Excerpt
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including public opinion and legal debate in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, the shifting race among 2020 Democrats and what we’re thankful for during this holiday week.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): Now here to analyze the politics of this Thanksgiving week, as always, are Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Hi, Judy.
Judy Woodruff: So, the impeachment process, we are seeing the Judiciary Committee marching ahead, David.
There's a hearing next week where they are going to talk to constitutional scholars about impeachment. The committee sent a letter to the White House saying the President has until next Friday to say whether he's going to call witnesses and provide evidence.
Meantime, the President is out on the campaign trail saying the whole thing is a witch-hunt, and he's not going to cooperate.
And is he making some progress, because we're seeing the polls show some slipping in support for impeachment?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, especially in swing states.
And so I think the contrast for the coming week will be that the Democrats will be ever more treating this like a legal matter, and Donald Trump will be ever more treating it like a political matter, and them trying to close it in on the exact events and him trying to widen it, see, this is just what they have been doing at me. They have been — this is an attack on you.
And they will both win. And the impeachment now numbers are just like every other numbers in our politics, completely divided right down the middle, and with nobody moving on either side.
And so I suspect Trump will see this as a tremendous way to get his base, and Democrats will see the same way. And we will march forward. And eventually it'll end. And then we will turn our attention the Democratic Party, and I'm not sure what will have been achieved.
Judy Woodruff: His best defense, go out and call it a witch-hunt?
Mark Shields: David is such a Pollyanna.
Look, Judy, I think continues to slide is just a little bit of an overstatement.
If you think — compare this to Watergate, it took 26 months after the break-in at Watergate, 14 months of hearings, to get to the point where we are now with Richard Nixon. That was the summer of 1974, one month before he resigned, to the point we are with Donald Trump right now.
And as far as — I mean, you can look at all the polls. Ipsos does it — has done six since the end of October. It's gone from 47 percent in favor of impeachment, to 41 against, to 47 percent in favor of impeachment, 41 — 40 against. I mean, it's been next to — next to no movement.
I just I think that we have, quite frankly, is early stages. And we're very much in the early stages. And I think for us to rush — Jeff Horwitt, the Democratic pollster who does The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll with Bill McInturff, the Republican, compares it, the impeachment and conviction in the Senate, as to the criminal part of a trial.
And the civil — the civil trial will be the election of 2020. Donald Trump may very well be not guilty in the criminal part, but, right now, he's in just terrible, terrible shape looking at November 2020.
Have 47 — 6 percent of Americans who say they would vote for anybody except Donald Trump. And 34 percent say they will vote for Donald Trump, regardless of who runs against him.
David Brooks: Yes.
Mark Shields: So, I mean, he's really just in worse shape than any incumbent in my lifetime.
Judy Woodruff: So are you saying — and I'm going to turn to David on this. Are you saying that this is not about impeaching him and removing him from office by the Congress, but doing it — but damaging him enough so that it happens at the polls next November?
David Brooks: Well, that's not the way it's supposed to be.
Mark Shields: No.
David Brooks: It's supposed to be a legal thing to see if he did high crimes and misdemeanors.
I don't — I agree, I think Donald Trump is in serious trouble, more than — more than most of my Democratic friends do. That having said, in swing states, The Times had a poll that gave everybody anxiety on the Democratic side about two weeks ago showing Trump winning all these swing states.
And we have, surprisingly, shockingly little data on how he's doing in swing states or how impeachment is doing in swing states. The one thing we do have is a poll that Marquette did in Wisconsin, which was 40 percent support, 55 percent oppose.
And so if that's the way the swing states are reacting, then that's not a good thing, because this is not going to be about looking at how the whole country views this. This is about how those swing voters are viewing it.
And whether the Democrats want to go and do Watergate style or Watergate length set of hearings, it seems to me that's highly problematic.
I think there's a case, as we discussed last week for bringing in Mike Pompeo, and trying to ask him some questions. But the Democrats so far seem loath to do this because they want to rush this thing. And so that — that's just a big philosophical difference. Do they go big and try to engineer that, or do they say, let's just get this over with?
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