JUDY WOODRUFF: And now to the
analysis of Shields and Brooks.
That is syndicated columnist
Mark Shields and New York
Times columnist David Brooks.
Gentlemen, welcome.
Big news, the equivalent
of an earthquake, I
guess, in Washington,
political earthquake.
Mark, what does it mean that
Anthony Kennedy is stepping
down from the Supreme Court?
What does it mean for the court?
What does it mean for the
city, for the country?
MARK SHIELDS: It's significant.
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: No, let me just
say, God likes Donald Trump,
because she has now given him
a second appointee to the
Supreme Court, something
that Barack Obama, in
eight years, got two.
Bill Clinton in
eight years got two.
George W. Bush in
eight years got two.
He's getting two in 18 months.
Anthony Kennedy is getting
encomiums of praise, in large
part, Judy, two sources.
One, he was a gentleman.
He was considerate
to those around him.
He didn't -- there
was no personalizing
or polarizing to him.
And that is welcome and
refreshing in this Washington.
But the second thing is, he was
a liberal on individual rights
and sort of social issues.
He wasn't on economic issues.
He always came down on
the side of corporations
against consumers and
the side of the employer
against -- the boss.
And he wrote probably the worst
opinion, in my judgment, in the
history of American politics,
the campaign -- permitting
corporations to make unlimited
campaign contributions, and
allowing the gushing of water
-- of money into campaigns.
But he will -- he has been a key
vote on capital punishment, on a
whole host of issues, including
gay marriage and
ratifying Roe v. Wade.
So, in that sense, the nominee
will be to the right of him,
and it will perhaps energize
Republicans who were not
energized about 2018.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How do
you see his legacy first?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, first,
it struck me that a lot of my
progressive friends are reacting
like losing Kennedy is
like losing, I don't
know, Franklin Roosevelt.
Like, suddenly, they're
all on his side, which
is odd to me, because,
in most of his decisions,
Citizens United and Bush v.
Gore, he voted very solidly
with the conservatives.
But it shows the prominence of
two issues for progressives,
which is abortion and gay
marriage, and it shows how the
social issues really are what
motivate people these days.
I would say I would
characterize him as a pragmatic
libertarian, tended to emphasize
individual rights and freedoms.
And so sometimes that went
a little -- a lot of time,
it went a little right.
Sometimes, it went
a little left.
But it tended to be an
individualistic mind-set,
which had some good virtues.
I thought it -- in general, it
weakened any sense of community,
any of sense of, we have
a shared nation, because
his world view was
so individualistic.
Nonetheless, he was just a very
cordial man, a very good man
to be around in Washington,
an exemplar of an old
style public servant.
As for the politics,
I agree with Mark.
It's just a total
gift for Republicans.
It will unify the right.
It will energize the right.
It will energize the
left, too, but more --
in the coming campaign,
it puts pressure on the
people in the middle.
And so Lisa Murkowski and
Susan Collins on the Republican
side, it puts some pressure
on them, but I don't
think a whole lot.
They voted for Gorsuch.
MARK SHIELDS:
Gorsuch, that's right.
DAVID BROOKS: But
it puts a bunch of
pressure on the centrist
Democrats who are running
in the red states.
And I think puts more pressure
on the Democrats than it
does on the Republicans.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: Yes,
I agree with David.
Joe Manchin in West Virginia,
who I think has to be favored
for reelection, as a Democrat
in a state, Donald Trump's best
state, he won by 42 percent,
that is going to be a difficult
vote for him, especially
if Mitch McConnell, in
all likelihood, holds
the vote around Halloween
to keep attention
riveted on the issue.
Heidi Heitkamp in North
Dakota, a state that
Donald Trump carried by
36 percent, Democratic
incumbent.
Joe Donnelly in Indiana that
he carried by 17 percent.
And Claire McCaskill in
Missouri that Donald Trump
carried by 19 percent.
It's going to be a lot of
political pressure for them.
