Brooks and Capehart on Biden’s criticism of Republicans, Trump document investigation

Judy Woodruff:

As we just heard in Laura's report, President Biden is calling MAGA Republicans a direct threat to democracy.

Court filings reveal more details about the Justice Department's investigation into former President Trump's handling of top secret documents. And an upset in Alaska shakes up midterm forecasts.

It is all fodder for the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

It's good to have you both back together again in person in the studio. Welcome.

Jonathan Capehart:

The band is back together.

Judy Woodruff:

Back together. Welcome to both of you.

Let's just pick up, Jonathan, where we left off with Laura's report, the president's speech last night. He says this is an inflection point. He went hard after the what he calls MAGA Republicans. What did you make of it?

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes, this is an inflection point. I do agree with your characterization that he did go hard at the Republicans.

But the theme of his speech and what he was saying is something he's been saying since he launched his campaign for president in 2019, that campaign video where he spoke to the nation about Charlottesville, and then-President Trump's reaction to Charlottesville, and how the soul of the nation was at stake. And that's why he was running for president.

He came back to those themes again on January 6 of this year, when — to mark the one-year anniversary of the — excuse me — of the insurrection. We have seen it in other speeches here and there, for instance, in Atlanta, when he gave that voting rights speech, talking about the fundamental need to protect the right to vote.

What made, yes, last night's speech different was the toughness and the directness in — of his language, making — drawing a clear contrast between what he's doing as president and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.

And the last point I will make is, Joe Biden is never more animated, clear, focused, and determined than when he's talking about the fight for the soul of the nation.

Judy Woodruff:

What did you make of it? There's a lot — there's a lot of criticism, as we heard from…

(CROSSTALK)

David Brooks:

Yes, I have a little of it, actually.

I think he's right that this is a special time in American history. This is not normal. The threat to democracy is real. And the president, as Michael Beschloss said, should be speaking about the real threats to the country. So I have no problem with him giving the speech.

I — when I read the text, I was a little disappointed. One, he should have mentioned that his own party had spent $44 million supporting the MAGA wing of the Republican Party in Republican primaries, and he should have called out his own party for doing that, if it's such a threat.

Two, 30 percent of Trump voters in 2020 have shown some openness to not voting for Donald Trump again. Those are the key people in this country they need to peel away. And I thought it was a little too much of a Democrat-Republican speech, and would have the effect of putting those 30 percent back in the Trump camp, which I think is dangerous.

And then, finally, when he talked about the soul of the country in 2020, I thought it was a beautiful phrase, because it captured not just what's happening in our politics.It captured Charlottesville. It captured the record hate crimes. It captured the depths of despair, the declining life expectancy in this country.

It captured the social, relational, and I would say spiritual crisis which is at the heart of a lot of our problems. And MAGA is an epiphenomenon of that. It comes out of that crisis.

And so to reduce it only to the politics, I think, robs that phrase, the soul of America, of its key power, which is to capture the depth of the problem we face, which is not just politics, but deep down in our relationships and the social fabric of the country.

Judy Woodruff:

What about David's point?

Jonathan Capehart:

I take your points.

I do you think the president should have — when he was talking about the accomplishments and the things that he's doing to push the nation forward, but also to bring the nation together, he should have talked about how a lot of the legislation that was passed was passed with Republicans. It was — some of them were bipartisan — bipartisan deals.

But, that being said, we are at a point in this country — and the president talked about this — and this might be viewed as partisan when you're talking about a woman's right to choose or being able to marry who you love for some people. You can have disagreements on that. But those rights are being — have either been taken away or are under threat.

And there are people who are Republicans who are either LGBTQ or are women who want to seek — might have to seek reproductive health care, and can't, because they live in states where it is now outlawed.

So I do think — I would just quibble with you a little bit, David, that I do think he didn't say it in the way that you wanted him to say it. But I do think he touched on — he touched on some of those issues.

Judy Woodruff:

And…

David Brooks:

Yes, I don't fault him for having a Democratic campaign rally.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

If he wants to go out and have a Democratic campaign rally and defend abortion rights and all that other stuff, God bless you.

But this, I think, was an occasion, a prime-time presidential address, to not have a campaign rally and to say, democracy is something we all believe in, and it's under extraordinary threat from a small — or I don't know how small — minority of Americans, and this is something we can all rally around.

And so I would have preferred a tone that was less partisan, less — it drifted. It started out sort of nonpartisan and then drifted into campaign rally, in my view.

Jonathan Capehart:

That's a little — a little harsh, David.

But that gives me an opportunity to talk about a speech that came…

(LAUGHTER)

Jonathan Capehart:

… that happened about 90 minutes before the president spoke.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy gave his own speech in Pennsylvania, which I immediately dubbed American carnage 2.0. It was dark. It was dystopian. Everything was Biden's fault. Everything was the Democrats' fault. And if you don't put Republicans in charge, all hell is going to break loose.

It was — it was an exercise in projection. A lot of the things he was saying in that speech as a prebuttal to what the president was going to say are things that we have been talking about around this table for months now.

And so I think we have to also — when talking about the president's speech, we have to pay attention to what the Republicans are saying on the other side. And Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, fully expects to be the next speaker of the House. And if you haven't read the speech or watched the speech, do so, and then get back to me about your concerns about what the president said.

