Brooks and Capehart on some Republican lawmakers’ defiance of Trump

Now to discuss Republican defiance of President Trump, fresh scandals in a key Senate race, and much more, we turn to Brooks and Capehart.That's The Atlantic's David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNOW.Good to see you both.

Good to see you.

We saw something this week from Republicans we haven't really seen much of yet, it's fair to say.It's a willingness to break with and defy President Trump.We saw it with the $1 .8 billion anti -weaponization fund.Several lawmakers opposed it.The acting attorney general said it's not moving forward.We saw it with opposition to the billion dollars White House ballroom that was pulled from a spending package.

And we saw it with the War Powers Resolution for Iran.Four Republicans joined Democrats to pass that in the House.Jonathan, is this a trend?Is it a shift?Is it just a series of events that aren't related at all?

JONATHAN CAPEHART, The New York Times Journal -Politico.There are a series of events, but what I'm wondering is, will there be more events that allows what's being called the YOLO caucus to flex its muscles.I mean, it's amazing what happens to the spine when you lose your primary race because the president of your own party supported someone against you.And I'm thinking of Senator Cassidy.I'm thinking of Senator Cornyn, who were both defeated in the primaries.And you see Republicans, congressional Republicans, finally deciding, you know what?

I've got to push back, simply because what he's doing is wrong.But also, I want to get a little bit of revenge.

David, how are you looking at it?

Yeah, I once had a vacation in Belize, and there was an earthquake off the coast.And I'm running around saying, there's going to be a tsunami.There's going to be a tsunami.And when the tsunami came, it was two inches.So that's the kind of tsunami we're seeing among Republicans.A two -inch tsunami.

A two -inch tsunami from Republicans.Only four of them.But it's a good sign.And it's a good sign for a couple of reasons.One, people who work in the White House capital building should be not wanting to give $1 .8 billion to people who store it in the capital.Like, that seems like basic self -interest, but mostly it's them standing up for their branch of the company.

In each of these cases, the spending of the money, the War Powers Resolution, the ballroom, Congress does stand for something.And it's been dormant for most of the Trump term.And so at least there's a sign that we are a co -equal branch, and we will stand up for our rights.And that's got to be, it's not going to be left -right.It's just like, stand up for your party.your form of democracy.

To be fair, they could have done this at any point earlier, right?So is this now a shift into general election mode or into this next phase of this lame duck session of President Trump's presidency?

The magic number is 37 or whatever Trump's approval is right now.It gets a lot easier as the numbers go down and courage and integrity somehow rise.

Well, it also helps that, again, you saw some Republicans lose their primaries to Trump -backed candidates.So that strengthens the resolve.But then you have the primary calendar Pretty soon, folks worrying about what Donald Trump might do to them in their primary races goes away, and then self -preservation really kicks in.So the tsunami that you mentioned could go from two inches to maybe, who knows?But we will see.That's the point I was trying to make before.

And that's why you're seeing some of that from Republicans in swing districts in particular, right?Well, you set this up perfectly to move to the next topic when you talk about primaries.We saw several states hold their primaries this week.But I want to talk about Maine, which is gearing up for their primary next week.And there's new allegations now against a Democratic Senate candidate.That is Graham Plattner.

We saw a New York Times report that cites several women who dated him saying he was demeaning to women, he drank heavily.In the case of one woman, Lindsey Fifield, I hope I'm saying her name correctly, she claims that he was violent, says he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a room and held the door to confine her.Plattner denies any violence.He repeatedly references dark periods that he went through after his military service, and he mentioned that in an interview on MSNOW last week.

I firmly believe that if you believe in a transformational politics, you got to believe in the ability for people to transform.And my journey is one of transformation.These are things that I talk about in my past, things that I'm not proud of, but it is a past that I had to go through to get where I am today.And I'm very proud of who I am today.And I'm very proud of the movement that we've built up here in Maine.

Jonathan, this is a candidate who has now had to explain away a Nazi tattoo, sexting other women early in his marriage, and now this.He's not dropping out of the race, should he?

You know, I think there's some Democrats in the Senate in particular who would love for him to step aside.There's a story in the Washington Post today about how, you know, he'd been telling folk, Democrats, don't worry.When the Nazi tattoo thing came out, don't worry.There are no other skeletons in the closet.And yet this past week, we've seen two big skeletons come out.The fact that Governor Mills only suspended her campaign, did not drop out, and telling people at least twice now, hey, I'm still on the ballot, signaling maybe, could more things be coming?

And also signaling to Democrats, hey, if something does happen with Plattner and he has to get out, I'm still here.But the issue here is, it's not gonna be Congressional Democrats, National Democrats who are gonna tell Plattner to get out of the race.Folks in Maine, are still behind him.And some of the interviews that we have had on MSNOW, you've had Folt Maynard saying, he's not perfect, he's not this, he's not that, but we need a change.And so that's the one thing he has going for him.And again, we have to, I look at it as,

through the prism of where we are in terms of the Trump administration and the Trump world, given who Trump is, given the allegations against the president, given the way that lots of people in the Republican Party just turned a blind eye and decided, we still want to vote for this guy.And so I think there are a lot of Mainers who are thinking the same thing, that he is their guy.But the one last thing that you know, everyone in Maine has to worry about is Senator Susan Collins.I mean, Democrats really want that seat, but Senator Collins has shown over multiple campaigns that, one, she runs like she's losing, and then on election day, she outperforms the polls.

