Brooks and Capehart on Trump’s Epstein files fallout and public broadcasting funding cuts

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• John Yang:

  The MAGA debate over releasing the Epstein files intensifies, while congressional Republicans deliver a win for President Trump by clawing back $9 billion in foreign aid and public media funding.

  For analysis of the week, we turn to Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of The Washington Post.

  It seemed like, this week, the biggest name this week was dominated by a guy who's been dead for six years, Jeffrey Epstein.

  David, what do you make of this?

• David Brooks:

  Why?

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  I was looking at a study this week. Twenty years ago — there's an Australian think tank that analyzes which country has the technological lead in all sorts of different technologies. And 20 years ago, America had the lead — of the 64 most important technologies, America had the lead of 60 of them. Now, China has the lead in 57.

  So we have seen a massive shift, a decline in American supremacy on all sorts of technological fronts and the rise of China. This is a major shift. And I'm spending two weeks thinking about Jeffrey Epstein? This is crazy to me. It's like — and I have to take account of Candace Owens, the people who — like, seriously, the people who invented the QAnon theory?

  Somehow, all political conversation revolves around them? As far as I can understand — and this has been looked into — there seems to be no evidence so far that anybody can find that there is an Epstein list. There are a lot of people — and the fact that Donald Trump knew Jeffrey Epstein back in the day is the least surprising fact in American life. They're two rich guys with a little Playboy tendencies.

  But like a lot of people, Donald Trump had a fight with Epstein, apparently in 2004, over real estate. And they broke. And Epstein was then arrested and indicted a couple years after that. So a lot of people knew Jeffrey Epstein in those days, and a lot of people broke with him, Bill Clinton, Les Wexner.

  And so, to me, I just don't see the story there unless you have got some crazy conspiracy theory that there are a million pederasts running around, which I do not believe there are.

• John Yang:

  Jonathan?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, that's the thing. There are a lot of people who believe that there are millions of pederasts running around out there who are part of the — quote, unquote –"deep state" and running the country.

  And the conspiracy theory also says that these pedophiles are Democrats. And the problem the president has is that he helped fan some of those flames. He was elected by people who believed him when he said, like, we're going to get to the bottom of the Epstein thing.

  And when you have Kash Patel, Don Bongino, Pam Bondi, all people who dabbled in the conspiracy theory, going before the cameras and saying, yes, no, there's nothing here, there's no list, there's no conspiracy, of course these folks are going to be upset.

  And I think the way the president is handling this, just to get into the realm of politics, because I'm with David, is that I can't believe I'm trying to understand this entire web. But this is a political problem of the president's own making. His whole handling of this, the moment he said the word hoax was the biggest tell.

  And I think for his followers, that was also a tell for them because, wait, you used hoax about the 2020 election, about the Russia investigation, about anything where he's gotten into trouble. And so how he gets out of this with his supporters, I'm not sure, but suing The Wall Street Journal is not the way to go about it.

  Again, another tell. This is all part of a pattern. When he gets into trouble, he uses hoax and then he sues. But as we all know, part of suing is discovery and depositions. And I guarantee you, Donald Trump does not want to be a part of any of that.

• John Yang:

  David, sort of on the political part of that, the — Quinnipiac had a poll on this. They asked people, Americans what they thought, whether they supported or disapproved of what the president was doing on this.

  And among Republicans, it was 40 percent approval, 35 percent disapproval. So it's pretty close, pretty narrowly — margin. And as Jonathan said, the president responded by going on TRUTH Social and said those — the 35 percent of opposed had fallen for a hoax.

  Could there be political ramifications of this?

• David Brooks:

  It's the first time we have seen the MAGA alliance split in this way. I mean, I can't think of another issue where it's been so split, a little beginning on immigration. People are taking a look at those ICE raids and even a lot of Republicans are saying, whoa, whoa.

  But, on that, something almost close to a 50-50 split, that's pretty unheard of. And the problem, and just building on what Jonathan said, the people who voted for Trump, a lot of them really have been betrayed over the last 40 or 50 years. But their lives have been made worse by impersonal forces, like technological change, globalization.

