SUMMARY: Amy Walter from The Cook Political Report and Shawna Thomas of Vice News join Lisa Desjardins discuss the last week of primary voting before the midterm elections, President Obama making his presence felt on the campaign trail, plus the tightening race between Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the retirement and legacy of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a shocking Democratic victory in Queens, and the continued fallout over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy and family separation.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Gentlemen, welcome.
Big news, the equivalent of an earthquake, I guess, in Washington, political earthquake.
Mark, what does it mean that Anthony Kennedy is stepping down from the Supreme Court? What does it mean for the court? What does it mean for the city, for the country?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: It’s significant.
(LAUGHTER)
Mark Shields:No, let me just say, God likes Donald Trump, because she has now given him a second appointee to the Supreme Court, something that Barack Obama, in eight years, got two. Bill Clinton in eight years got two. George W. Bush in eight years got two. He’s getting two in 18 months.
Anthony Kennedy is getting encomiums of praise, in large part, Judy, two sources. One, he was a gentleman. He was considerate to those around him. He didn’t — there was no personalizing or polarizing to him. And that is welcome and refreshing in this Washington.
But the second thing is, he was a liberal on individual rights and sort of social issues. He wasn’t on economic issues. He always came down on the side of corporations against consumers and the side of the employer against — the boss.
And he wrote probably the worst opinion, in my judgment, in the history of American politics, the campaign — permitting corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions, and allowing the gushing of water — of money into campaigns.
But he will — he has been a key vote on capital punishment, on a whole host of issues, including gay marriage and ratifying Roe v. Wade. So, in that sense, the nominee will be to the right of him, and it will perhaps energize Republicans who were not energized about 2018.
Judy Woodruff: How do you see his legacy first?
David Brooks, New York Times:Well, first, it struck me that a lot of my progressive friends are reacting like losing Kennedy is like losing, I don’t know, Franklin Roosevelt.
Like, suddenly, they’re all on his side, which is odd to me, because, in most of his decisions, Citizens United and Bush v. Gore, he voted very solidly with the conservatives.
But it shows the prominence of two issues for progressives, which is abortion and gay marriage, and it shows how the social issues really are what motivate people these days.
I would say I would characterize him as a pragmatic libertarian, tended to emphasize individual rights and freedoms. And so sometimes that went a little — a lot of time, it went a little right. Sometimes, it went a little left. But it tended to be an individualistic mind-set, which had some good virtues.
I thought it — in general, it weakened any sense of community, any of sense of, we have a shared nation, because his world view was so individualistic.
Nonetheless, he was just a very cordial man, a very good man to be around in Washington, an exemplar of an old style public servant.
As for the politics, I agree with Mark. It’s just a total gift for Republicans. It will unify the right. It will energize the right. It will energize the left, too, but more — in the coming campaign, it puts pressure on the people in the middle.
And so Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins on the Republican side, it puts some pressure on them, but I don’t think a whole lot. They voted for Gorsuch.
Mark Shields: Gorsuch, that’s right.
David Brooks: But it puts a bunch of pressure on the centrist Democrats who are running in the red states. And I think puts more pressure on the Democrats than it does on the Republicans.
(CROSSTALK)
Mark Shields: Yes, I agree with David.
Joe Manchin in West Virginia, who I think has to be favored for reelection, as a Democrat in a state, Donald Trump’s best state, he won by 42 percent, that is going to be a difficult vote for him, especially if Mitch McConnell, in all likelihood, holds the vote around Halloween to keep attention riveted on the issue.
Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, a state that Donald Trump carried by 36 percent, Democratic incumbent. Joe Donnelly in Indiana that he carried by 17 percent. And Claire McCaskill in Missouri that Donald Trump carried by 19 percent. It’s going to be a lot of political pressure for them.
Judy, the key to me is, this is a bigger issue, the Supreme Court has been, for conservatives and Republicans than it has been historically for Democrats.
For example, in the exit polls in 2016, the Clinton-Trump race, 26 percent of the Republican voters said the Supreme Court and who sat on it was an urgent vote matter to them, to the point that it affected and influenced their votes. Only 18 percent of Democrats said it was for them.
So, it’s a built-in emotional advantage at a time when Republican enthusiasm and interest in the 2018 campaign has been sapping and had been draining.
David Brooks: That may — I wonder if that will change now because this pick obviously puts Roe v. Wade right at the center of our politics.
