Geoff Bennett:
President Trump once again putting false claims about the 2020 election at the center of the national political debate is where we start as we turn tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That’s “The Atlantic”‘s David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW.
Good evening, gentlemen.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hey, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
So, David, what did you hear in that speech last night? What do you think President Trump is trying to accomplish here?
(Laughter)
David Brooks:
Oh, subtle. I couldn’t figure it out.
He was — he’s got to get more original in his confabulation. I mean, he’s just stuck on this 2020 thing. There’s never been any evidence. There’s no evidence. I think the good news is, he doesn’t have any policies to actually ruin our election system, as we heard from the secretaries of state. So we’re going to have fair elections in this country.
But it still has a corrosive effect on America to give that speech. A, you’re — it’s a sign to America that we don’t have to weigh evidence here. We don’t have to, like, consider what’s true or not. And that’s — this has been a long Trump story, of course.
But I was reminded of a line that used to be in John McCain’s campaign speeches in 2000, where he said a healthy skepticism has turned into a thoroughgoing cynicism about public life. And this is a long-term trend where people think they’re all crooks, they’re all crooks, it’s all rotten.
And it’s a very easy pose to adopt, but it’s a false one. I am always happy when you have people like Sue Gordon, the intelligence officer, on the show, because Americans get to see what an intelligence officer looks what a federal employee looks like, what those two secretaries of state look like.
And they are good, honest people doing a professional job because they love their country. And the idea that they’re all crooks, it’s all deep state, aside from being cynical and corrosive, it’s just a lie. We have spent our life covering these people, and it’s mostly very good people doing the best they can, not for a lot of money.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan, why do you think the president is still relitigating this six years after the election?
Jonathan Capehart:
Well, I think he’s relitigating it now because, as the kids say, he’s scared.
(Laughter)
Jonathan Capehart:
He’s very scared about what could happen if Democrats retake the House and retake the Senate. He has said as much on the record. If they take over, I will be investigated.
And, quite frankly, there are reasons to investigate him and members of his administration. But I thought last night’s speech was a complete waste of time. To David’s point, it was all a rehash of things we have heard before. And in the end, it was just a rah-rah for his SAVE America Act, which is going nowhere, not because of the fault of Democrats, but because of Republicans who have problems with that bill.
When it comes to the deep state, the thing I kept thinking was, but wait, if you have problems with the 2020 election and you’re blaming it on the deep state, that was your administration. So, as much as he did it from the East Room and there was all the pageantry of the presidency, but in the end, I don’t think he did himself any favors.
Geoff Bennett:
And, David, we spoke on this program last night with Ty Cobb, who was the special counsel during the first Trump administration, and he offered an extraordinary warning. He said that he believes that President Trump is laying the predicate for an emergency declaration around the elections.
Do you see the guardrails holding if President Trump tries to use the apparatus of the federal government to intervene more directly in how elections are administered?
David Brooks:
I think so. A lot of people have thought that this is a predicate for some future action.
I think, if you look at the things he’s tried to do, we’re helped by the fact that these are mostly state-run things, so he does not have control. And what isn’t state run is usually congressionally run. And so he has tried. The thing he’s done successfully is the gerrymandering in Texas. He has rigged elections and Democrats have helped in California.
So that part he was successful at in degrading our elections. But pretty much everything else he’s done through executive order and other things, courts have overruled him. And so I do not believe he will have the power to actually affect our elections.
Geoff Bennett:
How do you see it, Jonathan?
Jonathan Capehart:
Although I am a little concerned about what happens on Election Day.
Congressman Jim Himes was on with my colleague Lawrence O’Donnell last night, and he warned that, yes, what the president is doing is laying the predicate for stealing the election, and he said, for instance, what happens if they seize the ballot boxes from particular jurisdictions? What happens to the chain of custody? That is when democracy will be at its most tenuous.
