Brooks and Capehart on immigration action, third-party candidates

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• Amna Nawaz:

  For more on immigration, how it could affect the race for the White House and other political issues shaping the week, we turn to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

  Good, as always, to see you both. Happy Friday.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Good to see you, Amna.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Well, let's begin with the conversation I just had with Secretary Mayorkas and this issue of immigration. It's top on voters' mind. We know Republicans want to continue to make it an election issue.

  Jonathan, President Biden could take executive action. There are options available to him to issue harsh restrictions, potentially be challenged in the courts over them. But, as you heard Secretary Mayorkas say, they won't do that. They want Congress to act.

  Should President Biden take that action and take the issue off the table?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  But it depends on whether you want the president to engage in theater or you want the president to actually do something that can help solve the problem.

  Theater would be signing executive action, knowing full well that it will — lots of people are going to sue. It will get enjoined, probably by the same federal judge who enjoined the Trump administration. And then the problem is where it's always been.

  Or Congress could do the work it's already done. There is a Senate bill, Senate bill ready to go, negotiated — a bipartisan bill negotiated by — I think the secretary was at the table. Senator Lankford of Oklahoma was the lead negotiator. Democrats were at the table.

  There's a bill there, but nothing's happened. Nothing's happened because Donald Trump said, don't do it, even though the bill has everything in it that Republicans have been demanding for years. Key among those things, though, from the secretary's point of view, I would think, is the money, the money that would be made available to Homeland Security to hire the personnel and the staff needed to deal with asylum cases, to deal with the crossings over the border.

  If Republicans, if the American people really want something done at the border, they would demand that Congress pass the Senate bill.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, do you see Congress taking any action on this? Or do you think President Biden should, as Jonathan said, just take the theatrical step there and sign an executive order to say he's doing what he can?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think he should sign the executive orders. There are certain things I think he could do, remain-in-Mexico, maybe more security. The money's certainly a problem, but he's taken executive action all sorts of issues like student debt relief.

  And so I think this would be a good — just politically, a very good thing to take some action. Jonathan's colleague David Ignatius had a very good column about a month ago about Mayorkas. And he made the point that, in the early days of the Biden administration, Biden wanted to be anti-Trump on the immigration issue. Everything Trump was for, he was going to be against.

  So there was a moratorium on deportments — deportations. There was all sorts of other measures. They was going to — get away the remain-in-Mexico, so where they had the hearings in Mexico and not in the U.S. And so they really went sort of in a leftward direction.

  Mayorkas was trying to fight this the whole time, and now the administration's is pinioned, and he's left hanging out by the Republicans. So, ideally, I agree with Jonathan, that Congress would do — pass that bill that gave Republicans like 60 or 70 percent of what they wanted.

  But, in absence of that, since Donald Trump's against it, it's not going to happen, I just think it's imperative politically for Joe Biden to do something and see what happens in the courts.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, while I have you two, I just need to ask about House Republicans' effort to try to impeach Secretary Mayorkas, which seems stalled now. They haven't moved anywhere on it in nearly a month.

  Was it a mistake, and should they take a political loss on this?

• David Brooks:

  Well, I think they should. It was meritless. Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman who voted against impeachment, made the point, we don't impeach people over policy disagreements.

  And they had differences of opinion, and Mayorkas made some statements that they thought — some Republicans thought were untrue, but these are not impeachable offenses. They really have no case at all. And so I just think it should go away.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jonathan, let's move on now to something Nick Schifrin was reporting earlier, which was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issuing a very sharp critique of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday on the Senate floor, basically calling for a new Israeli government and saying in part this:

• Sen. Chuck Schumer(D-NY):

  I believe, in his heart, he has his highest priority is the security of Israel. However, I also believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take the precedence over the best interests of Israel.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jonathan, you interviewed the president last week. You asked him about his red lines. Has a red line with Netanyahu now been crossed?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I think so.

  If you take Majority Leader Schumer's incredible speech, put that on top of what the president told me last week, which was, yes, if Netanyahu crosses over into Rafah, that would be a red line for him, and that on top of the now very vocal opposition to Netanyahu that's been coming from the administration's, from the secretary of state and other senior officials in the administration.

  We are seeing a widening break, not between the United States and Israel, but between the United States and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who the Biden administration from the president on down view as an obstacle not just to peace, but to some sort of resolution to what's happening in the Israel-Hamas war, but especially a resolution to the humanitarian crisis that's happening in Gaza.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, how big a shift is this in the U.S. approach?