Judy, the key to me is,
this is a bigger issue,
the Supreme Court has
been, for conservatives
and Republicans than it has
been historically for Democrats.
For example, in the exit polls
in 2016, the Clinton-Trump race,
26 percent of the Republican
voters said the Supreme Court
and who sat on it was an
urgent vote matter to them, to
the point that it affected
and influenced their votes.
Only 18 percent of Democrats
said it was for them.
So, it's a built-in
emotional advantage at
a time when Republican
enthusiasm and interest
in the 2018 campaign has been
sapping and had been draining.
DAVID BROOKS: That may -- I
wonder if that will change now
because this pick obviously
puts Roe v. Wade right at
the center of our politics.
And it will actually open up
something very interesting.
I don't think it's --
the nightmare scenario
on either side, I don't
think it's probably
going to happen.
MARK SHIELDS: Which is?
What is...
DAVID BROOKS: Which is
that that Roe v. Wade will
suddenly be overturned.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: Because there is
a precedent which Secretary --
Justice Roberts has maintained
through most of the terms --
and the Obamacare case is a
good example -- of saying, I may
agree, I may not agree, but what
is settled law is settled law.
He has tended to be
biased in that direction.
And as we go through the
hearings, whoever the nominee
is, that's what they are going
to say.
And so they may disagree in
principle on Roe v. Wade, but it
is -- it's reasonably settled,
so they may hedge
it or something.
But it -- I'm not sure we're
looking at some massive overturn
of Roe v. Wade either way.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But neither
one of you sees any hindrance,
anything standing in front
of the president getting
his choice for the court?
MARK SHIELDS: Sure,
the choice himself.
We have had nominees rejected
before because of something
that was discovered or and their
position.
I would just take one exception
to David, and that is, over
the last generation, Gallup
has polled every single year.
Americans have more -- far more
tolerant and far less censorious
about having a child out
of wedlock, or gay rights,
or extramarital relations.
But moral acceptability of
abortion remains divided exactly
where it was 25 years ago.
So it is an organizing and
galvanizing issue still to this
day, even though I think David's
right that the status quo or
precedent works to the advantage
of those who would preserve
it.
But how about it if it
becomes the central issue
in the campaign of 2018?
Does that help the
Democrats or not?
Does it turn out Republicans
who might not have --
who might have sat home?
JUDY WOODRUFF: And speaking
of that, the Kennedy
announcement, David, came
the day after progressive
Democrats did surprisingly
well in a number of the
primaries this week.
And you had this unusual --
shocking result in New York,
where Joseph Crowley, who was
somebody who was a part of the
Democratic establishment in
the House of Representatives
and leadership, was beaten by
a 28-year-old young woman who
is seen as a self-described
socialist Democrat.
What's going on with the
Democrats, and how do you --
now that we have got the Supreme
Court move, how do you
see that playing on
top of what's happened?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
The core question to me
is whether this is David
Brat all over again.
And David Brat is the guy in
Virginia who beat Eric Cantor.
And that was a precursor
to the Trump phenomenon.
It was a sign that anger at
establishment Republicans was
so high that the party was
about to undergo some
fundamental earthquake.
And that could be true.
But the Crowley loss, to
me, was just one data point
among a lot of data points.
And there have been some of
these races where the Sanders
candidate has won, but there's
been a lot where the mainstream
Democratic candidate has won.
And I so think the balance of
the evidence so far is that
Democratic voters around the
country are not upset with
Democratic establishment
the way Republican voters
were with the Republican.
So I do not see a Sanders wave.
I see these one-off cases
where you -- this was a very
distinct district with a very,
very talented candidate.
And so she pulled off this
amazing victory, but I don't see
yet it as a part of a national
trend.
JUDY WOODRUFF: How
do you see it, Mark?
MARK SHIELDS: I don't see it
as part of a national trend.
Joe Crowley was an
exceptionally popular Democrat.
He didn't fit the pattern
of somebody who had grown
remote from his district.