David Brooks:

It's not a race.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

You don't want to talk about that in the same sentence.

David, the other thing I do certainly want to raise is the Justice Department putting out these filings, as much as they can show, of what they found when they went to Mar-a-Lago. And it was — it was clearly — there's clearly some classified material. You're looking at the picture that was released. You're looking at documents.

And then, today, we learned that there were empty folders labeled classified. What do you take away from this?

David Brooks:

I object to the carpeting.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

But the empty folders is, I think, new.

I think as each memo or indictment or whatever comes down, it gets worse and worse for Donald Trump. And so we learn new things. And so those empty folders, did he take out — do we really believe he took out empty folders that said classified with no documents inside? That seems kind of hard to believe for me. And so where are those documents?

Judy Woodruff:

Right.

David Brooks:

And so — and then, how much effect has this had on our sources around the world? And how much damage has he done?

And so there's just an escalating peril for Donald Trump, the more we learn. And just taking classified documents, and, apparently, they were mixed in with boxes of newspaper clippings, it just seems like, not only sloppiness, but sloppiness to a lethal degree.

Judy Woodruff:

Is this likely to be — I mean, how damaging is this for the former president? We have seen a lot.

(LAUGHTER)

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

Judy Woodruff:

So, add this in. How damaging is it?

Jonathan Capehart:

It — well, it should be damaging. It should be very damaging.

But we're talking about Donald Trump, who takes every damaging piece of information and uses it that would — that damages him in the court of law, and then takes it to the court of public opinion, where it inures to his benefit, at least in the short term, which we know, when it comes to Donald Trump, he's all about the short term, not about the long term.

But to add on to what David was talking about, just in terms of how bad this is getting, one of the pieces of information among many in that filing that leapt out at me was the fact that you have federal investigators, FBI investigators, DOJ investigators who are part of this investigation who had to get additional security clearances in order to look at the paper — some of the papers, to review some of the papers they took from Mar-a-Lago.

What — I mean, what did he have? And to David's point, how damaging is it to — not only to the country, but to our national security? He should be in trouble.

Judy Woodruff:

And, of course, among his explanations is that he had already personally declassified some of these — some of these documents.

We're waiting to see — we're waiting to see…

David Brooks:

There's actually a process for that.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

So, David, the other thing is midterm elections. We had a little more interesting data this week in Alaska, of all places.

The state's been represented by a Republican in Congress for 50 years almost, elect — choosing a Democrat. Now, it's a special election. Her name is Mary Peltola. She beat out Sarah Palin and another Republican.

This and some other reassessments, realignments by the folks who look really closely at these elections in the Democrats' favor, what do you take away?

David Brooks:

Well, first, in Alaska, that race was conducted by ranked-choice voting, which I am a fan of.

And the idea behind ranked-choice voting is that it makes the parties and the ideological extremes less powerful, and gives people a chance to cross over. And that's exactly what happened. The Republican who lost under Sarah Palin, this guy Nick Begich, a lot of his voters, I think like 30 percent, said, I don't want Palin as my second choice. I want Peltola as my second choice.

And that's why she won. And so that's what ranked-choice voting was designed to do. And it's done it. So it's — to me, it's a victory for ranked-choice voting. It gives you a lane for people in the middle.

As for the larger climate, it's been pretty clear for a month or two now that — we have had two special elections in New York and here. Democrats have won them both. They're outperforming. In this race, Alaska is like 15 points more Republican than the median American. And she won by three. So that's a — she went plus-18 over where Alaska should be.

And so that's a pretty big sweep. It's not to say it can't sweep back. But abortion is a real issue. Democrats are moving out. People are happier with Biden than they were. There's clearly been this summer tide on the Democratic side.

Judy Woodruff:

She stressed in her interview with me yesterday, Jonathan, that the Alaska voters don't like partisanship, that they — they're looking for politicians who talk about the issues.

Jonathan Capehart:

And, clearly, that is the case, because she won.

And I think we're going to find out in November whether that is the case across the country. There are a couple of hurdles in the way of Democrats sort of repeating nationwide What Ms. Peltola did in Alaska.

I mean, there's gerrymandering, which is going to make it really super tough. But then there's also history. And it's going to take a lot for the miracle in Alaska and the miracle in New York Congressional District 19 to make it possible for Democrats to hold on to the House.

But I guarantee you, if you were to talk to a Democratic operative today, they like their prospects much better now than they did, say, in March.

Judy Woodruff:

And feeling better about the Senate, still thinking that the House is a real reach, maybe out of reach.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

Judy Woodruff:

But the Senate, you're hearing more optimism.

David Brooks:

Yes, those who know what they're talking about, Charlie Cook and our friend Amy Walter…

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

… have moved it from less of a 30 House seat gain for the Republicans more to like 10.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

David Brooks:

So they would — that would still be taking back, but — and then, on the Senate side, the Republicans are having this bitter feud between Mitch McConnell and Senator Rick Scott over how good their candidates are.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

And that — you don't want to be that party.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

Judy Woodruff:

Wait a minute. The two of you know what you're talking about, right?

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

I mean, that's why we have you here.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, Judy.