Brooks and Capehart on the acceptance of violence in U.S. politics

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• Amna Nawaz:

  It's been quite a week.

  President Biden delivered an ultimatum to our longtime ally Israel. And, here at home, a number of American adults told us they are prepared to accept violence in our political system.

  To discuss all that and more, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

  Great to see you both, as always.

  I want to pick up where Geoff's interview with Senator Coons there left off.

  Jonathan, you just heard the senator saying that he is open to conditioning aid to Israel in — under those conditions as he laid them out. This is a close adviser of President Biden saying this, joining the ranks of some other lawmakers who have been saying this for a while, we should say.

  But after the killing of those seven aid workers, does this feel like a tipping point when it comes to President Biden's relationship with leaders in Israel?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes, I think it is.

  We have seen this coming. How many weeks have we sat here on a Friday night talking about how, while the relationship between the two nations is firm and solid, the relationship between the two leaders of those nations, there's daylight coming in there?

  And the president and the administration would say, don't do this, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Prime Minister Netanyahu would basically say, hold my beer.

  But the killing of those seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, founded by chef Jose Andres, who is someone that the president knows — when the president went to Ukraine, he went to a World Central Kitchen meal station during that trip, owner of restaurants where the president goes to have dinner sometimes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  He's a known quantity to the president.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right, right, right. So this is someone he knows. This is someone — so it struck him, I think, personally in ways that other mistakes maybe have not.

  But there needed to be a turning point. There needed to have something happen to get the president and the administration to be a little more — a lot more forceful and to get the attention of the prime minister, which I think the president got after that phone call yesterday.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, how do you look at this? Do you see this as a tipping point in the same way? And do you see U.S. lawmakers actually moving to condition aid?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I don't really think it's a tipping point. I think that, as Chris Coons said, it's been a gradual thing.

  I have been talking to experts on this who served in Republican administrations and Democratic administrations. And there's a rough consensus, which is that Israel has to finish the job on Hamas. It would be an absolute disaster for the region, for U.S. interests if Hamas was somehow to emerge as an intact political and military force. It would destabilize the region forever.

  And so that has to happen. At the same time, there seems to be a consensus that Israel has to do a vastly better job at protecting the aid convoys, at letting the aid in, and particularly, as Coons said, and if they're going to take — invade Rafah, which they sort of have to do, they have to get the million people out of there, and they have to provide free passage to the north.

  And we have to do everything we can to pressure Israel, and I think some sort of conditions on aid are — if Israel's not going to provide the million to leave and into safe zones in the north, then we should do what we can to pressure them to do that, because it would be against Israel's self-interest to do that, and it would certainly be against America's interest.

  I was cheered by the readout on the Biden-Netanyahu call. I had feared that Netanyahu would want to run for reelection as running against the U.S., say, I'm the guy who can protect you from the pressure from those craven Americans.

  But he did not in the call, apparently. He accepted the conditions that President Biden laid before him. He's already complied with a few of them, and he's promised to apply for more. And so this pressure may be working, which Biden wants, to pressure Netanyahu without cutting them off or putting on conditions.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, there's the issue of protecting the aid workers, as you mentioned.

  But does this also call into question just how discerning Israel has been in carrying out its strikes so far?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think there are two things to be said, contradictory.

  The first is, this is a war unlike any other. Sometimes, people compare this to our — the U.S.-Iraqi assault on Mosul and other cities. But I have never heard of another war where the enemy is in 500 miles of tunnels underground and the enemy's chief strategy is to generate as many civilian deaths as they can to get world pressure to force Israel to desist.

  So this is just a much harder deal. Having said that, I have been covering the Middle East for a little while, and one has certainly discerned a growing callousness toward Palestinian lives in the Israeli population.

  I'm not sure how split Netanyahu is from a lot of the people within Israel itself. They're — they think, why should we risk Israeli soldiers for — to protect people who want to kill us? But it has to be explained to them that this is in your own self-interest. It's just — a humanitarian disaster, aside from being a moral atrocity, is in Israel's self-interest to present — to protect.

  So I think there's both just the horrific conditions that Israel is fighting under, but also overaggressive, as we heard from the expert early in the program, and a growing callousness toward Palestinian suffering.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes, and I think the growing callousness, I think, is what's really sort of bothering me and why I think that the World Central Kitchen deaths is a turning point.

