SUMMARY: On Thursday, Joe Biden formally accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. He slammed President Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying the U.S. economy is “in tatters” and characterizing the election as a battle for America's soul. Meanwhile, President Trump and the Republicans fired back criticism as they prepared for their own convention. Amna Nawaz reports.
SUMMARY: Both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have set records with their 2020 campaign fundraising. But the pandemic has drastically altered how that money is spent, with events moving from in-person to online. Guy Cecil political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, and John Brabender senior advisor for Rick Santorum’s 2016 bid, join Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the latest news, including how the coronavirus pandemic has taken hold in the U.S., American leadership amid the crisis, whether the $2.2 trillion stimulus package will help those besieged by the pandemic and whether there is a chance for bipartisan political action.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And now we turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
We are keeping our distance from one another, as we know we absolutely have to do.
When we were together the last time, the three of us, it was two weeks ago, and, at that point, there were 15,000 coronavirus cases in this country, 200 deaths had been reported. Two weeks later, it's 270,000 deaths and 7,000 — or 270,000 cases, 7,000 deaths.
How are we doing as a country, David, in getting our arms around this?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, and in two weeks, we could be seeing another higher shoot-up in that — in those lines.
You know, I don't think we can say things are competently being handled. The — what's happening to the Comfort, the Naval medical ship in New York state, is something of a regulatory travesty.
The fact that tests are a third — some of them are failing by a third positives, negatives — positive — or false positives, false negatives, some of the uniforms and supplies are still not getting to New York state.
So, it doesn't look like we have mobilized the way you would think a country with a first-class Defense Department or a first-class set of bureaucracies would mobilize.
And so it's worrisome. Take it aside from all the politics. It just doesn't seem like competence.
Judy Woodruff: Mark, what does it look like to you?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, I don't disagree, but I would add that at least there's a consensus now, if not unanimity, that this is a serious, grave national calamity.
The President is moving on it, I think, made a difference. And he's brought with him the folks at FOX News, who bring with them a very large chunk of — there's no longer anybody in the country that argues that this is some sort of a Democratic hoax to jeopardize the President's reelection.
But there has not been that assumption of national leadership, at least of a constant and consistent manner. The — and that, I think, remains a problem.
And just last night, Judy, Ms. Blackthorn, I think her name was, Blackthorn, who — in New York, who had been laid off, and had [made] 300 calls to the Labor Department, unemployment, to qualify for unemployment insurance.
And that's just unforgivable. And this is a time when all hands have to be on deck, that everybody — this is not a question of bailing out industries. It's a question of saving families and individuals.
Judy Woodruff: David, and the approach from the White House has been, this is something that, state by state — we need the states to make decisions, for example, about whether people should be asked or urged to stay at home.
Today, the announcement about wearing masks, the President said, that's up to individuals, I don't plan to do it.
Is this — is the President right to be leaving these decisions up to individuals and up to states?
David Brooks: I do agree with what Tony Fauci said about that.
I do think the idea of ordering people to do things in sort of some dictatorial fashion will set off a reaction that will be a counter-reaction. I think the right thing for the President to do is to say, here's what's right, project a tone of, here's what we're going to do, wise governors follow along.
And that is slowly happening, with 80 percent of the country under social distancing. And so I'm a little hesitant to think that you can just order by diktat all sorts of personal things.
I think telling people what's smart — and, so far, the American people, I have to say, are taking this seriously. Most are social distancing. Most are rallying around each other to an astonishing degree. I think morale is astonishingly high, given what's happening.
So, I think just ordering people — ordering Americans around is not always the right strategy.
Judy Woodruff: Mark, what about the — that approach of saying, this is something that individuals and, frankly, state and local leaders need to make for themselves?
Mark Shields: Well, this is the perfect example of a President, national leader leading by example. And the President is leading by his example, which is not to subscribe to the edict or the suggestion or the recommendation.
And I just think, having watched Tony Fauci, I will say this, that he is a remarkable public servant. He speaks truth to power. He did the same thing with President Ronald Reagan some 35 years ago at the HIV threat, and said that this is a serious threat to the nation and to its national health, is consistently — Presidents do not like to be corrected or contradicted, this President less than any.
And he [Fauci] has done so in an effective way, whether it's putting the correction on that there is no vaccine right around the corner, that we're going to be back to normal.
And I just think he deserves enormous credit. And Donald Trump surprises me, because he doesn't tolerate correction or contradiction. And the fact that Tony Fauci is still there is an indication, I think, to his indispensability.
Judy Woodruff: And, David, when it comes to the economy, when it comes to people's livelihoods, I mean, you have — we now have, what, 10 million Americans and rising who are seeking unemployment benefits.
