Brooks and Capehart on Trump’s ‘Big Lie,’ Meadows’ text messages, Biden domestic agenda

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• Judy Woodruff:

  And now we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, columnist for The Washington Post.

  Hello, gentlemen. Very good to see both of you.

  Let me just start right off the bat, Jonathan.

  AP, 11 reporters, they spent months working on this. They talked to 300-some-odd election officials. Not even close to a chance that there was an election — would have been a change in the election result.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right.

  And I loved how she emphasized 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of millions of votes cast. And what that says is that this is more evidence that the big lie is indeed the big lie.

  There was no massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. Even the person who was in charge of election security in the Trump administration said that this — that the 2020 election was the safest in American history.

  And so what this — whether this makes a difference, I don't know, but I do — in the short term. But I do know, in the long term and for history's sakes, it is good to have yet another — more evidence that there was no voter fraud.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And it is — David, as Jonathan is saying, there's been one look after another, investigation. The evidence is just not there.

• David Brooks:

  Yes.

  And I don't think it will make much difference. One thing we have learned is, if you fact-check people, they dig in and they believe their wrong belief more strongly.

  And that's just the fundamental problem here. There's a Brookings Institute scholar, Jonathan Rauch, who has a phrase, the constitution of knowledge. How does knowledge get created in society? We think about our U.S. Constitution, which is set of laws. But we have an informal system that creates knowledge.

  And we're — we in the media are part of it, checking things out, experts, the academy, all sorts of institutions who obey by a certain set of rules, that any hypothesis can be tested. We will check each other out to make sure whether we're right or wrong. We will have a big argument, and we will slowly build up knowledge.

  And that reporting is part of that constitution. Lots of Americans, millions and millions and millions of Americans, have simply opted out of it. They simply don't trust the constitution of knowledge. And, therefore, they're not part of the democratic regime. They're not part of building up the regime.

  But it's still important to do what the AP reporters did to keep the constitution of knowledge going and hope that some emotional or intellectual or some shift, so people will say, yes, those people are reliable.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And for historical purposes, as you were saying.

  So, in connection with this, to a degree, the House select committee looking into the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which was all about not believing the election results, Jonathan, this week, we had an interesting development.

  Mark Meadows, who was going to cooperate, then said, I'm not going to cooperate. The House then voted to say he's — to find him in contempt of Congress. But, in the process, he did turn over documents. We learned these text messages that show members of Congress, FOX News anchors were urging President Trump to do something to stop the mob.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  It seems as though Mark Meadows was trying to have it both ways, trying to cooperate, but then, once his book earned the ire of the former president, tried to backtrack.

  But, by the time, he backtracked he had handed over thousands of documents. And that's how we know about these text messages. That's how we know about the urgent pleas for help from members of Congress, from FOX News, personalities and so on.

  These are all things that had been reported at the time. We knew. It's not like we are learning anything new. But what I caution people against is thinking, because this is — oh, we knew this already or this isn't anything new, to remember that to actually have a text message with a time stamp and a name attached to it in a legal proceeding is vital.

  It is paramount. And it goes from being a story that's a — you know, an unnamed source to, no, this was a text message to Mark Meadows from fill in the blank member of Congress. We need help, and this — and it was sent at this time.

  I think that this 1,000-piece crossword — 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the ocean that the January 6 Select Committee has been working on after the last two weeks, to me, it seems like we're at 980 of those pieces put in place. They know a whole lot more than we know. But what we found out last week, this particular — this week in particular, has been stunning and fascinating.

• Judy Woodruff:

  We do know some more. We don't know the whole story, David, but how much difference is this going to make, do you think?

• David Brooks:

  Well, we do know some more.

  I'm struck they brought Mark Meadows — they cited him for contempt, because he was a member of Congress. He was a member the House for eight years, and they all know him. And so they're unlikely — unlikely that that happens. But it shows how seriously they're taking this.

  We learned, for sure, that the White House absolutely knew what was going on every second on January 6. And we know Meadows was sort of the like — as chief of staffs tend to be, he's sort of at the nexus it of, of all of all the messages.

  And he's playing an interesting role here, just as character analysis. Everyone at that time was called upon to either stand up for democracy or not. And Mike Pence, to his great credit, stood up for the democracy. Earlier, Bill Barr, the attorney general, stood up.

  Meadows was like halfway. He was saying, "Yes, I support you" to people who were outside, but it seems, in the rooms with Trump, he was more or less doing whatever the president told him to do.

  And so he is sort of like not leading the insurrection, but not stopping it. And history is filled with people who took that route.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And we will see where it goes from here, now that he's — whether the Justice Department decides to proceed to charge him.

  So, now to — I have to ask you about where Congress is, as we get ready for the Christmas holiday, Jonathan, and Lisa Desjardins reporting on it earlier. Democrats are about to go into next week with no Build Back Better. Big disappointment for them. Should they have not promised that it was going to get done in 2021?

  (LAUGHTER)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Short answer, yes, they shouldn't have promised.

