SUMMARY: President Trump has long had a complicated relationship with the news media. He tends to seek out reporters he deems friendly, while butting heads with those he accuses of treating him unfairly. As ABC News’ chief White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl has a close-up view of these dynamics, which he describes in his new book, “Front Row at the Trump Show.” Karl joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: U.S. presidents have long tried, and failed, to resolve the decades-old [40 yrs] Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In June, President Trump’s team unveiled the first part of its peace plan, an economic proposal. The plan’s all-important political component is yet to come. Judy Woodruff speaks with Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump real estate lawyer helping lead the U.S. effort, about what’s at stake.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks analyze the week in politics, including recent developments in the special counsel’s investigations, party dynamics after the midterm elections and the “impressive” strength shown by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) in her quest to become House Speaker.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): It has been a momentous week in the Mueller investigation.
To help us better understand the broader implications, 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.
So, as we just heard in Lisa's conversation, we have been watching the story all week, Mark, a lot of the information out there, a lot of it from Mr. Mueller himself, a lot more reported in the media, not confirmed yet.
What does it all add up to right now, to you?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: I think it adds up to gravity. I think it adds up to anxiety. I think it adds up to nervousness on the part of the administration, and particularly the White House.
I think, Judy, what we saw is that the President's personal attorney testifying in court, with Mr.Mueller's own ratification of his testimony, that all the way through the nominating process in 2016, right up to the eve of the convention, by the time Donald Trump had sewed up the nomination, that they were actively — he, Mr.Cohen and others were actively seeking to establish a signature property in Moscow, an ambition, as we just heard in the previous segment, of Donald Trump for more than 30 years, and in spite of Donald Trump's denials to this effect, that he said there was no such thing going on.
And I think is — I think it becomes serious that he lied to the American people throughout the campaign of 2016, now becomes, I think, a matter of at least public debate, if not presumption.
Judy Woodruff: But, David, the President is saying, but no deal developed, there was no hotel built. So is there really anything here to see?
David Brooks, New York Times: There's got to be something.
One of the things that strikes me about this investigation is that it's like a million pieces out there. There's like the Julian Assange piece, the Moscow deal piece, the tax piece, the Roger Stone, whatever he was doing, piece, paying off strippers. There's just a million pieces in this investigation. And we don't which will open on any given day.
And so that tells me that this is going to occupy the Trump presidency for a long time and probably dominate the Trump presidency for the next little while.
The second thing I think what we're learning from the Cohen — what we have learned from Michael Cohen is that Trump was probably more involved in a lot of these things than we knew before, that it wasn't just some minions off somewhere. Trump seems to have been involved in these calls and things like that.
The thing that — the crucial thing that I don't know is, when he's accused of something, he just shifts the goalposts, which is to say, he re-norms.
Mark Shields: Yes.
David Brooks: So, you say, oh, you were lying during the campaign? And he said, yes, yes, I was doing that. Fine.
You might have been compromised in Moscow to get a business deal. Yes, well, you know, that's business. That's what I was doing.
So every time he does something that any past administration would have thought, this is shocking and appalling, I'm ashamed of myself, he's completely unashamed of himself.
And so the question to me becomes — Richard Nixon was forced to reside, sort of over obstruction of justice . Suppose there's an obstruction of justice case here. Have our norms so changed that is no longer a political death sentence? And that may have happened.
(CROSSTALK)
Mark Shields: Yes, I think David raises a good point.
I think our — I hope and believe our norms have been changed. There's no question that Donald Trump is a mutant. I mean, he has no embarrassment gene. There's no way in the world…
Judy Woodruff: Did you say mutant?
Mark Shields: A mutant. He really is.
I mean, he's aberrational. I mean, he's not embarrassed. I mean, Richard Nixon, on tape, said, we could do this, but it was wrong, it would be wrong, and we know what's wrong.
That doesn't — that's not a construction, a sentence that would pass Donald Trump's lips. I mean, that is — it isn't the question. It's transactional? Is it to my advantage? Is it to my disadvantage? That's — that's how he sees — that is his morality. Does it enhance him? Does it in any way diminish him, which, of course, is the original and most grievous of all sins?
So I do think that our norms, I hope, have not been hopelessly impaired or damaged. And don't forget that it was, in fact, the — David is right — obstruction of justice in both the cases of Bill Clinton's impeachment, attempting to influence witnesses and how they testify, and Richard Nixon's.
So, I mean, these are serious offenses. And there are precedents for pursuing that.
David Brooks: But it seems to me this is the hardest thing for the Mueller team, is that there's a lot of prosecutorial discretion involved in these things.
At what point do we go out and say, this is enough to really challenge the President in some fundamental, existential way? And do — at what point do they think we have enough to really go out in this aggressive way? And what point do they think, no, this will just turn into a political circus?