Businesses are going out of business by the hundreds and by the thousands. What about the administration's approach to keeping the economy afloat?
David Brooks: Well, here, there's a lot of blame to go along.
I would say that, when we look at the bill that was passed by Congress a couple weeks ago, this stimulus bill, we will regard it as one of the worst economic packages maybe in American history, certainly in a time of crisis.
What they're doing in Europe is, they're preserving the businesses. They're keeping people employed. They're just paying businesses to say, we're going to give you some money, and — but you're going to keep your payroll. So people don't have the threat of unemployment, they don't have the insecurity of unemployment, they don't have the possibility that they will never get a job again or they won't get a job for a long time.
They [Europe] just sort of freeze the economy. And we didn't do that. We took a more individualistic approach, we will just give you $1,200. We had a backstop measure, which is $350 billion for businesses. We should increase that to $600 billion, $700 billion, so businesses can keep their payroll.
And there's a lot of blame to go around. The Democrats took this option because they didn't want to be seen to be bailing out business. The Republicans, I'm not sure they had a coherent thought in their heads.
And so this is, I think, a catastrophic error, which we should just be fixing very quickly.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, how do you size up the economic — the approach to the economy, the approach to saving Americans who are seeing in some cases everything they have disappearing?
Mark Shields: No, I think, Judy — and I disagree here.
I think the immediate object of help and assistance has to be people, individuals, and that they are the ones, the families to be fed, just to be held together. And putting money into their pockets, through unemployment insurance, through the federal grant, I think, is urgent and compelling.
But, as I come back to, this is a time when government has to respond and provide particularly unemployment insurance. People, probably three or four days to even get registered, it's just unacceptable and unforgivable.
Judy Woodruff: And…
(CROSSTALK)
Judy Woodruff: Go ahead, David.
David Brooks: No, I was just going to say, it's better to have the not unemployed.
I mean, there are going to be some people who are unemployed. And for them, certainly, the unemployment insurance is there. But if you could sit at home knowing that you had a job, and knowing that you were getting paid for that job, even though you were sitting at home, and that you were probably going to go back to that job, that seems to me the right way to do this.
And I — I understand, culturally, why we didn't do it. I understand, politically, why bailing out business seem to be a bad thing. But it's fixable. And when Chuck Schumer said earlier in the program that he wants something else, I would hope this would be the something else we would do before the end of April.
Judy Woodruff: And, Mark, we're told they're going to come back at some point in the coming weeks with a bigger aid package.
Mark Shields: No question. I think that is coming.
And I have to say that the President showed an absence of leadership at the signing of that rescue bill, the aid bill to save the American families who are besieged by this terrible calamity. Not to invite a single Democrat to the signing, at a time when he's saying this is not a time for politics, wasn't the kind of example that we need.
We are going to have — we're going to have another bill, a major bill. And this is a — it's a time of the greatest urgency.
SUMMARY: The Trump administration wants to roll back another federal regulation intended to reduce global warming. Obama-era automobile fuel efficiency rules require U.S. vehicles to increase mileage standards by an average of 5 percent per year from 2021 through 2026. Tuesday’s move would reduce the improvement threshold to 1.5 percent. The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin joins John Yang to discuss.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the latest political news, including how the Las Vegas debate changed the 2020 Democratic race, new reports of Russian election interference and President Trump’s response to them, the sentencing of Trump ally Roger Stone and the outcry over Trump’s flurry of pardons and commutations.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Judy Woodruff: Well, speaking of Bernie Sanders and the Russians, today, David, late today, we learned that — first a news report and then Sanders confirmed it — that his campaign has been — he's been briefed by intelligence officials about the Russians trying to help his campaign.
So, now we know it's not just President Trump. It's one of the Democrats.
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes.
It happens to be a fact that the two campaigns the Russian are trying to help are the two campaigns that are — might end up with the nominations.
I remain a little skeptical of how effective the Russians are at getting people to — persuading people to change their mind on a certain candidate. There is no magic formula for that. We try here every week, and it doesn't work.
(LAUGHTER)
And so — and so I'm not sure the Russians are really effectively changing a lot of votes.
I really wish the intelligence agencies would tell us explicitly what they're doing. Like, they say they're undermining institutions, undermining trust, spreading conspiracy theories.
I'd love to be able to know, as a consumer of social media and all the rest, what do I look out for? What do I do? How can I tell? I think they haven't — they have been too vague about what actually is happening and what countermeasures we, as individuals, can take.
Judy Woodruff: Yes, they talk about taking disinformation and repeating it and repeating it through social media.