  But it's very easy and satisfying to say, no, it's not impersonal forces. It's evil people. There's an evil person, and it's those evil elites. And Jeffrey Epstein comes packaged as the personification of the evil elite who is not only insular and spoiled and too rich, but predatory.

  And so they pick that one person and they revolve the whole world view around it. And the problem is that Donald Trump trafficked in those kind of simplicities. And so now he's being hoisted on his own mythological petard.

  (Laughter)

• John Yang:

  By the way, I said 35 percent disapproval. It's actually 36.

  But, Jonathan, is there an opportunity for Democrats here?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Sure.

  And, I mean, if you just take out the personalities and just look at the entities, Republican president in deep trouble with his own supporters over a fundamental thing that they cared about. The opposition party, the Democrats, look and see an opportunity to basically just beat the hell out of them.

  This is what they're doing. And I don't blame them for it. Every time they have tried to attack President Trump on policy and substance, on the merits, it doesn't really seem to get anywhere. But on this, I think they see an opportunity and an avenue to try to hurt the president, but then at the same time, get in there and say, like, this isn't the only thing he's doing. Let's pay attention to the economy. Let's pay attention to the ICE race.

  Let's pay attention to all these other things we have been banging the drum about since January 20, but not getting a hearing.

• John Yang:

  Jonathan, sticking with you, the Senate passed, the House passed as well, the rescission bill after the Senate made a couple of changes to pick up one or two votes to get it across the finish line. House Speaker Johnson says there's going to be more, that this is a major way they're going to cut federal spending. What do you think of that?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I mean, is anyone surprised? Anyone read Project 2025?

  The budget director, Russ Vought, chief architect, this has been the plan all along. I'm not surprised that Congress has passed this. Why? Because Congress has basically given up its role as a co-equal branch of government. It is now just basically the staff arm of the White House. So, yes, they rescinded $9 billion. They're going to rescind more simply because the president can count on Republicans to pass these things.

  But the money that's being taken away, the problems that it will cause for American soft power with foreign aid, the problems it's going to cause here at home, the money taken away from public media, do Republicans understand that a lot of the radio and television stations in their districts depend on that money?

  I don't think that's quite hit yet.

• John Yang:

  David?

• David Brooks:

  Well, first, let's compare two numbers, $9 billion, $3 trillion. And that's the cost of the tax cut to the deficits.

  It turns out that $3 trillion is actually bigger than $9 billion by a lot. I'm mathematical that way. And so the idea that this matters to the budget deficit is absurd. And here I will do my full confession. Back when I was a baby pundit in my 20s, working in places like "National Review" and The Wall Street Journal editorial page, I recall writing pieces that said defund the left.

  And in those days, we were — we conservatives were upset about something called the Legal Services Corporation, which we thought was — skewed left. And since then, to be fair, the government has contracted with, I think, two-thirds of the nonprofits in this country to provide services. And a lot of those — money goes to pretty left-wing organizations. So conservatives had some basis in thinking that a lot of federal spending was going toward one ideological side more than the other.

  And so that defund the left, which conservatives have talked about since I was a baby pundit many centuries ago, now they're actually doing it. The problem is that, say — well, we will talk about ourselves, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Republicans have been going after that since diapers, since we were all on diapers.

  But there are always enough Republicans who understood what Jonathan just said, that, hey, I'm in Maine here and I like having some local media. And so there was always that rump that would stop it. But that rump is gone. And so all the defunding the left that conservatives have been dreaming about for decades, now they're doing it.

  And I should say perceived left. It's not always that the institutions they think are left are left. And anybody who doesn't agree with them is left. And so they're having their way. But — and the one thing, just one final thing, because of Susan Collins, senator from Maine, we were able to — they were able to save some of the PEPFAR money. That's HIV.

• John Yang:

  Right.

• David Brooks:

  But they have gutted the actual infrastructure of PEPFAR.

  There are all these medical facilities across Africa, the offices here. They have destroyed it. So whether they appropriate the money, there's no PEPFAR. And so the cost in human lives will remain gross.

• John Yang:

  David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both very much.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, John.

• David Brooks:

  Thank you.

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