Brooks and Capehart on Trump’s focus on reaching the Gaza peace deal

Geoff Bennett:

With President Trump celebrating victories abroad and targeting political enemies here at home, there is much to discuss tonight with Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC.

With a hello to you both.

Jonathan Capehart:

Hey, Geoff.

Geoff Bennett:

So both Israel and Hamas have agreed to phase one of the peace plan. We see the negotiations there on the screen. And that was followed by today celebrations in Israel and also along the Gaza Strip.

I want to start with your reaction to this real breakthrough, Jonathan.

Jonathan Capehart:

Look, I'm going to say something that I have never said before and that this audience has never heard me say before. Kudos to the president.

I think we are at this point because the president was single — he was focused, single-mindedly focused, on getting something, getting a deal done, getting the hostages out. The hard part comes after he leaves the region, after we get past phase one, assuming we get the 20 — that the Israeli hostages released, the 20 who are presumed alive, after the 2,000 Palestinians are released by Israel.

Once we get past that, there are so many questions that are still out there that leaves me skeptical that my kudos to the president will maintain. One, will they be able to get Hamas disarmed? Two, will there be a legitimate negotiating partner among the Palestinians for Israel and everyone to negotiate with, an international stabilization force for the area?

And also the big thing, sort of Palestinian self-governance, or, in other words, a two-state solution, something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made clear he's not interested in. And if we're going to get through all these phases of this peace plan, the single-minded focus of the president that got us to this crucial point will be needed for the next 19 phases. And I just don't see how he does that.

Geoff Bennett:

And given the history of dashed hopes in the region, what gives you hope that this agreement can endure?

David Brooks:

I got hope when Jonathan praised the president.

(Laughter)

David Brooks:

So I have my fingers crossed he deserves the Nobel Prize. I thought you were going to go there.

(Laughter)

David Brooks:

But it's impressive, what Trump has — did.

First, he got together with the Saudis and the Qataris in New York during U.N. week and came up with this 20-point plan. And then he understood how to deal with Netanyahu. And I should say, in fairness, the Trump administration, both the first term and the second term, has been better on the Middle East than the Obama and Biden administration.

There's something about that region he sort of gets. And so the way to deal with Biden — the way you deal with Netanyahu is, you show total support for Israel at the same time you're leaning on them. And so I think that the Biden people, when they were always withdrawing and threatening and saying, don't do that, that made Israel feel insecure.

And they had to negotiate from a position of security and then they could bend. And so he got Bibi to go against his far right colleagues who wanted to basically annex the Gaza. And there is, like, now a separate Gaza territory, and that's an important achievement.

The Qataris are an important role. Why is this little country in the center of all this? Partly because they are part of those Gulf states who wanted to make the Middle East a modern place. And so I think they play just tremendously a constructive role because they seem to talk to everybody.

Will it work? I don't know, but there's no choice. There's no solution. Martin Indyk, who died about a year ago, had a piece in "Foreign Affairs" called the strange revival, I'm summarizing, of the two-state solution. Everybody wants to give up on the two-state solution. There is no alternative to the two-state solution.

And so they're just going to have to stumble their way forward. Are they going to get there? Who knows? We have been covering the Middle East for a long time. They don't get there. But it looks a lot better than I thought it would look six months ago, a year ago, five years ago.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

Well, shifting our focus to domestic politics, this past week, we saw former FBI Director James Comey arraigned, we saw New York Attorney General Letitia James indicted, both by the same Trump-appointed prosecutor. The former Trump National Security Adviser turned Trump critic John Bolton could be next, according to reports from MSNBC.

And we talked about this last week, when the focus was solely on Comey, but President Trump's campaign of retribution is expanding.

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes, because this is what he told us he was going to do. The people he — the folks who have been indicted or expected to be indicted soon or on the list, people like Senator Adam Schiff of California, private citizen now Miles Taylor, the president made it clear that he wants something done and he wants his Justice Department to do it.

He's on the record as saying they are guilty of something. Pam, go find it, Pam being the attorney general, Pam Bondi.

So this is chilling because you now have a Justice Department that is supposed to, at least nominally, be separate and removed from the White House, taking orders from the president of the United States, who famously said, where's my Roy Cohn? Well, his Roy Cohn is named Pam Bondi.

Geoff Bennett:

David, there are supporters of the president who say that Letitia James ran on a campaign of going after Donald Trump and that this is simply accountability coming full circle, that this is justified reciprocity, to which you would say what?

David Brooks:

Well, that's how Donald Trump clearly thinks. He thinks they were politically motivated prosecutions. And I somewhat agree with him. I don't think Trump would have been brought up on those charges if he hadn't been Donald Trump.