So that's one of the things.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: One of the things we could do as a people is just pass what the House has passed, which is simply that any campaign that is approached by a foreign power, foreign source to help it, to be involved in any way, has to report it. There's a responsibility.
That's died in the Republican Senate. That's been killed by Mitch McConnell.
But, no, I really — I really think that, Judy, it's unthinkable, if you really just take the sense of, the President of the United States is told that a foreign country is interfering and trying to change the most — the sacrament of democracy, which is our public voting, the secret ballot, and they are trying to tamper with it and tamper with the results.
And what is his reaction? Fury at the foreign power? Anger? Let's get them?
No. Who divulged this? An admiral, a decorated admiral, who took this, as a public servant, and an honored his constitutional and statutory responsibility to inform the Congress of the United States.
I mean, that's just unthinkable, what's going on.
Judy Woodruff: You're contrasting the President's reaction to this to Bernie Sanders, who announced today and rejected…
Mark Shields: Yes.
Bernie Sanders, to his credit, I mean, having honeymooned in Moscow in 1988…
(LAUGHTER)
I mean, you got to explain that someday, Bernie — the trip to Nicaragua in '85.
But, I mean, he's — he came and said, no way. I mean, you stay out, Putin. And if I'm President, I will make absolutely sure. I don't want your help and you shouldn't be involved or whatever.
That was a strong statement, the kind you would expect from any political leader in this country of either party, and that the President United States refuses to give.
David Brooks: Yes, and then appoint somebody as head of the — or acting head of the national intelligence — or intelligence service, someone with no experience, who is politicizing that relationship even more.
So…
Mark Shields: Yes.
Judy Woodruff: Well, the other thing — many things to ask you about, but one thing I do want to touch on is, this was the week the President's longtime friend Roger Stone was sentenced to prison by a federal judge here in Washington, more than three years.
Remains to be seen whether the President's going to pardon his sentence. But what the President did do this week was pardon or commute the sentences of 11 individuals who seem to all have some connection, David, with the Trump White House.
What do we make of this? I mean, this is — the President's within his power, his rights to do this, but what do you make of it?
David Brooks: Yes.
I mean, the naked politicization of this is — again is the — Trump is, as some have predicted, really is unleashed by impeachment. His behavior has really shifted in the last month in all sorts of ways, much more attack on the institutions of our society.
I happen to — the only person I know — and I don't know him at all well — is Michael Milken among those who've been pardoned. And I thought the pardon was legitimate in that case. This is a guy who had his Wall Street problems in the '80s, prosecuted by Rudy Giuliani.
But as far as I can see, the Milken Institute is out in California. He's really dedicated last 20 or 30 years to serving the public, running a think tank, trying to spread ideas.
And so in the case of somebody like that, who really spends decades in public service after whatever he did years ago, a pardon doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.
Judy Woodruff: How do you see this?
Mark Shields: Well, I think we owe a certain tribute to Joni Ernst and to Rob Portman and Susan Collins, who told us that the President would be chastened and changed by that simmering experience of going through the impeachment.
He is. He's unbridled. He's unfettered. He has only around him enablers now. There is nobody to hold him back. There's no Kelly or Mattis or anybody else there to say, no, Mr. President, argue another point of view.
And what they have in common, I guess, white-collar crime, fraud, tax deception, and ability to give money to Republican causes. I mean, it's — there is almost a self-identification with many of these cases, because the President has not gone uncharged on some of these actions or similar actions.
And so it's — I really think that it's not a question of — I don't know Michael Milken. But he certainly did change American finance while he was there.
Judy Woodruff: The junk — they called him the junk bond king.
David Brooks: It should be said, I mean, just to get back to Roger Stone, we're all made in the image of God, but it's hard to think of somebody whose public career has shown fewer redeeming qualities.
And the President has surrounded himself with reasonably shady characters. And Roger Stone is almost apically shady.
Judy Woodruff: And this is the third individual who was considered close to the President who — sent off to prison, at a time when — there's a lot of focus on what the President can do.
Again, he has the power to commute sentences, to pardon people. And we remember, at the end of the Bill Clinton administration, there was a flurry of pardons.
(CROSSTALK)
Mark Shields: Usually, it's on the way out, Judy.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
Mark Shields: There's just one thing about the Democrats that I just want to — that kind of fits in here.
And that is, the Democrats, I think, after that debate, are in danger of fragmenting and fracturing themselves. And I think there's a page in American history, the Revolutionary War. The revolutionists sought the active alliance with Charles XVI of — the king of France — Louis XVI and Charles III in Spain, monarchies, to help them.
I mean, but one — they had a single objective, and that was to defeat the king of England, to get independence.