And so the political — the norms of the culture are going to affect how Mueller is going to make that decision.
Judy Woodruff: So you really — you believe the President is changing, may be changing the norm, the cultural moral norms of this country?
David Brooks: He's being doing it since he walked on the stage.
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks: I mean, that first Republican debate, he was talking about things no President ever talked about, insulting other people's looks.
And so it's just been a continual process of that. And, at some point, the norm runs into law. But, again, the law has this area of discretion that Mueller is going to have to make that case.
The thing — the thing that's hanging out there is, there's just so much. And then Mueller has — I mean, it's not really even about collusion with the Russians anymore. There's just so much out there that this person has been involved in for the past 20 years. And we just don't know what's going to spring up tomorrow.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the guilty plea from Paul Manafort and deal to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, President Trump’s contentious remarks about Hurricane Maria, and slipping polls for the President ahead of the general election for control of the House and the Senate.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): As the Carolinas grapple with Florence's destructive forces, President Trump sparked a new political storm after questioning the number of Americans killed in the aftermath of Puerto Rico's storm last year.
And the general election for control of the House and Senate has officially begun, a perfect moment for the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Hello to both of you.
Mark, I'm going to start with the Paul Manafort plea. He had said for months that he wasn't going to do this, but now he has. He's pled guilty. And he's cooperating with Robert Mueller. We — it's clear there's so much we don't know, but what does this mean for the President, potentially?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: It means bad news.
He is the — Paul Manafort is the person closest to the President, who was in the campaign, who was involved in a meeting at Trump Tower with the Russians, who was involved intimately in the convention preparations, to changing the platform of the — in a position on Ukraine.
So there's a lot. Plus, he was the conduit, to the degree there was one, in the Trump campaign to the traditional Republican Party. So, Paul Manafort is potentially a real problem.
Judy Woodruff: David?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, I agree.
It's striking to me how late in the process it is that this plea deal came. Maybe Manafort was holding out. But the fact that Mueller decided to accept and cut the plea suggests there's something there, either about Trump, about a member of Trump's family, about somebody else.
It suggests that Mueller is proceeding slowly, and — but very remorselessly. And so it might not even be about Russia. It's been interesting. A lot of the indictments that have so far come down have not been about Russia. They have been other things. And there could be some other — some other law-breaking, potential law-breaking somewhere in Trump's past.
Judy Woodruff: Yes, we will certainly watch and wait.
In the meantime, as I mentioned, Mark, this is the week in which we're waiting for this hurricane to hit the East, Southern, Southeastern coast of the U.S. President Trump a surprise everyone with a tweet the other morning questioning the number of people who died in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria that hit Puerto Rico.
The outside experts, completely nonpolitical, had come to the conclusion, several of them, that it was around 3,000. The President said that's not so.
It's not just Democrats, but Republicans in the state of Florida and elsewhere, who have come back and said the President's wrong.
What has he stepped into here?
Mark Shields: He stepped into, Judy, and exposed himself as somebody whose ego is so out of check, whose narcissistic impulses are so total, that he could equate a personal tragedy of enormous dimensions, of some 3,000, now some estimates are as high as 4,000-plus, deaths in Puerto Rico to being a political conspiracy against him by the part of his political enemies.
As far as Republicans in Florida, Rick Scott, the governor, not surprisingly, spoke, said, it's not true. He has been to Puerto Rico himself seven times. He's made a big effort politically and governmentally to welcome the Puerto Ricans, the diaspora who've been moved to Florida as a result of that storm, who immediately become voters in that state.
But probably most telling was Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee for governor, the Mini-Me of this campaign, the Donald Trump clone, self-styled, self-admitted, saying that he didn't agree with the President on this, which is — I don't know what it's comfortable to. Breaking with the king?
And so it's — I would say that Trump has really, in this case, isolated himself and exposed himself.
Judy Woodruff: Any positive calculus for the President here, David?
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks: No, hard to think of that one.
It almost makes you nostalgic to remember when he was bragging about his crowd size at the inaugural. That at least — it was a lie, but at least it was a harmless lie.
Mark Shields: That's right.
David Brooks: This is a lie where you render nearly 3,000 Americans invisible, that you don't acknowledge their existence, and you don't even see them.
And so it's essentially telling the families of the people who died and those who died and anybody who cares about their fellow citizens that you can write them out of the history books, because their deaths make Donald Trump look bad.
Mark Shields: Just one…
David Brooks: And so it's almost pathological.
Mark Shields: Go ahead. Pardon me.
I agree.
Just one other thing, Judy. The politics of disasters, natural disasters in this country, are very real. To go back to Superstorm Sandy and even the 2012 election, when Barack Obama, the President, went to New Jersey, and Republican Governor Chris Christie, who was a big supporter of Romney's, thanked him publicly for the concern and the compassion that he and his administration had showed the people of New Jersey suffering.