• David Brooks:

  For Chuck Schumer, it's pretty big. He's been very pro-Israel. And so I do think it's a big shift.

  I agree with everything he said about Bibi Netanyahu. I still think he shouldn't have said it. He shouldn't certainly have said it that way. A, it's just not becoming to try to interfere in another democracy's electoral process, especially if you're a major figure in the American election.

  Second, I worry about how it's being received by Hamas. So Hamas' strategy is to get as many Palestinians killed as possible and hoping that the ensuing outrage is going to cause the international community to crack down on Israel and Israel will have to relent.

  And they see Chuck Schumer doing that, and they think, which they already think, which is they're winning. And, frankly, when they see what President Biden told to Jonathan about the red line, it was a little fuzzy the way he said it. Was he against a Rafah invasion, or only if the Israelis don't really improve their humanitarian record?

  But if he's against the — Rafah — any kind of incursion into Rafah, as Benny Gantz, the defense secretary of Israel, said, when you're fighting a fire, you can't only fight 80 percent of the fire. And the hostages and a significant chunk of Hamas forces are in Rafah. And if you let them win, if you let them stay there, there will never be a two-state solution, because there will never be a two-state solution as long as Hamas is in power.

  And so I mostly worry about the dynamic on the spiritual battlefield, where Hamas suddenly feels emboldened.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  The only thing, though, here is, if Netanyahu goes into Rafah, my question is, where do all the Palestinians go?

  These are the same — a lot of them, the same Palestinians who were in the north who were told to go south because of the bombings and everything that was happening in the north. And the bombings have followed them. So, if you invade Rafah, where do they go?

  And I have not heard a response to that question.

• Amna Nawaz:

  This is the question that remains.

  I do want to move on and get both of you to weigh in on many of the events we saw that have to do with the race for the White House and the big election ahead. It's not terribly surprising, but it was a big moment. Both President Biden and former President Trump have now officially clinched the nominations, reached the delegate count they needed.

  You saw Laura reported earlier on the efforts to mount a third-party candidate and how it could dramatically alter the landscape.

  Jonathan, I want to ask you about that, because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Continues to poll in double digits, 15 to 20 percent. He's now on the ballot in some 15 states. Are Democrats worried that he could siphon enough Biden votes to make a difference?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I mean, third-party candidacies just — they tire me.

  Now, the fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is getting that much support and is on the ballot in that many states would concern me. But I wonder, is he going to take from President Biden or is he going to take from Donald Trump, especially if he puts on Aaron Rodgers? And if he does that — look, if a third-party candidate…

• Amna Nawaz:

  To clarify for voters to catch them up, by the way — or for viewers…

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  … Aaron Rodgers has been reported as a potential vice presidential pick.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right. And so if you are serious about running a third-party candidacy, you should be serious about the people you are thinking of having as your vice president. Aaron Rodgers should not be taken seriously.

  It just feels like a jumping-the-shark moment, as opposed to a serious effort to try to win the presidency. So, look, I have every confidence that the Biden campaign can handle a third-party challenge in any of the states in '24. I just think, if he does actually make a ticket, they're going to fizzle out.

  I just feel it in my bones.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, what do you make of this? Because let's remind folks, both candidates here have frustrations among their voting bases. Both have their weaknesses.

  As Laura reported, someone like RFK Jr. could siphon votes from both, but how do you look at it?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think the No Labels thing will fizzle out because they won't have a high-profile person.

  I don't think Robert Kennedy is going to fizzle out. We have got a country where a tiny percentage of people think we're headed in the right direction, and where the two candidates are unprecedentedly unpopular. And so I do think Kennedy is going to linger around there, I don't know, 8, 9, 10 percentage points in some of these states.

  And all I observe is that the Democrats right now are more alarmed than the Republicans, and the Democrats are going to a lot more degrees to try to keep him off the ballots and sort of trying to keep him off.

  I, too, am confused about who he will end up hurting. Right now, he seems to hurt Biden more, but that's because what people know about Robert Kennedy is the word Kennedy. As his views get out more, they might know, oh, he was against the vaccine, and that — suddenly, a lot of Trump voters might go on to his side. So it's really a mystery who he will help and hurt.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, always good to see you both. Thank you so much.