Judy Woodruff: The monarch.
Mark Shields: The monarch.
The Democrats better say — they better come together in a hell of a hurry, because their sole purpose in 2020 is to defeat the monarch, to defeat Donald Trump.
And I just — I think the danger of fracturing is severe.
Judy Woodruff: We hear you.
Mark Shields: OK.
Judy Woodruff: Mark Shields, David Brooks, thank you.
Mark Shields: Thank you.
 |
| 1934 Nazi Rally at Nuremberg were orderly by comparison to the Trump campaign rallies, but they are both built around a cult of an infallible leaders. (Bundesarchiv) |
No, Congressional Republicans (with the exception of Mitt Romney) will not suddenly reveal themselves as principled even if Trump were to resign, which is near impossible to consider. Democrats who pride themselves on civility and honorable behavior make the mistake of projecting those virtues onto Senate and House Republicans.
Yes, the rumors of some Senate Republicans who only voted to acquit Trump out of fear may have some truth, but then again, it may be nothing more than Bill Barr’s contrived claim that Trump’s tweeting was making his job more difficult. In the end, Barr has just been engaging in a cover-up, most likely coordinated with the White House, of multiple cover-ups of acts of injustice to get Trump capos not to reveal evidence of Trump’s criminal behavior and to investigate Trump’s “enemies.” Not to mention Barr’s dishonest summaries of DOJ investigations that concern Trump.
There is no reason to believe that Congressional Republicans want to rein in Trump anymore than to believe Barr is engaged in carrying out impartial justice.
No, Republicans didn’t acquit Trump just our of fear. To the contrary, they share Trump’s goal of one-party rule — attained through stolen elections and massive disinformation campaigns — that would last, as Hitler declared for his Third Reich, a thousand years. Lost in Democratic leadership speculation that it was Trump’s vindictiveness and fear that he would support primary challengers to anyone who voted against him on impeachment, lost to that simplistic explanation is that the Republican Party has been engaged in trying to suppress the two-party system for decades. Not to mention, the Neo-Confederacy brand of the Republican Party since Nixon.
With the advent of an unhinged vengeful despot demagogue in the White House, who is openly soliciting help in stealing the 2020 election, the Congressional Republicans probably have two thoughts: 1) The Trump campaign’s open commitment to use dirty tricks, voter suppression and foreign interference to steal the election for Trump will help those up for re-election down ballot; and 2) The Republicans know that they are now a minority and cannot win a popular vote nationally and that they control the Senate only because of the artifact of (at the time of the Constitution) slave states (now including rural Western and Midwestern Red States) being granted two senators.
Thus a state such as Wyoming has two senators as a population of 580,000, while California has two senators, with the same power, with more than 40 million people. So the Senate Republicans control the Senate under the pernicious and underhanded Mitch McConnell even though Democratic Senate candidates received 12 million more votes than Republican candidates in 2018. So don’t rule out that the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate were thinking more about a strong man who would preserve minority Republican rule without the least compunction of fair play.
It is hard for many Democrats who believe in the Constitution and the lore of American democracy being a role model for the world to accept that the Republican white Christian minority are looking to hold on power at all costs even it means they are helping dismantle democracy and emboldening an aspiring dictator. The reality is that democracy is a threat to their rule, and Trump is their leader in suppressing majority rule and enfranchisement, and a Republican dictatorship preserving minority rule would be just fine with them.
As Barry Craig noted in LA Progressive: “Trump isn’t driving Republican opinion. He’s just reflecting it.”
In 1947, while a Congressman John F. Kennedy said in a speech: “There is nothing in the record of the past two years when both Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line – no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.”
For those Democrats who are squeamish about any comparisons to Hitler and the Third Reich, JFK was right on the money. Trump is, it goes without saying, the master of the big lie, more than 15,000 and counting. Like Hitler, he believes in one party rule. Like Hitler, who damned the democratic Weimar Republic, Trump believes Democratic leaders are “vermin” and “scum” and should be imprisoned. Like Trump, Hitler used mass audiences to appeal to the basest instincts of his followers, to lure them into the fanciful notion of a pure German bloodline, to promise them that he would make Germany great again (ergo The Third Reich).
Don’t for a minute think that the Republicans in Congress are abandoning principles out of fear alone. Trump is their leader advancing the minority white Christians into a thousand years of one-party rule.
SUMMARY: President Trump unveiled a $4.8 trillion budget proposal for the 2021 fiscal year on Monday. His plan includes cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs, as well as an increase in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Yamiche Alcindor joins Amna Nawaz to discuss how the president’s “wish list” illustrates his continued commitment to a hardline stance on immigration policy.
