Brooks and Capehart on Biden’s wins, losses in year one and the Russia-Ukraine conflict

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• Judy Woodruff:

  President Biden's first year in office closed out this week with major challenges, domestically and abroad.

  Democrats have been unable to garner enough support to pass the White House's legislative priorities, and, as we reported, tensions remain between the U.S. and Russia, despite high-level diplomatic talks.

  To break down what these setbacks mean for the Biden administration going forward, we are joined by Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, columnist for The Washington Post.

  Very good to see both of you on this cold January Friday night.

  Let's talk about the president's first year, Jonathan. The critics are letting him have it. Some people are coming to his defense. How do you see the first year?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, I see the first year — today, I was asked to give him a grade.

  And the grade I would give him is a B. He's gotten a lot of good things done, the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure plan, but there are a lot of other things that haven't come through, Build Back Better, voting rights.

  There's the continuing — having to deal with the COVID pandemic, and dealing with people who don't want to get the vaccines to help also get the economy going along, and, speaking of economy, the inflation.

  So, this is the first year of a four-year term. Maybe, in year two, he can get a lot of these things done. But it just goes to show what we have seen is the limits of presidential power, especially when the president's party controls one branch of government, but only because of the tiebreaking vote of the vice president.

• Judy Woodruff:

  David, so, how do you size it up? Do you want to give him a grade?

• David Brooks:

  I teach college, and our grade inflation is so ridiculous, I don't want to do that, because it would be like an A-plus.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  I did notice most — more Americans give Joe Biden an F than give him an A or a B.

  But he's in a slump right now. Only 28 percent of Americans want Joe Biden to run again. And, stunningly, only 48 percent of Democrats want him to run again. That's pretty bad.

  Nonetheless, here's how I would justify what he tried to do. America has big problems with inequality, on race, on voting, on a whole raft of issues, climate change, and all the rest. He tried to swing for the fences.

  And I thought, given the sociological crisis we're in, it was worth a shot, because it could have really adjusted the foundations of America. It turned out to be more than our political system was able to handle. It turns out that trust in government is really so low that people are suspicious of big government action.

  It turns out that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema actually believe what they say they believe, and they were not to be moved. So, I think it was worth the shot, but it is time to pivot. And he is pivoting in small ways. I think he had announced that this week, that he's going to spend less time to negotiating with senators, more time out in the country, that being president is different than being senator.

  America wants a president who's a leader and who's out there articulating things. But he's got one job right now. And that is to get — make sure Donald Trump does not win in 2024. And that means he has to win over people who are both sometime Democratic voters and sometime Trump voters.

  And focusing on the 10 to 15 percent of the Republicans who are tired of Trump, to me, is the number one job for the next three years.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And so, if that's — if that's his job — first of all, Jonathan, do you agree that's the number one job? And if it is, is he up to it?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, look, I think the president's number one job is to get this country on track. And I don't think focusing all of your attention 10 to 12 percent of Republicans who might come your way is the way to do it.

  I think that the president and his administration went about the — went about governing in a way of saying, you know what, this is what we are supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be governing for everyone. Let's get things done and get things passed, passed, that affect all Americans, as he would say, whether you voted for me or not.

  The other thing that we that we have to keep in mind, that, yes, the president swung for the fences, but we can't also forget about the fact that Republicans, particularly in the Senate, have been unified in their opposition to just about anything he wants to do, with the exception of the bipartisan infrastructure law and also the bill related to China.

  Now, they're coming together on electoral — the Electoral Count Act, and trying to do something about that. But if you can't get voting rights passed without a single Republican coming forward, or you can't even get Build Back Better, any of the popular programs that are in it can't get passed because Republicans will not vote for them, then that becomes also part of the challenge.

  But I also think it should become part of the president's message about why things aren't getting done. And I think he tried to do that in the press conference on Wednesday.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And — but, I mean, if these are the obstacles, David, I mean, how does he — how does he work through them in a way that was very difficult to work through this past year?

• David Brooks:

  Well, the question is whether he wants a message or he wants — whether he wants action.