And it will actually open up something very interesting. I don’t think it’s — the nightmare scenario on either side, I don’t think it’s probably going to happen.
Mark Shields: Which is? What is…
David Brooks: Which is that Roe v. Wade will suddenly be overturned.
Judy Woodruff: Yes.
David Brooks: Because there is a precedent which Secretary — Justice Roberts has maintained through most of the terms — and the Obamacare case is a good example — of saying, I may agree, I may not agree, but what is settled law is settled law.
He has tended to be biased in that direction. And as we go through the hearings, whoever the nominee is, that’s what they are going to say. And so they may disagree in principle on Roe v. Wade, but it is — it’s reasonably settled, so they may hedge it or something. But it — I’m not sure we’re looking at some massive overturn of Roe v. Wade either way.
Judy Woodruff: But neither one of you sees any hindrance, anything standing in front of the President getting his choice for the court?
Mark Shields: Sure, the choice himself.
We have had nominees rejected before because of something that was discovered or and their position.
I would just take one exception to David, and that is, over the last generation, Gallup has polled every single year. Americans have more — far more tolerant and far less censorious about having a child out of wedlock, or gay rights, or extramarital relations.
But moral acceptability of abortion remains divided exactly where it was 25 years ago. So it is an organizing and galvanizing issue still to this day, even though I think David’s right that the status quo or precedent works to the advantage of those who would preserve it.
But how about it if it becomes the central issue in the campaign of 2018? Does that help the Democrats or not? Does it turn out Republicans who might not have — who might have sat home?
SUMMARY:In Tuesday's New York primary, a 28-year-old Democratic Socialist defeated a 10-term incumbent who was considering a run for speaker of the House. Now Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Lisa Desjardins reports that it was also a very good night for President Trump's candidates.
SUMMARY: Primary voters in five more states went to the polls Tuesday. Among the outcomes, South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford was defeated hours after President Trump endorsed Sanford's opponent, while Virginia chose Corey Stewart a vocal proponent of keeping Confederate monuments, as the GOP Senate nominee. Judy Woodruff gets reaction from former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis.
SUMMARY:More than 6 million voters went to the polls across eight states on Tuesday, the biggest primary night of the year. The battle to control Congress was front and center, but there were revealing elections in key Senate and gubernatorial races too. Judy Woodruff gets analysis from Scott Schafer of KQED and Stuart Rothenberg of Inside Elections.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including President Trump calling off his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the outcome of Tuesday’s primaries for Democrats, and the effects of the President stirring controversy with claims of FBI spying on his campaign.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): Now back to the political news of this week with the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome to you both.
So, let’s talk first about this on-again/off-again summit with the North Korean leader.
David, it came about very quickly. It seemed to spring out of the President’s mind on his own. We didn’t — a lot of people were skeptical it was ever going to happen. It’s off again, but the President said today, maybe it’s not off.
What do you make of his diplomacy?
David Brooks, New York Times: When I went to buy my first car, somebody gave me advice. You have got to walk out. Walk out.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks: Walk out.
And I never — I’m not that kind of guy, so I didn’t walk out. But Donald Trump sort of walked out. And so he does everything in public. And he exerts pressure, he flatters, he threatens war. He does everything in public.
And so I sort of sympathize with the idea to see if there can be some breakthrough with North Korea. And I don’t blame him for going in and going out, trying to exert whatever pressure he can.
The problem is, it’s not real diplomacy. In real diplomacy, you have your sherpas, your lower-level people sort of build up some sense of agreements. You gather your allies. You don’t burn them with trade deals, the Chinese just South Koreans. You gather — and you exert real pressure.
But Donald Trump is a lone wolf, and so he’s doing it all on his own, basically, without allies, without too much help from the U.S. government, and it’s all by tweet and publicity.
And so I’m skeptical that you can get a real breakthrough without a full, stacked diplomatic and military effort, but — or at least sort of threats and pressure. But I don’t totally blame him for trying. Or, frankly, I don’t blame him for going in and out.
Anything that can dislodge something that’s stuck.
Judy Woodruff: How do you size this up?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, Judy, it’s been 65 years since President Eisenhower on his promise to go to Korea negotiated a truce between North Korea and South Korea.
Since then, we have had 10 Presidents of both parties, five Democrats, five Republicans. With varying degrees of commitment and intensity, they have all tried to deal with resolving Korea. They have spent time. They have used learned professionals, wise academics, businessmen who know, and business persons who know the area.
