Brooks and Capehart on Trump's familiar message and the pressure on Biden to end his bid

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Amna Nawaz to discuss the week in politics, including former President Trump formally accepting the Republican nomination after his assassination attempt and President Biden vowing to stay in the race amid pressure from Democrats.

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Amna Nawaz: It was a major week in American politics, with former President Donald Trump formally accepting the Republican nomination after his assassination attempt, and with President Biden vowing to stay in the race for the White House.

We will discuss it all now with the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Great to see you both. I feel like I haven’t seen you for a long time.

Jonathan Capehart: Hours.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz: Listen, we were both — we were all together every night of the Republican National Convention. You were there as, night after night, Jonathan, people would say, Mr. Trump has been changed, he’s a more contemplative man now after that attempt on his life, that he’s going to deliver a unity message.

That turned out not to be true when we heard his speech. What did you take away from his remarks in the end?

Jonathan Capehart: Well, what we heard last night in Milwaukee was his stump speech.

Now, most people probably didn’t realize that was his stump speech, because the convention is the one time when maybe more people than usual are watching. This was an opportunity for Donald Trump to re-present himself to the nation, certainly after the attempted assassination — the assassination attempt.

But what we saw in the first 30 minutes was sort of new, sort of measured Donald Trump. But at the 30-minute mark, just about, in came “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” and it went downhill from there. And so it was grievance. It was anger. There was a lot of attention paid to illegal immigration and what he wanted to do about that.

And I just think it was a missed opportunity on the point — on the part of the former president, because he’s been basically silent for the last three weeks because of the implosion happening on the Democratic side. And yet he took that — took that chance yesterday and just showed the country what his party, what his faithful have been seeing for months now.

Amna Nawaz: David, did we get a sense, did you get a sense of what a second Trump administration would look like from those remarks? And, to Jonathan’s point, was that a missed opportunity?

David Brooks: Yes, I mean, first I should say, I think it was an extremely successful convention. I thought the spirit was unlike any other convention I have been to. People were joyful. People were unified. There were a lot of good spirits, speakers, a lot of good, memorable moments.

There was only one bad speaker, and the problem for the Republicans, it was from the nominee. And so I agree with Jonathan that it was — it started out well and then it just deteriorated.

And what it said to me, the guy had only one job. There were remarks on a teleprompter. All he had to do was read the remarks, and he would be cruising today. But he is incapable of self-control, incapable of non-self-indulgence, incapable of non-narcissism.

And so what I took away from the speech was any hope that some people might have had that a second Trump term would look different than the first Trump term because the guy is suddenly organized and disciplined, that hope has to go out the window. I mean, the second Trump term looks to be as shambolic and as chaotic as the first Trump term was, if it happens, because the guy’s incapable of self-control.

Amna Nawaz: And, David, I actually went back and I read the transcript from his 2016 acceptance speech, and there was a lot of the same language.

I mean, there was railing against Hillary Clinton back then, talking about the failed policies of Obama, a lot of similar themes on the forgotten working class and crime rates and so on. The thing that struck me about — that was different this year was particularly on illegal immigration.

There was much more dangerous, kind of vicious language, targeting really Black and brown immigrants, talking about them carrying disease and attacking women and stealing jobs. Did that stick out to you at all?

David Brooks: Yes, I did.

It’s paradoxical. And I can’t remember another ticket where both candidates are married to an immigrant or children of immigrants. But I think what’s happened is that global populism has done two things. One, it’s fed on each other. The Orban, the Giorgia Melonis, the Marine Le Pens, and the Donald Trump’s have fed on each this anti-immigrant theme as the thing that unites them globally.

And so it’s gotten uglier and darker. And Trump’s grievance has gotten more menacing. At the same time, MAGA is a much more intellectually serious movement than it was. It has an agenda. It has a group of intellectuals. It has a group of magazines, all of which is personified by J.D. Vance.

And the fact that the Teamsters, where — the president was represented there, was a sign that something much bigger here is happening, that Trump’s grievance and the ugliness is true. But the idea that there is an intellectual movement here on defense of the working class, that is also true.

And so I think both those realities, one kind of impressive, the way they have intellectually come together around that agenda, and the other kind of alarming, that the level of prejudice seems only to increase.

Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, you referenced the implosion within the Democratic Party right now. Tell me about how what we saw happen inside the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is impacting what’s happening on the Democratic ticket right now.

Jonathan Capehart: Well, it doesn’t seem like it’s impacting it at all.