He was the Queens Democratic
boss, a position he had
inherited from his predecessor.
But the axiom -- maxim that
all politics is local, which
has seemed to be repealed by
all politics being
national, reasserted itself.
I mean, this is a district,
Judy, that has changed,
demographically, dramatically.
I mean, it's now a distinctly
plurality of Hispanic voters,
minority voters, and it's
down to fewer than out
of one out of five.
So, it is the House
of Representatives.
And I will say one
thing about Joe Crowley.
His concession was as
gracious, compared to
Donald Trump's continuing
to savage Mark Sanford
and gratuitously
attacking Joe Crowley.
It was -- he sang "Born to
Run," Bruce Springsteen, song.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Sang a
song dedicated to her.
MARK SHIELDS: And
dedicated to her, to
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you
see it as a one-off?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, I mean,
it's the first time a Democrat
incumbent has lost in three
elections.
David described Cantor.
There had been a lot of Senate
upsets where the right and
the liberty group and the Tea
Party had asserted
itself before that.
DAVID BROOKS: There was --
also, it came at a time when
the border issue is such a vital
issue, which aroused a lot of
people's sense of, we have got
to have our people in there.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: And so -- but,
nonetheless, it still has to
be said that voters are upset
with establishments.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: And it's
not unprecedented --
unlikely that we're going
to get more of these.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, quickly,
you mentioned the border.
Where does the administration
stand right now on immigration?
I talked to Marc Short, the
White House legislative affairs
director, a few minutes ago.
Mark, what do we see here?
You still have families
being separated when they
come across the border.
MARK SHIELDS: You do, Judy.
And you have got competing
jurisdictions here of agencies,
Health and Human Services.
You have got the
Department of Justice.
You have got Homeland Security.
You have got the Border Patrol.
You have got all
of these issues.
I think the time has come, if
the president is serious about
it, if the country is serious
about it, to appoint a czar.
Give somebody super powers,
whether that person be Colin
Powell or General Anthony Zinni,
the former four-star Marine
CENTCOM commander, or Martin
Dempsey, the former chairman of
the Joint Chiefs,
or Mike Mullen.
I don't -- but somebody who
is going to be the face, the
voice to whom all the others
are accountable,
because, right now...
JUDY WOODRUFF: On immigration?
(CROSSTALK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: ...
southern border?
MARK SHIELDS: On the
border, on the family
separation in particular
at the border, because
you can't get answers now.
DAVID BROOKS: I don't like any
sentence that includes both
Trump and czar at the same time.
That scares me.
MARK SHIELDS: OK.
That's OK.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: The problem
is not -- well, there's
the management problem.
And maybe some sort of
administrator would help.
But the core problem is the
Trump administration, at least
large parts of it, wants to send
an intimidating message down
to people south of the border:
Don't try to come up here.
It will be miserable for you.
And then -- but they don't want
to face the total political
backlash of having a completely
cruel policy.
So they're stuck in the
horns of that dilemma.
At the same time, they're
stuck in a bit of a
legislative logjam.
So I think the lesson should
be that we're not going to
be monsters at the border.
We're going to enforce the law,
but we're not be total monsters.
But that goes against
the policy that Jeff
Sessions wants to support.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But just in a few
seconds, is it doing political
damage to the administration?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, Mark and
I had a little discussion last
week whether it would hurt
Trump's approval rating.
And I hate to say it, but
I was right, in that it has
not hurt his approval rating.
MARK SHIELDS: Well, no, his
Gallup dropped precipitously.
DAVID BROOKS: I just
looked at the numbers.
So, we will come back next week.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will
come back next Friday.
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: You pick
your own numbers, David.
That's what you're going to do.
DAVID BROOKS: The Trump
poll had him just...
(CROSSTALK)
MARK SHIELDS: How
much is 11 and 7?
Is it 17?
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Hang
around after the show.
It gets even more exciting.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark Shields,
David Brooks, thank you.