Brooks and Capehart on Trump's mixed signals on the Iran war

Geoff Bennett:

With the war in Iran intensifying, President Trump this week delivered conflicting messages on what -- when it could end. And attacks here in the U.S. prompted a wave of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

To discuss that more, we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's "The Atlantic"'s David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW.

It's always great to see you both.

So, Jonathan, on Iran, if the goal was to weaken Iran and stabilize the region, the early picture looks complicated. You have got a new supreme leader in Tehran, who is the son of the original supreme leader who was killed in the initial attack. You have got higher oil prices, a widening regional war, and more than a dozen U.S. troop casualties.

What, in your view, has been achieved so far?

Jonathan Capehart:

I don't know. I really don't know.

And I'm glad you mentioned the casualties, because I was going to do something that the secretary of defense refuses to do when he -- immediately when he gets before the microphones, and acknowledge right now the 13 killed in action, including the six who lost their lives when their refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.

I am still trying to understand what the endgame is here. The president gives a lot of -- says a lot of happy talk about this will take a short period of time, and we had to do this because they were going to attack us.

But we have not heard a single coherent rationale since this war started, what is it, two weeks ago tomorrow.

Geoff Bennett:

David, how do you see it?

David Brooks:

Yes. Well, this was not a good week. I think things were achieved in the first week with the weakening of the regime and taking out some of the ballistic missiles and all that.

But this week, two big things happened not good for the U.S. The first is every intelligence agency on Earth seems to have concluded that the odds of regime change, the odds that the Iranian people have any opportunity to rise up any time soon are very unlikely. And so that means we're in a war of containment.

It looks a little more like the Cold War, where whatever happens in this military kinetic phase, there's going to be a long period we're going to have to contain Iran. The second bad thing that happened was the effective closing of the Straits of Hormuz.

Now, I don't know what went through Pete Hegseth's head or Donald Trump's head, whether they anticipated this move or not, but it surely is impossible that the U.S. military did not anticipate this, because we have been talking about this for 47 years, and closing the Straits of Hormuz has always been on the table.

The Iranians have been preparing for this for decades, and they have effective ability to do it, at least partially, so far, and we see what's happened to oil prices. We see what's happened to the world economy. And the problem is the U.S. has no really good options here.

Ending a naval blockade, getting rid of naval mines is just not an easy thing to do. Back in 1991, during the first George H.W. Bush, the war in Kuwait and Ukraine -- I mean, Iraq -- Iraq had roughly 900 mines, and it took us nearly two months to clear them. The pre-war estimates for Iranian mines were closer to 5,000, and then they have all these things that didn't exist in 1991, like underwater drones.

So that's a really long struggle to try to make the Straits of Hormuz open. But if the U.S. doesn't do that, then Iran is the effective victor, because they can say we can pull the economic string that will always deter a further U.S. attack, we are the ones in charge here, and we won this war.

Geoff Bennett:

And it speaks to how a weaker adversary can still impose enormous costs.

Jonathan, in the introduction here, we talked about the president's conflicting messaging. He had previously said the war would last four to five weeks. Earlier this week, he said it's -- quote -- "very complete, already won."

In an interview released today, he said it will be over -- and this is a quote -- "when I feel it, feel it in my bones."

Your reaction?

Jonathan Capehart:

This is -- that -- when I read that comment, I immediately thought that this, what we're in right now, this war with Iran, it is as unserious as it is dangerous.

David just talked about the danger that is involved here. And you would think that a president of the United States, with a capable Defense Department, would have thought all of these things through. If we go after Iran, if we take out the regime, what would they do in retaliation, and then how are we going to respond to that?

I don't think it's in anyone's interest -- David was saying that the best we have done is maybe created a situation where Iran has to be contained. I don't know. To me, that sounds like we, the world, are in a much more dangerous place than we were two weeks ago tomorrow.

Geoff Bennett:

And, David, one unusual feature of this conflict has been the White House's messaging online. They have been posting these meme-style videos, these pop culture montages celebrating the U.S. strikes. There are some of them are playing out right now on the screen.