And even after that, there are no major breakthroughs that’s happened. And Donald Trump, with no preparation, no knowledge, no background — I agree with David. I cheered the hope — and it was only a hope — that we might have a breakthrough.
But the idea that this was going to happen, and that somehow Kim Jong-un, who has gotten now global respect because he’s got nuclear arms, was just going to say, well, that’s it, thank you so much, you know, I think, was unrealistic.
Now, the fact that Secretary Mattis says that there’s a possibility that the summit will occur, that gives me pause. I mean, I give a lot more credence to what Secretary Mattis says than I do to the White House.
Judy Woodruff: The President clearly — or seems, David, to believe that unpredictability can pay off sometimes.
David Brooks: Well, sometimes, it can.
If we got a crazy person who is President, you may as well take advantage. But, as I say, why should they give up nuclear weapons? They have seen the Libya example and they saw what happened to Gadhafi.
The only — but at some point in history, and I don’t know if it will be in our lifetimes, they will say, we would rather have a middle-class lifestyle. We would rather have what they have in South Korea. I think, eventually, somebody is going to make that call. I don’t know if it will be this guy, or his son, or grandson, or whatever.
But, eventually, that’s going to happen. So, as long as we can keep knocking on the door, that seems fine. And as long as we don’t disrupt our allies in the area, which we seem to have terrified the South Koreans…
Mark Shields: And the Japanese.
David Brooks: And the Japanese — then the door should always be open, the pressure should always be on.
But sometimes you don’t just have any good solutions. And that’s why we have had 10 Presidents without much progress.
Mark Shields: Yes, that’s it.
This isn’t the city council in Atlantic City or the zoning commission, where you’re trying to get a deal for the casino and better parking or a large parking lot or to invoke eminent domain on your behalf.
This is really — really — significance. And it’s the difference between braggadocio and style and flash and substance. And if you look at everybody — I mean, John Kennedy, who was far more a student of foreign affairs than Donald Trump, at his first encounter with Khrushchev came away humbled, came away — and, in retrospect, contributed, historians and I think many in the Kennedy administration agree, to the emboldened Soviet Union in both Berlin and in Cuba.
So these don’t come without some cost and without some price and especially, as David pointed out, the rupture with our allies.
SUMMARY:Stacey Abrams (D-Ga) is the first African-American woman to be a major party nominee for governor in the U.S. Abrams, former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss her historic win, her platform, and why her strategy worked and what it means for Democrats around the nation. [won 70+ % of the vote]
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including charges against Baltimore police officers for Freddie Gray’s death, presidential prospects for N.J. Gov. Chris Christie after indictments for former aides, and Sen. Bernie Sanders becomes Hillary Clinton’s first Democratic challenger for 2016.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: The thing about Baltimore that hits me, Judy, is, this isn’t the classic deprivation, bigotry story, where there’s the hate-filled white segregationist power structure oppressing the black — this is an African-American city, and this is a city with a black mayor, a black state’s attorney, a black police commissioner, a black city council president.
And what we’re talking about is not the power structure politically oppressing people. We’re talking about the indifference toward poverty and toward a situation of really deprivation in this country that essentially went undebated in the election of 2012.
You remember the mantra of the election was middle class, middle class, middle class. We haven’t talked about poverty. This is the first really major city riot in the United States in the 21st century. Cincinnati in 2001 had four nights of rioting after a police officer killed an unarmed 19-year-old black male on traffic citations.
And, no, I think this is different from the others, from North Charleston. I think it’s different from Cleveland and Tamir Rice. I think it’s forcing us to really address and go through the debate of what are we going to do about this.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the accidental drone deaths of two hostages in Pakistan, questions about the Clinton Foundation and potential conflicts of interest, plus which Republican 2016 contenders are gaining traction.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, the story we started out with tonight, David, that broke yesterday about two hostages killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, all sorts of second-guessing, third-guessing about this. Does the Obama administration need to rethink or get rid of this drone strike policy?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I don’t think they should rethink it because of this.
When you have a drone policy, when you go to war, friendly-fire and accidents and tragedies are just endemic in the nature of the fog of war. In World War II, there was something called the Allerona train bombing, where American bombers accidentally killed 400 American POWs and British and South African POWs that were in Nazi control.
