisphere of a different pigmentation. 136 00:07:15,666 --> 00:07:20,666 And I don't think you can look at any of his statements, whether it's infecting the country, 137 00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:23,633 like we're talking about lice and vermin. 138 00:07:23,633 --> 00:07:25,066 DAVID BROOKS: Infesting, infesting, yes. 139 00:07:25,066 --> 00:07:26,733 MARK SHIELDS: Yes, infecting the country. 140 00:07:26,733 --> 00:07:29,666 And so I just -- I think -- I think this is the breaking point. 141 00:07:29,666 --> 00:07:31,766 I think this is Katrina. 142 00:07:31,766 --> 00:07:36,066 I think this is a defining moment for this presidency and the American people. 143 00:07:38,033 --> 00:07:41,033 I mean, if you could continue to support Donald Trump on these terms, you're accepting the 144 00:07:41,033 --> 00:07:42,533 fact that he is what he is. 145 00:07:42,533 --> 00:07:44,533 DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I don't agree. 146 00:07:44,533 --> 00:07:49,066 Just analytically, I agree with the moral objection, but I suspect there's a lot of 147 00:07:49,066 --> 00:07:53,233 people who are not anti-immigrant, not nativist, they do want to enforce the border. 148 00:07:53,233 --> 00:07:55,233 And they think too many people are coming here for asylum. 149 00:07:55,233 --> 00:07:57,533 And then they think they can get in if they bring kids. 150 00:07:57,533 --> 00:08:02,333 And so, analytically, frankly, I would be surprised if his approval rating went down 151 00:08:02,333 --> 00:08:05,866 more than 3 or 4 percentage points over this, if at all. 152 00:08:05,866 --> 00:08:06,866 We will see. 153 00:08:06,866 --> 00:08:08,066 MARK SHIELDS: We will see. 154 00:08:08,066 --> 00:08:08,866 DAVID BROOKS: We will see in a week. 155 00:08:08,866 --> 00:08:10,100 MARK SHIELDS: OK. 156 00:08:10,100 --> 00:08:12,200 JOHN YANG: Mark mentioned Katrina. 157 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,766 And I think that that -- the reason why I think that was so startling for George W. 158 00:08:15,766 --> 00:08:20,566 Bush was because the Republicans were seen as the competence, the people of competence, 159 00:08:20,566 --> 00:08:23,833 the people who could run things and make things work. 160 00:08:23,833 --> 00:08:28,266 And now we have this, as Yamiche Alcindor was describing earlier, total chaos in the 161 00:08:28,266 --> 00:08:32,500 government, as they try to figure out how to execute the executive order and how to 162 00:08:32,500 --> 00:08:34,566 reunite the families. 163 00:08:34,566 --> 00:08:38,000 It seems like there wasn't any thought, from which she is reporting, when they separated 164 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:39,666 the families, of how to reunite them. 165 00:08:39,666 --> 00:08:43,033 What does that say about the Republican Party and where they are now? 166 00:08:43,033 --> 00:08:45,366 DAVID BROOKS: Well, you get this weird phenomenon. 167 00:08:45,366 --> 00:08:50,366 Every time the government messes up in some major way, Donald Trump will say, see, I'm 168 00:08:51,100 --> 00:08:52,600 draining the swamp. 169 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:54,133 You have got to get rid of this government thing. 170 00:08:54,133 --> 00:08:56,166 And so, the more he screws up, the more it helps him. 171 00:08:56,166 --> 00:08:59,033 And he has been testing that proposition quite strongly for the last year-and-a-half. 172 00:08:59,033 --> 00:09:04,033 JOHN YANG: I do want to take some time to note the passing this week of a colleague 173 00:09:04,900 --> 00:09:06,366 of ours. 174 00:09:06,366 --> 00:09:08,400 I think all of us -- each of us worked with him. 175 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:12,133 I worked with him at "TIME" magazine in the 1980s, Charles Krauthammer, a very thoughtful, 176 00:09:14,100 --> 00:09:18,933 thought-provoking, and I think supremely, to my view, elegant, eloquent writer. 177 00:09:20,533 --> 00:09:22,966 Mark, you worked with him on "Inside Washington." 