But I just want to push back on one thing that David said. There was more than one bad speaker. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Eric Trump, Speaker Johnson, these were people who were also feeding red meat to the Trump faithful in the hall.

Now, you would think that the Democrats would be focused on not just Donald Trump’s speech, but all the other speeches that were happening in the lead-up to Senator Vance’s speech and Donald Trump’s speech.

But, instead, Democrats have been spending all their time trying to push out the sitting president of their own party from running as the nominee of their party. And you have the president, having contracted COVID, in isolation in Rehoboth, having all of these people bringing more pressure to bear on him to get out of the race just as we’re on the air.

I don’t know if you have reported yet. Senator Sherrod Brown just said that the president…

Amna Nawaz: Happened just minutes ago. That’s right.

Jonathan Capehart: … should give up his reelection bid.

Amna Nawaz: What does that say to you that Sherrod Brown, someone who has known Joe Biden for as long as he has…

Jonathan Capehart: Right.

Amna Nawaz: … in a critical state of Ohio, that he’s come forward to do this?

Jonathan Capehart: This tells me that the pressure is going to continue to mount, that it could be that the president will have no choice but to give up his reelection campaign.

But the big concern I have is, great, you guys succeed in getting President — President Biden to give up his presidential bid, but you don’t say who should be the top of the ticket. And I will say it again. If Vice President Kamala Harris is not the top of the ticket, Democrats are guaranteed to lose.

Amna Nawaz: David, there is a Democratic Convention in just a month’s time. I say just, but feels like a very long time away right now.

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz: How long do you think that this kind of turmoil and conversation and uncertainty can go on?

David Brooks: Three or four days. If they haven’t decided this by Monday or Tuesday, I think that the Democratic Party is in real trouble. They just can’t make him look — they’re undermining, undermining, undermining.

Either Joe Biden has to say, I’m staying, no matter what you say, I’m staying, and this is over, or else the favor — fortune favors the bold. Some group of Democrats…

Amna Nawaz: But, David, in his defense, President Biden has been saying that, right? He continues to say, I am in it. I’m in it to win it.

David Brooks: True. But at the same time, there are stories coming out that he’s shifting his thinking and things like that. So that’s raised the sense that it’s inevitable that he’s going to go.

And so, if he’s going to go, he has to go. But it has to be in the next few days, or else he’s fatally weakened by being constantly drip, drip, drip of undermine.

On what happens next, I think the Democrats would be in big trouble if Kamala Harris was not on the ticket. On the other hand, nothing comes free in politics. The problem with the Democratic process so far is that it’s been a low-information process.

Joe Biden got this far because he wasn’t tested in the primaries. And the idea you’re going to have another nominee who’s not tested should be a little alarming to Democrats. So the idea of a mini-primary, with press conferences or debates, that is not entirely unappealing to me, that Kamala Harris may well get the nomination, but she should have to earn it.

She should have to show the party in the country that she’s really capable of doing this campaign.

Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, what do you make of that?

Jonathan Capehart: Not tested? Has to earn it? She’s the sitting vice president of the United States, who has endured a whole lot of scrutiny in that role, lots of brickbats from within the party, from the other party, from the press.

Earn it. She was vice president during COVID, during a 50/50 split in the Senate. So she was basically chained to that president’s chair in the Senate chamber, not being able to leave Washington for more than two-and-a-half-hours, so she could get back and cast tie-breaking votes, the most tie-breaking votes cast by any vice president.

Anyone who says — well, I don’t mean to pick on you, David, but anyone who says she has to earn it hasn’t been paying attention to what she’s done. And the…

David Brooks: I don’t agree with that.

I don’t mean to say that she’s not worthy of it.

Amna Nawaz: Go ahead, David.

David Brooks: But Joe Biden was president, and he just wasn’t out there campaigning.

And the process of campaigning, even though — if it’s done over three weeks, is better than no process. And so that would be my only point.

Amna Nawaz: Jonathan, I will give you the last word here. We have 45 seconds.

(Laughter)

Jonathan Capehart: David, have you seen Democrats?

(Laughter)

Jonathan Capehart: I mean, my big fear with Democrats is that if they — if you do have this commonsense proposal of an open primary, Democrats will make it a shambolic process, and, in the end, whoever gets the top spot on the ticket, even if it’s the sitting vice president, could be as hobbled as the president they have potentially driven off the top of the ticket.

Amna Nawaz: I will just say the fact that we are even having conversations about an open convention or a mini-primary or whatever it is speaks to these unprecedented times.

I’m so grateful we have both of you, Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, to help us understand it all. Thank you.

Jonathan Capehart: Thanks, Amna.