  Some of the action, he can do through executive action, some minimal things he can do. But if he wants to pass bills, it strikes me the infrastructure act is the way to go. He got 19 Republican senators to support that. That was a trillion-dollar bill. That's a massive thing.

  A lot of people liked it. I think there are some parts — and I think the president thinks this — there are some parts of the Build Back Better bill that, if broken out, can pass with bipartisan support.

  It's just a fact that, if he's going to pass something either has to pass things that Joe Manchin likes or things that get 60 votes in the Senate. There's — that's just it.

  And so the idea that — when I say he needs to focus on the 12 percent, I think he — there's a couple perceptions about him that he needs to address, and he needs to address them not with words, but with actions.

  The first is, he's become ineffectual. People think he's not getting stuff done. And that's because of the last six months. He hasn't got a lot done.

  The second perception, he's not in touch with the desires of people in the center, that he's gone too far off left. And I think that was necessity if he was going to try something big. But those concerns are things like crime. They're things like inflation. They're things like COVID. And they're mostly economic right now.

  And so fixating on the issues that are of interest to the center strikes me is the only way to even get 50 votes, let alone 60.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Is that the answer, Jonathan, tilt toward — favor the center?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, it depends on, how are you defining the center?

  Because I would argue that going for the child tax credit, to get that funded or made permanent, going for paid family leave, going for child care, which, if you want to get the economy back up and running, and you want to get — you want to have people get out back into the work force, provide child care, so that you make it possible for people to go to work.

  I don't think that that's — that that's some far left or progressive thing. That is something that I think a majority of the American people would like to have happen. And if Build Back Better just suddenly becomes child care, adult care, and maybe something on climate change or the child tax credit, get that in a package and get that passed, I think that that will solve maybe most of what David is talking about.

  It will show the country that the president has the needs of the country as — in the center of his mind and is doing everything possible — or did everything possible to get that done to help them.

• Judy Woodruff:

  David, is that doable?

• David Brooks:

  I do think there are things.

  I'm not sure child care is something that you can get a lot of Republican votes for, or even Joe Manchin's votes for. But I do think the child tax credit is something that — versions of the child tax credit have been supported by people like Marco Rubio, the Republican from Florida.

  So I think there are things — and I'm just advocating for extreme pragmatism. The question right now, the first question in the first year was, what does the country need? And I get that. That's a good question to ask.

  But I think the question right now is, what can we get done? So, you go to your legislative affairs office, and you say, where can we get the votes? And it's not throwing long bombs anymore. It's throwing short passes over the middle.

  And the child tax credit, I think, is a very plausible one. And I think there are a bunch of other plausible ones on some of the energy stuff and on voting — on some of the voting rights, the Electoral Count Act, which Jonathan mentioned, which has strong bipartisan support.

  And so you pick up some wins, and then wins produce more wins down the road.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, Jonathan, speaking of getting stuff done, was it the right thing to do for the president and for the Democrats to push through voting rights? We talked a lot about it last week. We saw the outcome. They weren't able to get it through.

  Was it the right thing to go ahead with the vote?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  It absolutely was the right thing to do.

  I think, sometimes, we make the mistake of viewing some of these — some of these issues from solely a political lens. And because we look at them through a political lens, we don't see or hear the moral arguments that are being made.

  And I think that the president's been making the moral arguments since that speech last year in Philadelphia. Chuck Schumer — the president made the speech, made another moral case in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and I think, when you make this a focal point of what you're trying to do, not just to rally your base, not just to help the Democratic Party, but because voting and the right to vote and the ability to vote and to have your votes counted fairly and accurately is the underpinning of our democracy.

  And so, if you're not going to fight for that, if you're not going to swing for the fences for that, even knowing that you're not going to get any Republican buy-in, that it is not going to pass the Senate, and the fact that you have got two members of your own party who are saying, we're not even — even though we're going to vote for it, we're not going to change the rules to allow it to pass by a simple majority vote.