David, I should also note here, because the woman, Lindsay Fifield, we mentioned, has worked for Republican and conservative campaigns and issues in the past, some people are dismissing this as politically motivated.How are you looking at all of this?

I think he's a moral degenerate.You know, the abuse of women, the sexting, the Nazi tattoo, I don't even need to say anything beyond his Reddit posts, which are not in the past, by the way.He did that for a long time.people who might have been raped, diminishing rape in the military, insulting fellow military officers, calling himself a communist.It's a pathetic, empty guy who postures in a way that's kind of repulsive.There are 330 million Americans, and there are 100 senators.

We can't have a decent human being in those 100?We've got to settle for this?I just think the Democrats are supporting Plattner for the same reason the Trump people are supporting Trump.20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, we sort of privatized morality.We told people, we're not going to teach morality in schools.It's up to you to come up with your own values.

And the problem when you do that is that unless your name is Aristotle, you probably can't come up with your own moral philosophy.And so what happens, you get a lot of people in this countryRepublicans and Democrats, who are good people, but they're morally inarticulate.They're morally undeveloped.They haven't developed the criteria to even think about, what is my role here?What is his role?

What is excellence defined in this role?What is moral excellence as a journalist, as a teacher, as a senator?And we're going to make decisions on a two -stage basis.First, is the person we're electing to a public office a person of basic integrity?And second, Do I agree with them?But if you haven't, if you've gotten rid of the first criteria, then you have weakened your democracy.

And Republicans clearly did that with Trump.And now Democrats, really, if they side with Plattner, I don't want to hear too much about Trump in the future and his moral degeneracy.

Jonathan, to that point, I guess, it is absolutely ultimately up to the people of Maine, right?They will vote and they will decide and have their voice.world enough to remember congressional Democrats pushing Al Franken out of office, right?So have the standards changed over time, but also based on how close they are to the election process?

Yes, I think standards have changed a little bit.And, you know, David's moral indignation over Plattner is something that I share.But I'm also looking at the fact that, well, we do have Donald Trump in the White House and that, yeah, The moral degeneracy is coming right from the top.And I'm looking at this, again, through the prism of Democrats, particularly Mainers.I don't want to put all Democrats saying that they're supporting Plattner, but the folks in Maine have clearly decided, if you look at the latest polling, that They, right now, don't care about his past.They just want to win the seat.

And to David's point, there is a cost to that if he does win.If he doesn't win, it's going to be very painful for Democrats and in the end, painful for the country, for the Democrats.perspective because they're hoping that seat puts them in, helps to put them in the majority.

As you mentioned, Janet Mills is still on the ballot.So we'll wait to see how people in Maine look at this.Before I let you go, I have to ask you about something that's going to allow me to talk about vanilla ice and Flo Rida, which is something I don't always get to do on the NewsHour.But we're less than a month away from the US 250th anniversary celebrations.Last week, you saw most of the artists, including people like Martina McBride, Young MC, the Commodores, and Bret Michaels, dropped out of a related concert series on the National Mall.They said they were misled by what the event was supposed to be.

And the president has said they're making it political, right?Jonathan, we have had this conversation before around inauguration performers and the like.Can you no longer separate performing for the person or performing for the nation?I mean, how do you look at all of this?

Well, I look at it like this.I love the Commodores, right?If the nation, say, if it was America 250, which is the bipartisan outfit, came to me, I'm a member of the Commodores, comes and says, we want you to perform.You know what?Great.It's America's 250th birthday.

Let's do it.It's a nice bipartisan thing.But instead, it was Freedom 250.And that is all about the president.And so you know what?Through the confusion, I could see how the Commodores and other folks were like, wait, this is not the same thing.

No, I don't want to be a part of that, because even though we're musicians and music is universal, what this person, what his administration is doing is just not what we are about.We don't want to be associated with it.We don't want to be connected to it in any way.So I don't blame them for dropping out.What is interesting is the question is, why can't the president drop out?find performers who are willing to share the stage with him, who are willing to lend their credibility and their star power to him.

Well, this brings me back.We still have Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and I believe Lee Greenwood is now on the roster.

I am here all day for Vanilla Ice, for Ice Baby.I learned out of this whole week that Morris Day and the Times still has a career going.People who saw the Purple Rain movie saw Morris Day and the Times.He's still going strong.Morris Day, you know, he was big back in the day.Back in the day.

But it's not like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber here.We're getting low -level people, or at least grade C celebrities.They're good human beings.I don't mean to comment on their wonderful people.I guess I see it as A, the overpoliticization of everything.We can't even do a concert without politics.

But B, and on a slightly deeper level, one of the problems we're facing in America 250 is what's our national narrative?If we can't agree on that, then that's a subpolitical problem.That's real.And I think at the heart of all these America 250 fights are this.What is our national narrative?We used to have a sort of consensus about that.

We were an Exodus story.Americans left oppression, they crossed the wilderness and came to the promised land.The founders wanted to put at least some of the Moses on the great city of the United States.Every immigrant group said, yes, I'm an exodus story.Martin Luther King talked about exodus more than the New Testament almost, a slight exaggeration.But it's the idea that we are that country and people no longer believe in that narrative, a lot of people.

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart.We'll pick up again another time soon.Good to see you both.Thank you so much.Thank you.

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