  But, again, as we have talked about around this table for months, the reason why Democrats had been pushing like crazy to get Build Back — first, bipartisan infrastructure, then Build Back Better done by the end of calendar year 2021 is because everyone assumes that, by 2022, nothing is going to get done because of the midterm elections.

  Congress is always making these deadlines for itself, artificial deadlines. And then, when they blow past them, everyone's disappointed or people say that it's a failure.

  I think Democrats, as long as the reconciliation authorization is still there, and from what I understand, it hangs in there through the fiscal year, which means…

• Judy Woodruff:

  The legislative framework.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  The legislative framework — that, if this bleeds over into January, February, not ideal, but if they actually get it done, then that will be a victory.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Can they do it?

• David Brooks:

  Sure. I still sort of bet on them. But I'm beginning to have some doubts.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  We're going to get new inflation numbers in the middle of January or so. That — if it gets even higher than it is now, that will really make it a lot harder, because Joe Manchin is really concerned about inflation and federal spending boosting that.

  I think — in retrospect, I think they were right to try to be FDR, try to do something big, there are a lot of problems in this country, and try to address them. Having seen that, Joe Manchin has been utterly consistent.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes.

• David Brooks:

  And he's just said what he meant. And it's been clear. If people would take him seriously, they'd say, OK, that's what we got to live with. These are our constraints. How do we deal with — we're not going to get the New Deal? How do we deal with plan B?

  And so what they did, they decided to keep every little aspect of the bill, but shrink it down and make it temporary. I think it would have been smart of them just to pick a few things and say, we're going to have a child thing, where we're going to have child tax credits, early childhood education, community college. That's what we're going to do. That's what the country needs right now.

  I think Manchin would have had a much easier time seeing — and the public would have had an easier time saying, this is what that's about. But they decided that we want to keep all of our constituencies happy a little. And I think it's made it harder to pass.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Is that what's gone wrong here, do you think?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes, I'm hard-pressed to disagree with David here.

  There's Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, who is one of the moderates. That had been her argument from the very beginning. Let's do a few things, and let's do it — let's do them well, and there are any number of things to choose from. And who knows. Maybe come 2022, if it bleeds over into 2022, that that's the route that they go in.

  But they have to get something done.

• Judy Woodruff:

  I mean, but David raised child tax credits. I mean, those expire. The current tax credits expire at the end of December. A lot of people are going to be left without assistance that they desperately need.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And I'm glad you brought that up, because I — sorry, but I forgot about that.

  If there is a forcing mechanism to get something done before the end of this calendar year, that could be it. But that means you're putting — you're depending on the Senate to actually do something. And, as we have seen, they don't do stuff when you want them to.

• David Brooks:

  Even if it does pass, it still gets extended by another year. And so they just be — be set to expire.

  And they do that to keep the budget seem reasonable. And their assumption is that, once it's in there, people — voters will demand you keep it forever. I'm not so sure. I love the child tax credit. It's not as popular as I think it should be. Voters are a lot like, well, we don't want that much spending.

  So it could — either this December next December, it could just go away, which would be a tragedy, because it really is a very effective child poverty program.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But what about the role of Joe Manchin?

  I mean, David brought up that he has some legitimate concerns, but he's also integral to what's going on with voting rights. I mean, Democrats have said this is a priority. But he's saying no, Kyrsten Sinema too.

  What about the role that he plays?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, OK, so Senator Manchin is unbelievably frustrating when it comes to Build Back Better. Yes, he's been consistent, but he's been unbelievably frustrating.

  Yet, when it comes to voting rights, to my mind, he's been a little less frustrating, because, at least on that, he has been trying to shepherd the bill through. I mean, I think, three times, they have had a bite at the Apple trying to get a vote to even just bring the bill to the floor for a debate. And it's gone down.

  But that's because Joe Manchin has — like, here's the bill. Here's the proposal.

  The problem, though, is the filibuster. And correct me if I'm wrong, David. I thought there were signals this week from Manchin that he might be amenable to some rule changes. The problem then becomes not Joe Manchin when it comes to voting rights.

  Kyrsten Sinema, senator from Arizona, who came out earlier this week, and just said once again, no, I'm not interested in changing the filibuster.

  And if you don't do that in any form, voting rights isn't going anywhere.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And what's at stake if it doesn't happen, David, in a minute?

• David Brooks:

  Well, I mean, all the state — I mean, the worst scenario is state legislators around the country, Republican ones, take over elections away from public servants.

  And then — this is what we talked about last week. Then who knows what happens in 2024 if that process gets hyper-politicized. So that's the nightmare scenario.

  Will Manchin budge? I sort of think not. There are a lot of signals and countersignals than ever come out of his mouth. One thing he should agree to is, if you're going to filibuster, you have to actually be on the floor talking.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right.

• David Brooks:

  And that would make the filibuster at least a little harder. And it wouldn't ruin the filibuster or reform it. It would actually make it really a filibuster.

  And so I'd love to see that little reform — him and Sinema endorse that one.

• Judy Woodruff:

  We never have a filibuster here. That's for sure.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Judy.

• David Brooks:

  Thank you.

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