And on the other side, it was George W. Bush's decline as a President in popular support really was accelerated by Hurricane Katrina, his apparent indifference, his endorsement of Michael Brown, "Heck of a job, Brownie," as FEMA just absolutely failed.
And I would just say this about political — about natural disasters. There's no politics involved among people, whether it's red states or blue states, liberals or conservatives. They look to the federal government, regardless of philosophy, for help, for effective, efficient, responsive help.
And Donald Trump, when he went to Texas after the great storm last year, the first thing he said was, what a crowd. What a turnout, again making it about Donald Trump.
SUMMARY: The pace of diplomacy with North Korea picked up over the weekend in an effort to revive the summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. What goes into the preparation for such a moment and can the meeting be resurrected in time? Nick Schifrin talks with Patrick McEachern of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
SUMMARY: America's top diplomat and North Korea's top envoy began Thursday with a historic handshake. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said their talks were positive but sometimes difficult and that their teams made quick headway in setting the right conditions for a summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. Nick Schifrin and Yamiche Alcindor talk with Judy Woodruff.
SUMMARY: A sitting U.S. President and senior North Korean envoy in the Oval Office? That's a scene that hasn't happened in almost 20 years. President Trump relaunched the summit he canceled only a week ago, signaling a shift in the administration's willingness to make denuclearization a staged process. Nick Schifrin reports.
SUMMARY: It was a show of French military might that left a lasting impression on President Trump. Inspired by a Bastille Day parade, Trump recently gave the Pentagon marching orders to organize one in Washington, and it has begun working on the details. Aside from the cost and pragmatic challenges, such a display could draw comparisons to regimes like North Korea. Yamiche Alcindor reports.
SUMMARY: Unemployment is down, the GDP is growing at over 3 percent, the stock market hits record highs nearly every day and President Trump says it's a function of his policies. Does he deserve the credit? Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
SUMMARY: Iran saw a fifth day of anti-government protests on Monday with at least 12 fatalities reported. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for calm amid the regime’s most serious challenge to its rule since the 2009 mass demonstrations. William Brangham learns more from The New York Times’ Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran.
SUMMARY: Iranians continued to demonstrate against the clerical leadership on Monday amid economic hardships. Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes the factors behind the unrest and how the protests differ from previous ones.
SUMMARY: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke publicly Tuesday, the first time since protests broke out last week, blaming “enemies of Iran” for the unrest. Rageh Omaar of ITV News reports.
SUMMARY: President Donald Trump tweeted that the ‘U.S. is watching’ Iran’s continuing protests. Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University, analyzes how the Iranian government is responding to the unrest.
Abbas Milani, Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University: I think it is characteristics of Mr. Khamenei. He has a paranoid view of the world. He doesn’t believe that he has made any mistakes. He has yet to accept any mistakes for any of the major policy decisions that he is directly responsible for.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week's news, including the fracas over President Trump's condolence call to a Gold Star widow, two former Presidents and Sen. John McCain express critiques of politics in the Trump era, the president's reversal on a bipartisan plan to shore up health insurance markets and more.
Hari Sreenivasan: (NewsHour) It was another news-packed week in Washington, as President Trump dealt with outcry over his comments to a Gold Star family and the public statements of his presidential predecessors.
It's time for the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Mark, let's start with this controversy that sprung from really a tragedy of four soldiers in Niger. And then we have the President, the chief of staff, a widow, and a congresswoman all involved in this.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Well, first, the reason we have it is the President.
Whenever he's on the defensive or can't ask — answer a question, his default position is to attack and criticize. In this case, he criticized his predecessors for the fact that, 12 days, there had been no communication, no statement from the White House on the four fallen Americans in Niger, or what their mission was, how it happened.
And he so tried to absolve himself by attacking, unfairly and inaccurately, President Obama and President Bush.
And it became so bad, the political bleeding, that they felt it necessary to bring out General John Kelly, the chief of staff of the President. General Kelly is a four-star Marine general who served himself, whose son Robert was killed in combat in Afghanistan, Marine lieutenant, and about whom he asks people not to talk, not to speak.
When he's introduced, he prefers that not be mentioned. And it became — his chief of staff obligations obviously superseded. And he stepped in to stop the bleeding for Donald Trump. He spoke eloquently. He smoke movingly. He spoke from personal experience and conviction.
And then he went too far. He went on an ad hominem, or ad feminam, attack upon Congresswoman Wilson of Florida, which was inaccurate. He said that these are private communications.
Probably the third most quoted writing of Abraham Lincoln is his letter to Mrs. Bixby, the mother of five sons who were killed in the Civil War.
