Brooks and Capehart on the shutdown countdown, Ukraine war support

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• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Washington is bracing for busy days ahead, as the deadline for a government shutdown quickly approaches.

  To discuss that and more, 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.

  Gentlemen, welcome. So nice to see you.

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  Good to see you.

  (CROSSTALK)

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  David, Congress has left for the long weekend. I guess they think it's a good time to take a break. But we are awfully close to this government shutdown.

  How close do you think we really are?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Quite close.

  Well, in time terms, it's basically a week. In probability terms, there's a very high probability that the government will shut down, and we will be where we have been before. And the core cause is that there are a group of members of Congress who are not interested in practical governance. They're right that our deficits are too big on the far right of the Republican Party, but they have no strategy to get there.

  And so they're basically a bunch of nihilistic performance artists. And…

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  That looks great on a business card.

  (LAUGHTER)

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Yes, that was my nickname in high school, so I know.

  (LAUGHTER)

• DAVID BROOKS:

  And so Speaker McCarthy has to decide what to do.

  And the core, simple truth should be, well, we don't allow performance artists to have power. And he's giving them a lot of power, because he's refusing to or is unable or unwilling to cut a deal with the Democrats and sort of freeze out the people on the right.

  And, in my view, he should take them on right now, because his power will wane, and his fear is, he will lose his job as speaker. But I think his — if he wants to keep the speaker job, he will be weaker in two weeks. He will be weaker in three weeks, when everyone's upset about a government shutdown, than he is right now.

  And so, in my view, he should take them on right now and try to cut some sort of deal, or stick to the deal he cut with Joe Biden, actually.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  I mean, David is describing the idea that McCarthy still has some agency in all of this.

  But it seems like, in the last few weeks and days, it seems like he's utterly lost control of his own caucus.

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  I mean, that's assuming he had any control to begin with.

  Let's not forget — and it's now a mantra — it took 15 ballots for him to get the speaker's gavel to begin with. But I agree with David. The speaker needs to exert some control. He has a five-seat — five-seat majority. Get it. Totally understand it.

  Speaker Pelosi also had a similar majority, and she got a lot done. And why? Because she exercised the power of the office. Speaker McCarthy absolutely should tell this rump faction within his majority to go stuff it. I have governing to do. We have governing to do. We can't allow the government to shut down.

  And this is the fork in the road that the speaker is going to — is facing. Unfortunately, I have no confidence that the speaker will choose — will — won't choose holding onto the gavel versus showing real governance, passing a C.R., getting these budget bills passed. He's going to keep that speaker's gavel at all costs, and we will pay for it.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  David, you mentioned this idea that the Republicans feel like they have to now reach out to the Democrats to try to get this done.

  Do you think the Democrats will do that, and at what price might they want to extract from him?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Well, I think the price they should ask for is, we already had — did this deal. Like, we don't — that Joe Biden and McCarthy did this deal. And so that's our price. Let's just stick to the deal.

  And the problem for McCarthy is, there are a lot of people, probably more than just the fringe in his party, who really do care about spending, and so they want something with less spending than the deal that Biden cut. And, to me, that's probably a political nonstarter.

  And they have got to get serious. If you really want to cut spending, well, let's throw everything on the table. Let's throw tax cuts on the table. Let's throw entitlements on the table. Let's throw defense on the table. But thinking you can make some big spending reduction just with this what they call nondefense discretionary spending, that's just crowd cuckoo land.

  So they're just not serious. I sympathize with the idea that our deficits are too big, but they're just not serious.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Jonathan, do you think the Democrats in offering this potential, that they want to see McCarthy twist in the wind more than they want to see the government shut down?

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  Well, both are happening. I mean, he's twisting in the wind right now, and I firmly believe, as I sit here right now, that the government is going to shut down.

  And it's going to shut down because Speaker McCarthy would be — is going to be unwilling to work with Democrats. There is an easy solution to this. Work with Democrats, come up with a bill, and then have that bill pass out of the House by huge numbers, thereby sending a signal to the Senate, but also to the rest of the country that you know how to do the job you are entrusted with.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  I want to turn to Ukraine.

  We saw President Zelenskyy here again pleading with America's leaders to come forward with more aid. And he's arguing basically that this war hinges on our morale, which he says they have in plenty of supply, but Western aid.

  And we saw that he really got a frosty reaction from Republicans. McCarthy wouldn't even have his picture taken with him. Is this skepticism within the GOP really growing?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Tremendously, yes.