It was an accident. These sorts of things happen in these sorts of circumstances. And so the fact that two people were tragic — two innocents were tragically killed is what we should have expected, I think, and what we did expect. War is never perfect.
So, you know, I don’t think it should be cause for us to reevaluate. I think the fundamental issue that is worth reevaluating all the time is the equation between how we’re setting back al-Qaida or are we inciting others to join ISIS? And that’s a legitimate issue. I don’t know the answer to it. But it seems like that’s the big issue here.
The fact that a tragedy — a completely foreseeable tragedy happened that’s endemic in the nature of this sort of business happened doesn’t seem to me a cause to rethink.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Time to reevaluate, rethink?
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: I don’t think we have ever evaluated a thought about drones, quite frankly, Judy.
This is a perfect weapon for a 12-year war without any coherent explanation and without any conclusion to it. It’s a war, as James — General James Mattis, the former CENTCOM commander, pointed out recently in a speech, the only war since the American Revolution we have fought without a draft and we have fought it with tax cuts.
So, this is a great weapon because it removes the war. The war has been fought only by 1 percent of Americans, suffered only by 1 percent of Americans. And this takes all the carnage and all the killing. Is it effective, is it surgical, is it precise? By all those definitions, it’s a rather remarkable device.
But it spares us from ever seeing dead people, from ever seeing the wailing of the orphan, of the widow. And I think there’s — in a responsible democracy, there has to be debate and there has to be accountability, and there hasn’t been.
The president has accepted responsibility, as he should. But he says there’s going to be an investigation. We don’t know what it’s about. And I think there are serious questions about whether, in fact, in the — with hundreds of civilian deaths acknowledged over the use of drones, that whether in fact it has been an incredible recruitment device for ISIS and for al-Qaida.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
Well, I would say, what are their alternatives? It seems to me there are four alternatives. One, we don’t do anything, and we allow al-Qaida to have safe haven in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That seems to me hardly a great option. The second is, we have bombing campaigns with conventional bombs. That seems to me much messier.
The third is, we send in special forces. And this isn’t Hollywood. You are not going to send in six people. You’re going to send in hundreds of people. And they’re scared, and they’re doing massive assaults. It seems to me you’re going to have more casualties. Or drones. It seems to me, of these horrible options, drones is the least bad option.
MARK SHIELDS: I just — I really do think that this comes back to we have not had a debate about what we are doing there and what we ought to be doing.
If there is a commitment, a true commitment on the part of the nation, it isn’t something that’s just done like a video game. It is something that does, should involve the American people, not only in the debate, but in some sense of commitment as to what we’re about.
There has been no debate on this war. It’s just been turning it over to the President. And I think liberals have to acknowledge that, under a liberal Democratic President, that the number of drone attacks has increased dramatically. And we have become reliant upon it and we have resorted to it. It’s become the default means of United States military engagement in a very, very difficult area.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s top news, including how incumbents held their ground against the tea party in last Tuesday’s primaries, Rep. John Boehner’s threat to sue President Obama for abusing presidential powers, as well as accusations swirling around missing IRS emails.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Two weeks after the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, Republican in Virginia, went down to a stunning primary defeat, the establishment struck back Tuesday night.
From Mississippi to New York to Colorado, there were plenty of close races for incumbents, but they all survived.
The NewsHour’s political editor, Domenico Montanaro, is back with us to decipher what happened.
So, Domenico, what did happen? This was supposed to be comeback night for the Tea Party, Mississippi.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, Political Editor: Maybe, right?
I mean, we were wondering whether or not the Eric Cantor race would be an aberration or whether or not it would be the start of some kind of anti-incumbent trend. And what it certainly looked like last night is that it really was just an aberration for Cantor, because there were some other issues at play where he ignored his district.
There were plenty, like we said in the intro, of very close races, Mississippi being one of them, but Thad Cochran, the incumbent senator there, longtime senator, eked out a win by just less than 2 percentage points over his Tea Party opponent. And he did it in a very unique way.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, talk about that, because there’s a lot of discussion — and you have been looking into this today — about what happened in some of these heavily Democratic parts of the state.
DOMENICO MONTANARO:Well, if you told me three weeks ago that a Republican would wind up winning a Republican primary by appealing to Democrats and black voters, I would have said he’s done.
And I think that’s why a lot of the political community was fairly skeptical that Thad Cochran and his team, with the Haley Barbour machine really in Mississippi, being able to pull that off. And that’s exactly what they wound up doing.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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