What's your assessment of this? I mean, does this reflect modern political communication or is something here more troubling about how this war is being framed to the public by the White House?

David Brooks:

You know, the White House has pastors come in. They have prayer breakfasts they go to. They talk a lot about Christianity and upholding Christian values.

At the core of Christianity is a belief in the dignity of each person, that each human being is made in the image of God. And that's true of all humans, not just the ones you happen to like. And what's happening here, in Lebanon and in Iran is death, is human death. And I don't care who's dying, whether it's good guys or bad guys, innocents or supposed guilties. It's death.

And the people who fought World War II, who led our conflict in World War II, whether it was Franklin Roosevelt down to George Marshall to Omar Bradley, they understood the seriousness of this, that killing human beings is not a video game. It's not pixels on a screen.

And whatever you think of the war -- and I'm probably a little more hopeful than most -- the way this is being described is almost barbaric. There's a great tradition of just war theory. Sometimes, wars are just, but they're never good. They're never anything but horrific. And to treat them otherwise is to insult the American people and to really be unnerving.

It should be unnerving to everybody to see this level of triviality.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, we saw two attacks here in the U.S. yesterday, a shooting at Old Dominion University being investigated as terrorism and a car ramming at a synagogue in Michigan. The president, President Trump, was asked about it.

He said the perpetrators were sick people. And then in an interview with Brian Kilmeade of FOX, he added this:

President Donald Trump:

They're sick people. And a lot of them were let in here. They shouldn't have been let in. Others are just bad. They go bad. Something wrong. There's something wrong there. So, genetics are not exactly -- they're not exactly your genetic -- it's one of those problems.

Geoff Bennett:

Genetics, he says.

Jonathan Capehart:

Genetics.

And no one should be surprised to hear that kind of language come from Donald Trump. He ran -- his second presidential campaign was an openly racist, xenophobic, white nationalist campaign. So the fact that he's talking about genetics in this circumstance, it's not surprising.

But, again, this is the president of the United States. If we ever hope to put a lid on some of the passions and the hatreds that are in this country, we look usually, we should, to the president to be the example, to step out and say, this isn't who we are. We band together. People are hurting. Say all the comforting words to bind the country together.

And instead, he and so many of his supporters are out there rending the garment of our American society. It's really -- it's as troubling as it is angering.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, in the time that remains, I want to get to the SAVE Act, which you both know. It's this bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. It would require stricter voter I.D. rules. Supporters say it's about election integrity. Critics say it could make voting harder for millions of eligible Americans, to include Republicans.

David, for years, there's been this theory in Republican politics that higher turnout benefits Democrats. Recent elections have proven that not to be the case. But how much of this is still rooted in that old political thinking?

David Brooks:

OK.

Yes, it is true now that higher turnout benefits the Republicans and lower turnout benefits the Democrats because they're more the party of the college-educated who vote in low-turnout elections. But what the Republicans are doing, they're playing on this pure electoral politics.

You might agree with the SAVE Act. You may disagree with the SAVE Act. It's hugely popular. You take every group in American society and you get 70 or 80 percent approval. It sounds decent to people that, if you can have to hand over your driver's license to get on an airplane, you should be able to have to hand it over to show you're voting.

And there's some truth to that. The problem is, it's not a problem. The studies that have been done looking at how many times U.S. noncitizens -- or the times noncitizens voted in U.S. elections, it's like fewer than 100 cases. in the last 25 years. This is not a problem.

And the idea that we are going to paralyze the Senate for a solution looking for a problem, and the idea, especially egregious, that we're going to get rid of the filibuster, which to me is the only thing left that gives us a shred of hope of bipartisanship in the next few years, that just seems like a mistake.

Geoff Bennett:

Jonathan?

Jonathan Capehart:

The idea that you could have a law that says it's OK -- you can prove that you're able to vote with, say, like a gun permit, but if you have a college I.D., you're not allowed to vote, or handing over voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, for what purpose?

When I look at the SAVE Act, I look at it as an attempt by the president, who has made it very clear that he does not want Republicans to lose the 2026 midterms, and that is what this is all about.

Geoff Bennett:

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

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, Geoff.

David Brooks:

Thank you.