  I mean, if you had told me a year ago that the Ukrainians would be like totally still in it and they're the ones who are actually suffering, and that Western Europe would be strongly supportive, no wavering there, and that the wavering would be in the U.S. and the Republican Party, I probably wouldn't believe that.

  But that's exactly where it is. There's always been a rump of people in the party who just don't want military, don't want support. They don't think Ukraine's a strategic country. They have their reasons. That number is maybe doubling, maybe going up by 50 percent. Nobody knows exactly.

  But it's significantly eroding. And so that's happening. And at the same time, on the Democratic side, there's a big and I think important debate, should we admit Ukraine into NATO? And the hope is that if we admit them into Ukraine — Ukraine in NATO, Putin will not want to attack a NATO country, and that will prevent a forever war.

  And so the two parties are going in very different directions, where the Republicans are just walking away. And some Democrats are saying, no, we need to get more involved in Ukraine politically and give them this alliance, so they can stand up to Putin.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  How do you see that unfolding?

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  Well, one, I want to go back to the idea that the speaker of the House would not even allow himself to be photographed with a wartime president.

  And what I find so galling…

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  What do you attribute that to?

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  Fear of the far right in his caucus that are clamoring for defunding Ukraine, along with a lot of other things that they want to do.

  That's what I think that's about. It all goes back to — it goes back to the shutdown. But the other thing that — why I find that move so galling, as speaker, he is number three in line to the presidency, which automatically makes him a statesman.

  And so you have a wartime president coming to this country begging for our help and our continued support, and he won't even show him that. Thankfully, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Schumer and the president showed him America's resolve.

  But I'm with David. I am astounded. I'm old enough to remember when the Republican Party was about standing with allies, bolstering the Western alliance, and particularly a country where the battle is between democracy and autocracy, and, if they lose, then the whole enterprise, the whole experiment that is democracy would be on its last leg.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  I mean, do you see it that way as well? Do you think that — as Jonathan is describing, that the graybeards, so to speak, in the Republican Party will prevail and keep America funding?

• DAVID BROOKS:

  I think so.

  But if you're Vladimir Putin, you're looking at this and thinking, I'm going to keep fighting, because they're weakening over there. And then I'm thinking, well, I'm definitely going to keep fighting until November of 2024, because his best hope of victory is not anything that happens on the battlefield in Ukraine. It's Donald Trump getting elected, in which case he's going to do very well in this war.

  And we should say, in both these issues tonight, the budget deal and in Ukraine, Donald Trump is the four-time indicted elephant in the room. And he's been saying, don't cut a deal. And he's been saying, we got to get out of Ukraine. And the rest of the Republicans are looking at him.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  David, before we go, I want to ask you about this tweet that you put out this week where — and we can put this up on screen.

  You posted this tweet that showed a dinner that you were having at an airport, and that it cost $78. And you wrote: "This is why the American people think the economy is terrible."

  You got roughed up a little bit online about this. But I'm just curious more about what you were trying to convey with that.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Yes, well, first, it was — it started out hatched in my mind as a joke, because, if you looked at what I was eating, it was bourbon and a very fattening hamburger and fries.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  Right.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  So…

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  A delicious dinner.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  … I can't afford to make bad lifestyle choices.

  (LAUGHTER)

• DAVID BROOKS:

  But the problem with the tweet, which I wrote so stupidly, was that it made it seem like I was oblivious to something that is blindingly obvious, that an upper-middle-class journalist having a bourbon at an airport is a lot different than a family living paycheck to paycheck.

  And when I'm getting sticker shock, it's like an inconvenience. When they're getting sticker shock, it's a disaster. And so I was insensitive. I screwed up. I should not have written that tweet. I probably should not write any tweets. But…

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  That's advice we should all be taking.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Yes. But I made a mistake. And I — it was stupid.

  But the one point that is — maybe can be drawn, if anything can be drawn, was, you can experience inflation as a chart with downward slope, inflation's coming down, but the way we experience inflation day to day is as that moment of sticker shock. You're in the grocery store. You're at the gas station, and, suddenly, it costs something way more than you anticipated.

  And for people who are less fortunate than I am, that is a disaster. And so we have to understand why we say inflation's coming down, but, for people living and seeing those sticker shock moments, it doesn't feel that way.

• WILLIAM BRANGHAM:

  David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, so nice to see you both. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

• JONATHAN CAPEHART:

  Thanks, William.

• DAVID BROOKS:

  Thank you.