Brooks and Capehart on response to Hurricane Ian and right-wing election wins in Europe

Judy Woodruff:

As Hurricane Ian is leaving a swathe of death and destruction in its wake, it also has the potential to affect politics as we near the November elections.

To discuss this and more of the week's news, we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Hello to both of you.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, Judy.

Judy Woodruff:

It's Friday. Thank you for being here.

And I do want to start, Jonathan, with this awful storm that we are very focused on, and rightly should be, Ian. It has worked its way across Florida, causing death and destruction, now landfall in the Carolinas, taxing resources of government at every level. We don't know what that's ultimately going to be.

But there are, as we just said, political consequences to this. We have seen our leaders in the past handle them well, not handle them well. What's at stake? Can the country handle this? What's at stake for these leaders?

Jonathan Capehart:

Well, so far, it seems like the leaders are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And that is tending to the needs of the people. That's the president declaring a disaster and Florida working, surprisingly, with the governor, the Republican governor, of Florida, Ron DeSantis, to bring aid to the state of Florida.

The governor of Florida, who has spent a lot of time criticizing the president and the White House and Democrats, but when it comes to focusing on the people of Florida, he has nothing but kind words. So I think, in terms of doing the job that needs to be done, they're both doing the right thing. The politics of it all, again, Governor DeSantis is running for reelection. So he's got to focus on the people of Florida and put politics aside. He even said as much on FOX News.

Judy Woodruff:

What are the pitfalls at this point? You have, as Jonathan said, the governor, Governor DeSantis, clearly eying or thinking about running for president. And you have President Biden going down there in a few days.

David Brooks:

Yes, I think what's happening is, we're focusing on people. There have been so many interviews with — I just saw an interview with a couple who stayed in their home.

They were terrified. And they fled as homes around them were dissolving. And he was killed. She survived. Couples — I saw a couple in a life raft in their living room rising as the water levels rise, watching all their goods be destroyed.

And so, when you focus on human beings, and you — it does take you a little out of the political.

Judy Woodruff:

For sure.

David Brooks:

And so — and that — and I have had — I have been impressed, in the reporting on this program and elsewhere, that the locals seem to be doing their jobs.

You get the sense in interview after interview of competence. And so it — to me, it has an effect of making me feel a little better about the country in hard circumstances, that we came together a little, so far, as Jonathan said, and then that people are really active and responding from all around the country, from all around the world helping out.

And I think the final, most political point is, DeSantis is no Trump, that Trump, if you remember, in these circumstances, could not show compassion, could not stop having the culture war. And DeSantis can turn that off, and he can behave like a normal governor.

Judy Woodruff:

And we are, as Jonathan — and we have been covering climate change. We're going to be seeing more and more of these climate disasters, calling on political leadership, but also the resources that governments are going to have to spend to clean up, to restore life to what people are — people deserve.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

Well, restore — at this point, it's got to be not just restoring, but improving so that, when the next once-in-a-100-year storm comes by in week two after a previous one, that folks can survive, that the structures can survive.

We're looking at more severe storms happening much more frequently. This storm, Hurricane Ian, coming through the coast, raking across Florida, ramping back up in the Atlantic, raking across the Carolinas, you have got people and politicians who are looking around and thinking, how do we how — do we address these things? How do we address the climate? How do we repair?

But then the other big question becomes, where does all the money come from? And that is the key thing, that, if they — if Washington doesn't get its act together and start doing things more boldly to address climate change, then addressing the climate is super expensive.

Repairing and restoring communities after they have been decimated for the fifth or sixth time is even more expensive.

Judy Woodruff:

And there is this divide, David, about what to do about climate change right now.

David Brooks:

Yes, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans talked about climate change, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

(LAUGHTER)

Jonathan Capehart:

Me too.

David Brooks:

And it got turned partisan, like everything else.

And, globally, it's just a big collective action problem, where the costs of addressing climate change are right now, but the benefits are long term. But now, if we get more natural disasters, the costs are also short term. And so you see this logic where people are saying, we just can't afford not to do it.

And whether that will kick in, I confess, I'm not too optimistic, with China being where it is. But you can't help not be startled by the weather patterns.

Judy Woodruff:

You can't. And watching this terrible, as you say, human aftermath in Florida and perhaps elsewhere has to get everyone's attention.

To Europe. We don't often talk about politics overseas, but it has come to our attention this week, Jonathan, with the election of a woman named Giorgia Meloni. She's the leader of the Brothers of Italy, a political party, has ushered in what is being described as the most far right government in Italy since World War II.

And this is just a few days after Sweden showed — or a few weeks, I should say, after Sweden showed a relatively high vote for a right-leaning party there. What does this portend? How worried should the rest of the West be?