  I think the president and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, were absolutely right to, if you're going to go down, go down fighting, because if you're not going to fight for democracy, then why are you there?

• Judy Woodruff:

  David, what do you think about whether it was the right thing to do?

• David Brooks:

  I more or less agree with Jonathan.

  I think especially the John Lewis Act was the right thing to do, just as a matter of American morality and American principle. I do think some of the efforts were misfocused, as I have argued before on the program. I think our crisis is in the certification of the vote.

  But that can still be fixed. And, as I said before, I think there's Republican support for that. The Electoral Count Act is a very old bill about how we work the Electoral College. It's very leaky. There's lots of ways to screw it up, as we saw, as — when Donald Trump tried to do. So we need to close those loopholes.

  And that, I think, can very much be done. Other things can be done to make sure there are paper ballots in every voting — there's a whole — of practical things that were in the Tim Scott ideas when he was doing voting rights, that Susan Collins of Maine, the moderate Republican, has been advocating for.

  And so now that the big bills are off the table, I think this is yet another occasion where there are things that Republicans are talking up and Biden can take them up on it. And it would make sure that, after the votes are cast and counted in 2024, we could be assured that the right outcome would actually come into effect.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And which matters a lot.

  Jonathan, one of the big challenges right now on the president's plate, of course, is Ukraine. We heard a pretty pessimistic assessment from Nick Schifrin's guest earlier in the program.

  How is the president handling that? And are the options for him clear at this point?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, one of the problems of having a marathon two-hour press conference, and especially when the president is Joe Biden, is that he likes to take the American people inside the tent and tell them, let them know, like, here's what we're talking about.

  And that's what's caused all the consternation with the alliance and also in Ukraine. But the fact of the matter is, the administration has been clear for weeks now that, if Russia does anything, there will be severe consequences.

  Even after the president's press conference, and the administration was doing all sorts of cleanup over what the president said, they were back on — they were back on what they were saying. There will be severe consequences.

  And the challenge now for the president is going to be, if/when Russia does something against Ukraine, what does it do? And no matter what it does, it better be — it better be forceful, it better be strong, so that it does not send a message to the allies, but also to the Chinese, that the United States is not willing to back up its words with action.

• Judy Woodruff:

  David, how do you size up what — how the president's doing on this?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, we have had a — maybe a decade-long slide, well, maybe a 20-year-old slide in American foreign policy, first with the errors of the Iraq War, and then probably overlearning the lessons of those errors.

  And, therefore, I think President Obama, President Trump, in almost a bipartisan manner, just were for withdrawal, and the assumption that America can't be strong in the world because we're just not competent at it.

  And that — it's — humility is good, but excessive humility, in this case, just leaves the wolves room to prowl. And Vladimir Putin and the Chinese have learned to prowl. And they have got more confidence. They are more sure that we're in decline and we're weak internally. And so they're testing.

  And what I like about the Biden — and I — the gaffe was the gaffe in the press conference. But I think that's — that will be forgotten.

  I think what's important, and I think what seems to be the case, is, the entire NATO alliance is united and strong about this. I think it's important that where — Russia wants us to basically withdraw troops from places like Eastern Europe and Central Europe, and we're not going to do that. And we have made that very clear, which is right.

  But I think what the telling case will be is how severe the kinds of sanctions the West can impose on Russia, how those are drawn up, and how those are impressed upon the Russians that it will actually happen.

  I just finished a book on Catherine the Great, the great Russian empress, and taking over the Ukraine is an old national tradition.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  And so I'm afraid Putin is a Russian nationalist through and through, and I do not put it past him that he would want — he will decide eventually to do this.

  And the report we had on from the military expert was truly horrifying.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Yes.

• David Brooks:

  I mean, this would be such a shock to the 21st century if it happened.

  So that's why real strength and real specific threats seem to be the right way to do — and Biden is pretty much doing that.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, I'm leaving this Friday night with the image of wolves on the prowl, David.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Thank you for that.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Have a good weekend, Judy.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Have a great weekend.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Thank you both, David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Judy.

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