So, you know, he defended. He was on the high ground. He's got a marvelous record. But now he's in the mix. He's now a chief of staff, and he's mixing it up.
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes, I'm reminded. What did Karl Marx write, that all historical events happen twice. First is tragedy, and next is farce.
And so we had the four soldiers killed. That was the tragedy. And then Trump made the call. And one imagines he made the call and repeated, in clumsy form, what John Kelly said, that the soldier died doing what he loved to do with his best — and with the best among them, that he chose to be among the 1 percent, the best among us.
And Donald Trump is not Oprah. He doesn't speak empathy particularly well. And I'm sure it was clumsy. And so that happened.
And then it's off to the circus. And so we then get a political charge against Trump. And then Trump lies and says something about Obama, and then it's just back and forth.
And these are like the typical pseudo-events of the Trump era, where it's really about nothing, except we want to have a fight with each other. And so they're going to have a fight over something, and nobody, to my mind, comes out looking particularly well.
Hari Sreenivasan: Senator McCain earlier this week, when receiving an award at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he — I want to get his quote right — he spoke out about — quote — “half-baked, spurious nationalism.”
But what was interesting was, later in the week, just yesterday, we had both Presidents before Trump, Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, in separate speeches come out and make statements. They didn't call Trump out by name.
But let's take a listen to what they said.
Former President Barack Obama: Instead of our politics reflecting our values, we have got politics infecting our communities.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Former President Barack Obama: Instead of looking for ways to work together and get things done in a practical way, we have got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonize people who have different ideas.
Former President George W. Bush: Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication. We have seen nationalism distorted into nativism. We have forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America.
Hari Sreenivasan: Mark?
Mark Shields: Yes, there's no question whom they're talking about.
They don't have to say Donald Trump's name in all three cases. And John McCain — George W. Bush had been quite circumspect, quite silent during the eight years of Barack Obama, even, if we recall, during the debate in South Carolina in 2016 when he accused George W. Bush of knowing that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and yet sending Americans into combat and some to death.
But McCain, I think, speaks from a position that is unassailable. I mean, this is a man that Trump said he is not a hero. He was — he spent five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war being tortured every day. And he said — and the rest of his life has been devoted to public service. He hasn't closed any big real estate deals, so he doesn't qualify.
But I thought — I think the challenge has been laid down. I mean, Jeff Flake has picked it up. Bob Corker has picked it up. To some degree, Ben Sasse has. But what are the other Republicans going to do? Are they just going to remain silent?
David Brooks: Yes.
And Steve Bannon has a theory about world history, and among them, that the post-world — post-World War II international order was a mistake and we should get rid of it. And Donald Trump sort of has that theory.
And no one has made the case for what was a bipartisan consensus in favor of that order, and in favor of a certain story of America, that we're a country of immigrants, that we're a country of the future, that we're not a country and blood and soil.
And so Bannon and Trump have had the intellectual field to themselves, at least as far as elected officials have gone. And it's true that neither Obama, Bush, or probably McCain are ever going to run for office again, but at least they're making the case.
At least the counterargument is beginning to be made. And I think what's occurring to a lot of people is that, first, we're in a 50-year debate about what the 21st century — well, maybe an 83-year debate — about what the 21st century is going to look like, and it's probably going to debate between some form of populism, and some form of openness and diversity.
And so it's occurring to people that they have to get involved in that debate.
And second, I think, as Steve Bannon has gone to pick off other Republicans, it's become clear to a lot of people in the Republican Party, there's no escaping this debate, that you can't hide and hope you will get ignored and that Bannon will pass you over.
Mark Shields: Even in Wyoming.
David Brooks: Even in Wyoming.
They're coming after you.
Mark Shields: Yes.
David Brooks: And so you might as well take a side. And so I think we're finally beginning to see some two-sided debate out of this.
SUMMARY: President Trump's expansive and divisive campaign-style speech in Phoenix drew cheers from his supporters but did nothing to reach more skeptical Americans. Judy Woodruff sits down with Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union and Karine Jean-Pierre of MoveOn.org, to discuss how his remarks on Charlottesville, the news media and fellow Republicans affect his own agenda.
SUMMARY: President Trump began his second overseas trip in Poland by doing something he was criticized for not doing on his first, [this time] offering America's full commitment to the NATO alliance. The President also declared that the West would triumph over its many adversaries, offering his sharpest condemnation yet of Russia. Special correspondent Ryan Chilcote joins Judy Woodruff from Hamburg for more.
SUMMARY: As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump downplayed the importance of NATO and the role of the European Union, while promoting improved U.S.-Russia ties. On Thursday, President Trump tried to reassure European allies that his administration is in sync with them. Judy Woodruff talks to Karen Donfried and Paula Dobriansky, two former state department officials, about Trump on the world stage.