And, sure, you can race to court and try to get them back, but the action’s already done. And so I hope you’re right that we are going to have a free and fair election this November. But I have a healthy imagination, and I hope that folks who care about free and fair elections also have a healthy imagination and are prepared for any and every scenario that could happen.
David Brooks:
One little quick point. The gentleman from Georgia, the secretary of state there, he made the crucial point, this does not help Republicans.
And, in Georgia, if you remember, when there was a run-off for two Senate seats a few years ago, Trump basically said, oh, don’t bother, it’s all rigged.
Geoff Bennett:
Right.
David Brooks:
So guess what? Republicans sat at home. And that’s why Republicans like that gentleman are so upset with what he’s doing right now.
Geoff Bennett:
I want to shift our focus in the time that remains to immigration enforcement, because we have seen now two more people killed in encounters with ICE agents involving vehicles, a Mexican national in Houston, a Colombian national in Maine, neither of whom was the original target of the ICE operation.
The administration briefly paused these — certain vehicle stops, before President Trump intervened and reversed that decision. And then there was this other encounter in a Las Vegas airport, and this video posted on social media appears to show plainclothes ICE agents handcuffing a man.
He seemed to not know who they were or what was happening. And then these agents walk away after they realize they were being filmed, and this man is left with a handcuff still attached. Turns out he was later detained and arrested at LAX, the Los Angeles Airport, when he landed.
All of that to say, when you put all of these incidents together, plus what happened in Minneapolis, what does that say about how the administration is using federal law enforcement and whether there are sufficient rules, training, hiring, or accountability when things like this happen?
Jonathan Capehart:
There’s none of that.
We already know that there’s not enough training. We already know that there isn’t any accountability. With the shooting in Maine, the federal agents took the person involved away. And that, what we just saw there, is outrageous.
Imagine, anyone watching, if a person with no identifying information on them that they’re law enforcement comes up to you with handcuffs and tries to arrest you, doesn’t identify themselves, how would you react? I mean, you would try to run away, you would be angry, you would be filled with umbrage, the people around him filming and yelling.
This is not the way — if you want to enforce our immigration laws, this is not the way to do it. It makes me question, what is the real goal of the administration? Is it to get immigration under control, or is it something else more nefarious?
Geoff Bennett:
What about that, the perceived normalization of federal force in American life?
David Brooks:
Yes, when I was a baby right-winger, I think right-winger, I…
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
A baby right-winger.
David Brooks:
Not a red diaper baby, whatever the opposite is. I don’t know.
I remember going to a think tank. I won’t name it because I’m not positive. And they showed us a movie of what would happen if big government liberals took over the government, and they had an image of plainclothes federal officers abducting innocent Americans.
And we just saw that. And it’s done in a Republican administration. And so we have come a long way, baby. And I think what it what it says, nothing says tyranny like people in plainclothes grabbing a guy in an airport.
The thing — the part of this policy I really object to — and all the training and all that stuff, I agree with Jonathan, but I just hate quotas. When you tell ICE people or cops, you have got to rack up this many arrests in this much time, that has nothing to do with the underlying problem. It’s just a number.
And of course they’re going to do whatever they can to meet that number. And of course you’re going to get abuse. Of course you’re going to get these auto stops, because, with an auto stop, you don’t have to have a search warrant if you do when you go to somebody’s home. And of course you’re going to get in the most aggressive form of I’m going to make my number.
And it’s that act of setting a number, aside from all the other flaws, that gins up this game into something really…
(Crosstalk)
Geoff Bennett:
What about that, it undermines the legitimacy of the underlying law enforcement?
Jonathan Capehart:
Well, yes, because the — it’s to reach the number. If you are two arrests away from getting the boss off your back, then you don’t care what the law says, what the rules are.
And also we cannot forget that these folks are aided and abetted by a Supreme Court decision that basically legalized racial profiling in these instances. So everyone thought that things were getting better after Minneapolis, and I think those of us who were paying attention, it was for now, and we’re seeing that the for now, we are back to where we were during Minneapolis.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, thanks, as always.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks.
David Brooks:
Thank you.