  The thing that's — the thing that bugs me is, for years, I have known, we all know Israel — Israel Defense Forces are among the most sophisticated armed forces in the world. And yet, time and time again since October 7, we have seen these very sophisticated armed forces make mistake after mistake after mistake.

  And I know mistakes happen in war. But how does a mistake like the one that happened to World Central Kitchen happen when World Central Kitchen was working in coordination with the army, letting them know where they were at all times? How do you explain that?

  And so that's why I think that — you add that to the president's relationship, that phone call with the prime minister yesterday, and the changes that have been made, the changes have to keep going, because, if he does indeed, Netanyahu, go into Rafah without a plan for what to do with the million people there, not only will he lose world opinion. I think he will lose the president and lose the United States.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Well, if I may bring this back home now, because, of course, this is resonating in the same way as it is with both of you with the American public — and we know a lot of people are very closely watching how President Biden handles this moment, especially in some key battleground states.

  All of this unfolding at a time that, at this moment in time, polls show a very tight race between President Biden and former President Trump. Our latest "PBS NewsHour"/NPR/Marist poll indicates a 50-to-48 slight lead President Biden has over former President Trump. That is within the margin of error.

  But there are a couple of quick takeaways I want to get both of your takes on, if you don't mind. In one question, we asked Americans if they felt that Americans have to resort to violence to get the country back on track. A majority, 79 percent, disagreed or strongly disagreed, but 12 percent of Democrats, 28 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of independents agreed violence might be necessary.

  Couple that with another question we asked about whether they wanted to see a president or a leader who's willing to break the rules to set things straight, and some 41 percent of Americans agreed with that. That includes 56 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Democrats, and 37 percent of independents.

  Jonathan, what kind of picture does that paint for you?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  So, the violence question, well, it should be zero percent who say that violence is necessary. But that didn't concern me as much as the break the rules, someone who is willing to break the rules to get the country back on track.

  That's all — that's the Trump election — that's the Trump campaign right there, just wants to break the rules to get the country back on track. I broke the rules coming to the studio today. People break rules all the time. I…

• Amna Nawaz:

  I was going to ask, which rules?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I went over the speed limit.

• Amna Nawaz:

  OK. All right.

  (Laughter)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I went over the speed limit.

• Amna Nawaz:

  To clarify.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  And so I think, when people hear, break the rules, they're not thinking ransack the Capitol. They're thinking what they might view as little things.

  But when you're talking about Donald Trump, breaking the rules is breaking law and order, breaking social — breaking norms, and breaking democracy. And so that's why, when you have 56 percent saying that they agree or strongly agree that…

• Amna Nawaz:

  That's 56 percent of Republicans, we should say.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Of Republicans, right…

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  … but still a big number of just the nation overall…

• Amna Nawaz:

  Yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  … that's really concerning, because that inures to the benefit of Trump.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, how do you see it?

• David Brooks:

  I just want to say I followed the speed limit on my way here today.

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  I had the exact same reaction as Jonathan. I'm not a big fan of that would you resort to violence, because I don't know what that means. I don't know what violence means in that context.

  And so people — when people answer that question, that they're really saying, how upset are you about the way things are going? But the breaking the rules thing, that is, to me, also much more upsetting, because that really is the seedbed of authoritarianism.

  And it's mostly on the right. Trump is scaring a lot of people that we have to break the rules, but it's a little on the left. You hear people say we need to bust up the system, we need to tear down the system.

  And that way lies authoritarianism. And you can see it in the Philippines, you can see it in Hungary, you can see it in Poland. Whenever you have a rise of authoritarianism, it's because people think that breaking the rules is somehow OK to make the streets safe. It's sort of like the Dirty Harry defense.

  And, to me, it's just — that's the most worrying part of our survey.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jonathan, I hate to ask you this in the last 30 seconds or so we have, but what about the impact of the third-party No Labels effort ending their attempt to try to field a presidential ticket? How does that change the landscape?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I don't think it changes the landscape.

  But good for No Labels for seeing — reading the writing on the wall and paying attention to the people who they were going to, asking them to be on the ticket, and those people doing their own due diligence and going back to No Labels and saying, no, thank you, but then going public and saying, I did my due diligence, I'm not doing this, and I don't think No Labels should either.

  Good for them.

• Amna Nawaz:

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

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Amna.