Excerpt
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including a tumultuous week at the White House, President Trump’s surprise announcement of a tariff on imported steel and aluminum, and political polarization in Congress over gun control.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): It’s been one more whirlwind week in Washington, another high-profile departure from the White House, fresh scrutiny over the president’s son-in-law, and an escalation in the war of words between Mr. Trump and his own attorney general, all this as the President made surprise declarations on trade and gun control.
That brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, so much going on this week, I barely know where to begin.
At the White House, Mark, the President’s closest aide announced she’s leaving. He has a son-in-law who is under a lot of scrutiny over alleged conflicts of interest. He has a chief of staff who is raising questions again about his — how he handled the firing of an aide over domestic abuse, and on and on.
The leaks seem to just be flowing a gusher every day. What matters in all of this?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: What matters is chaos in the White House is bad for the United States and bad for the world. There’s no rational order.
I mean, for example, what you have described, the morale at the White House, from every report, is just incredibly low. To work in any White House, Judy, is an act of both self-sacrifice and self-interest. You miss birthdays. You miss anniversaries. You miss your children’s recitals.
But there’s a sense of mission, a sense of history, a sense also that it’s special. You’re part of something special. You get status and recognition.
All that is missing here. This is a civil war in a leper colony. There is no sense of direction. The steel quotas being a perfect example. There was no preparation — tariffs, rather — there was no preparation politically, there was no preparation for making a case, there was no preparation for the press, there was no preparation within the White House.
There’s nothing organization. It’s all act on impulse and chaos and sort of the whim of the President himself.
Judy Woodruff: There’s almost a temptation, David, to look at this as some kind of sideshow. But there are real consequences, aren’t there?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes.
I’m actually thinking — I’m trying to think of historical parallels, when we have had this much chaos in the American Presidency. Richard Nixon had some bad days at the end there, but he had a very high-quality staff around him. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke.
I’m going through the list. I can’t think of anything quite like this, where we have the combination of a semi-competent or a missing staff, and an emotionally and intellectually unstable President.
Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, said in an interview not long ago that, when you look from the outside, it’s actually 50 times worse from the inside. And we’re getting a glimpse of that.
And one thing that leapt out at me — and I think this is the key thing, the most important thing — that it has real-world consequences. We’re not just fighting over whether he has a military parade or not.
The steel tariff thing has real consequences. And the word that leapt out at me that one of his staffers said, one of his allies said, he made the decision because he became unglued.
And so we have a President makes a decision because he becomes unglued, a decision totally in avoidance of the entire process. And then to combine the chaos of it, he issues a tweet this morning which to me was a topper even by Trump standards that a trade war is good and easily won, a concept that no economist of any stripe and no historian of any stripe could possibly think is anything other than crazy.
And so it’s extremely disorienting right now.
Judy Woodruff: So, how do we process this, Mark?
It’s the headlines. Again, you could go in almost any direction every day over a new controversy or set of controversies at the White House.
Mark Shields: I honestly don’t know, Judy.
I mean, it’s just — it’s overload. It really is. The one consolation, the one defense that the President’s apologists and supporters say, he doesn’t mean what he says. That’s supposed to be the consolation. And don’t be so concerned.
One of the more plausible explanations for the impulsive imposition, keeping of a promise he’s made for 30 years on steel tariffs, was that the 18th District of Pennsylvania is up in two weeks, the special election for a Republican seat that the Democrats have not even contested in 2014 and 2016, that Donald Trump carried Southwestern Pennsylvania, blue-collar, by 20 points, and the Democrat, Conor Lamb, former Marine, former prosecutor, U.S. prosecutor, is even with the Republican nominee.
And a defeat here would send such panic. This is Trump territory. And this — was seen as standing up for American jobs. That’s the most plausible explanation politically. It’s not a defense, but it’s an explanation.
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