Nonetheless, what matters is the evidence. And Letitia James, she's accused of doing mortgage fraud that would have produced a benefit over the lifetime of the loan of $18,000. Now, you think about the numbers Donald Trump inflated his property values, they were not $18,000. They were times 100 million of that.

And so the evidence against Comey is slight. The case against James is — it would have been — no one would have prosecuted. We know that because other prosecutors refused to do it.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

David Brooks:

And so this is clearly a revenge prosecution. Donald Trump makes it hard on us pundits, because he's so blatant, there's nothing interesting to say.

(Laughter)

Geoff Bennett:

It is kind of all out there in the open.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right. It's out there.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, today marks the 10th day of the government shutdown, as we heard from the House Democratic leader. There has still been no substantive talks among the different parties.

October 15, I have that day circled on my calendar because that's the day that if they're — if the government is still shut down, members of the military, if things stay the way they are, who have been deemed essential, they have been on the job, they will not get a paycheck.

I mean, what do you make of all this at this point?

Jonathan Capehart:

You know why there aren't talks? Because the Republicans are not in town. The speaker of the House has kept the House out of session now for 20-some — 19 or 20 days and has already said that they're not coming back next week.

You would think that the House speaker being on C-SPAN and taking that very emotional call on the Republican line, a woman saying — a military wife talking about the need for, like, the — not only health care, but for the check, for the paycheck, and saying, get — where are you guys? Get back to work.

And he pivoted and blamed the Democrats. If they want to change the calculus of this conversation, they being Republicans, they should come back to town, because, if everyone's in town, then there's no excuse. Democrats will be in town in the House, will be in town next week. Why not come back to town and say, you want to talk, let's talk?

Geoff Bennett:

When even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling out her own party and saying we need to fix for the Obamacare subsidies, what does that say about the internal dynamics within the GOP?

David Brooks:

Not much, I don't think. Marjorie Taylor Greene is out there and wherever she is.

I think Republicans, like the Democrats, frankly, are pretty unified. And the weird thing about that is usually, when you cover a shutdown, somebody's feeling the heat. Nobody's feeling the heat yet. I don't think…

Geoff Bennett:

Yes, why is that?

David Brooks:

I think two things. One, the American people haven't yet felt it. Maybe, if you air travel, you will begin to feel it. When the military doesn't get paid, they feel it. But right now they're not feeling it. I was in Colorado this week, and, believe me, nobody was raising this with me. Nobody talked about it. That may change.

Second, the American people have become so jaded and disgusted that they're just like, oh, whatever. And so if you look at the polling, at the beginning, it looked like they were more blaming Trump. But now, if you look at, do you approve of the way Democrats in House and Republicans in Congress, how are they handling it, it's like both get a 28 positive rating, so a low rating on both parties.

But it's not really fueling the heat on either of these people. The second thing that I think there's — it's quite easy to cut a deal if the shutdown is really what Hakeem Jeffries said it was, which was about health care premiums. And it is partly about that. And Democrats, of course, are smart to talk that way because it's an issue that polls great for them.

But I don't think it's only about that. For a lot of Democrats, it's also about Trump's authoritarianism. It's Trump's willingness to dishonor and disrespect Congress and not spend the money they have appropriated. And that's a much deeper issue that's much harder to resolve, because Donald Trump is not doing that.

And then the Trump — the Republicans are also a little divided. Russell Vought did — the RIFs are starting today. There are a lot of congressional Republicans that don't like that.

Geoff Bennett:

Yes.

David Brooks:

And so there are these tensions within both parties. But, so far, they — their feet is not to the fire. But that may come in a couple weeks.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, as the shutdown drags on and more layoff notices keep landing, should Democrats hold the line?

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes. Yes, because I actually do think that they are pushing on health care because it's something that they care about.

And, I mean, I take your point that the American people aren't feeling it writ large. But when you have a Republican calling on the Republican line on C-SPAN to chastise the Republican House speaker — the Republican House speaker, and you have got the poster child for MAGA, who is also saying, you know this premiums thing is an issue, to me, that says that the ground is shifting.

And I also agree with David in this. While health care is the overarching, sort of popular issue because it's something that will affect the American people directly, rescissions has been my hobbyhorse, because why would and should Democrats trust any negotiation that they get into with Republicans and that is signed by the president if they know that, once — before the ink is dry, Russell Vought And the president will snatch back the money, snatch back the authority?

Geoff Bennett:

Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, our thanks to you both.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, Geoff.

David Brooks:

Thank you.