178 00:09:22,966 --> 00:09:23,966 MARK SHIELDS: I did. 179 00:09:23,966 --> 00:09:25,966 I did. 180 00:09:25,966 --> 00:09:29,966 Charles and I occupied different philosophical chairs, far more polarized than David and 181 00:09:30,566 --> 00:09:32,666 I are. 182 00:09:32,666 --> 00:09:37,066 But Charles, as probably most viewers do and readers knew, suffered a terribly disabling 183 00:09:38,533 --> 00:09:39,900 injury. 184 00:09:39,900 --> 00:09:42,533 It left him a paraplegic as a young man. 185 00:09:42,533 --> 00:09:45,733 And in spite of that, a great tribute to the human spirit. 186 00:09:45,733 --> 00:09:50,233 Charles is all that you said he was, but he had a wicked sense of humor. 187 00:09:50,233 --> 00:09:52,233 He really did. 188 00:09:52,233 --> 00:09:54,966 As Gordon Peterson, the longtime Washington anchor, wrote a beautiful piece that I believe 189 00:09:54,966 --> 00:09:59,966 is our PBS Web site about Charles, was emcee of that show, host of that show, noted, that 190 00:10:02,266 --> 00:10:07,266 Charles just had a marvelously devilish sense of humor, and oftentimes at the expense of 191 00:10:09,300 --> 00:10:13,400 those very conservative icons that he was defending their policies, while acknowledging 192 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,300 their infirmities of character and personality. 193 00:10:18,300 --> 00:10:23,300 But he was -- he was really, I think, sui generis, it's fair the say. 194 00:10:24,466 --> 00:10:26,533 DAVID BROOKS: A, super intelligent. 195 00:10:26,533 --> 00:10:29,200 There's a test where you have to recite -- people read you off a number, a bunch of numbers, 196 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:31,666 and you have to recite them backwards. 197 00:10:31,666 --> 00:10:33,666 The average person can do five. 198 00:10:33,666 --> 00:10:36,400 Charles could do 12 while driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour. 199 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:37,666 (LAUGHTER) 200 00:10:37,666 --> 00:10:39,833 DAVID BROOKS: So, that's intelligence. 201 00:10:39,833 --> 00:10:43,366 Second, just he could be dry and acerbic, but if you went to a ball game with him, he 202 00:10:44,266 --> 00:10:44,966 was like a 7-year-old boy. 203 00:10:44,966 --> 00:10:46,800 He was joyful. 204 00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:49,766 And the right word for him, even despite his intimidating persona, is sweet. 205 00:10:49,766 --> 00:10:53,966 He was a sweet man, especially at a ballpark, around Jewish issues. 206 00:10:53,966 --> 00:10:56,133 He just radiated that sweetness. 207 00:10:56,133 --> 00:10:59,400 And then the final thing, just professionally, he's a man who did the reading. 208 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:00,433 He read through Kant. 209 00:11:00,433 --> 00:11:01,900 He read through Maimonides. 210 00:11:01,900 --> 00:11:04,333 He read through John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. 211 00:11:04,333 --> 00:11:09,333 And he knew his philosophical grounding, and everything could then grow out of that. 212 00:11:10,500 --> 00:11:12,600 And so he had an anti-romanticism. 213 00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:16,033 He didn't get swept up in sentimental passions, but it gave him a depth to his work that was 214 00:11:18,200 --> 00:11:20,333 extraordinary for a mere newspaper columnist. 215 00:11:20,333 --> 00:11:24,566 JOHN YANG: And I should note, David, he once - - I saw him once, I think, on FOX. 216 00:11:24,566 --> 00:11:27,766 There was a reference to you as a conservative columnist. 217 00:11:27,766 --> 00:11:30,333 And Charles said, oh, no, no, no, I have to correct you. 218 00:11:30,333 --> 00:11:32,400 David is no conservative. 219 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:33,066 DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think he was asked, who is was your favorite liberal columnist? 220 00:11:33,066 --> 00:11:33,933 And he said me. 221 00:11:33,933 --> 00:11:34,933 (LAUGHTER) 222 00:11:34,933 --> 00:11:35,933 DAVID BROOKS: So, that was... 223 00:11:35,933 --> 00:11:37,166 (CROSSTALK) 224 00:11:37,166 --> 00:11:38,366 DAVID BROOKS: That was his sense of humor. 225 00:11:38,366 --> 00:11:39,733 JEFFREY BROWN: That was his sense of humor. 226 00:11:39,733 --> 00:11:39,866 David Brooks, Mark Shields, thank you so much.