Jonathan Capehart:

Well, I mean, I think the West should be worried.

I mean, Italy has had its fascist paths. And Giorgia Meloni says that, don't worry, I'm not — I'm not, like, that kind of fascist. I'm not a fascist. Don't worry.

But I remember, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, I think it was in 2016, Newt Gingrich gave a presentation talking about the populist right-leaning movements that were happening around the world, and he marched all the way across the globe. And Brexit was the big story. And then there was the 2016 presidential election here in the United States.

And he said, he predicted then that Donald Trump would win, and that would be part of this global march to the right. Well, we're seeing it, that march, still happening. There's not just Giorgia Meloni in Italy and what's happened in Sweden, but let's not forget Duda in Poland, Orban in Hungary, this move towards either authoritarianism or autocracy or turning to the far right.

And the fact that this has happened in Italy, a NATO member, is just another — it's just another pressure point in what President Biden has been talking about. Democracy has to prove that it can deliver.

And, right now, whether it's in Sweden, Italy, Hungary, Poland, you name it, a lot of people aren't so sure about democracy. And they're looking to far right authoritarian figures who are about exclusion, as opposed to bringing folks together.

Judy Woodruff:

How concerned do you think the West should be?

David Brooks:

Well, the West should be concerned about immigration. In Italy and Sweden, immigration is the top issue, as it was for Donald Trump, as it is for a lot of these other — the Swedes have a higher immigration rate as a percentage of population as — than we do, which is — we're the nation of immigrants.

And so if you don't get your immigration under control, a lot of people are going to be upset. And it should be — it's a big message for Joe Biden. Got to control the borders. Americans like immigration, but they want to control of the borders. If you don't do it — in countries where you don't do it, the center-left collapses.

The second thing is that there was a Meloni video that went viral this week of her saying, here are my identities. I'm an Italian. I'm a woman. I'm a mother. I'm a Christian. And those people are out to destroy every one of my identities.

And that is sort of the cultural message that all these different conservative movements have, and even Vladimir Putin talking about gender changing in the middle of a war.

And so the cultural element is not to be underestimated. And I would say, it's cohering. The cultural critique of modernism, of cosmopolitanism, whatever you want to call it, urbanism, that it's cohering around the world. And we see it in almost every Western country.

Judy Woodruff:

And gives us pause.

David Brooks:

Gives us pause.

Judy Woodruff:

Finally, Jonathan, this week, we saw something we weren't sure was going to happen. And that was Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife, Virginia Thomas, Ginni Thomas, testifying before the January 6 Committee.

And the chairman, Bennie Thompson, came out later and said, what she said, among other things, is that she does believe, today, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, that Donald Trump actually won. What does that say?

Jonathan Capehart:

I…

(LAUGHTER)

Jonathan Capehart:

It is — it's shocking.

We are almost two years after the 2020 presidential election, an election that Donald Trump's own cybersecurity expert, before he fired him, said was the fairest and safest election, presidential election, probably in American history. The myths and — about election fraud, all of those things have been debunked.

And yet here's this person, who is a leader in the conservative movement even before this, is stilling clinging to this notion that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. It's a lie. It's the reason it's called a big lie. And yet she still holds on to it.

And the problem with that, in addition to her believing that, it's who she's married to, a Supreme Court justice who didn't recuse himself from a case earlier involving Donald Trump. There could be other cases involving Donald Trump. And the question and the pressure will be on Justice Thomas to recuse and — personally, but pressure on the Supreme Court to do something to hold justices accountable for things like that.

Judy Woodruff:

How significant?

David Brooks:

Well, it is a lie, as Jonathan said. She's wrong.

She's always been sort of on the fringy, sort of avant garde of the right, even when — back when the right was a little more normal than it is, and…

Judy Woodruff:

You can explain what that is.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

I don't know. There was a Lee Atwater phrase for a certain kind of conservative. He helped — ran the Reagan campaign.

Judy Woodruff:

Yes.

David Brooks:

There are some people who have forearms growing out of their foreheads. He would say that. He meant sort of the — I don't know, the far edge. And she's always been a little over there.

The question is, should Justice Thomas recuse? I'd be a little hesitant to go there. I don't think the opinions of a family member of a Supreme Court justice — I think the justices are careful enough not to let that influence their jurisprudence.

And, finally, she claimed that they don't talk about the decisions. I don't know. I'm not on their pillow. So I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

I do — I do know couples in Washington that are in security jobs, top secret jobs, and they literally don't talk about work at home.

Judy Woodruff:

Yes.

David Brooks:

And so it's possible.

Judy Woodruff:

It's possible, possible, something for us to think about for days to come.

(LAUGHTER)

Judy Woodruff:

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you for giving us something to think about.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:

Thanks, Judy.