Brooks and Capehart on the immigration policies of Biden and Trump

Read the Full Transcript

• Geoff Bennett:

  Only a few days remain before Super Tuesday, which is shaping up to be a major turning point in the race for the White House.

  On that and some of the key issues in the presidential race, we turn to the analysis tonight 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.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Hey, Geoff.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So both President Biden and former President Donald Trump visited the southern border yesterday, as the 2024 presidential campaign ramps up over this issue that has really confounded administrations of both parties. That's immigration.

  Jonathan, how are Democrats aiming to boost their standing among voters, who increasingly say that immigration is their top issue in this election?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  By pointing out the fact that the president, the sitting president of the United States, in conjunction with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, along with one of the most conservative members of the Senate — oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm spacing on this — Lankford.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Lankford of Oklahoma, yes.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Senator Lankford from Oklahoma — that they sat down and hammered out a deal after the president went before the nation and said, everything is on the table. I'm willing to negotiate.

  They negotiated. They came up with a bill that bits and pieces of it were leaking out that was so bad, from the president's base perspective, that they were raising hell about, if this becomes law, this is going to set immigration policy back for a long time. But the president thought, we need to do something.

  They come up with the bill. And what happened? Donald Trump made a phone call, or put out some social media post and said, don't do it. Republicans refused to take yes for an answer and gave the president, gave President Biden the perfect thing to go before the nation and say, I'm trying. I was part of this deal. They — I gave them basically everything they wanted, and they still said no. Those people are not serious.

  And I think, if he hammers that message time and time again, I think it will break through.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And part of what Jonathan just described was on full display at the border yesterday. President Biden invited President Trump to call on Republicans to support this bipartisan border deal. And then former President Trump accused Joe Biden of having what he called a Joe Biden invasion. That's the way he referred to the migrant crisis.

  I mean, it's fairly clear how they're trying to play the politics here.

• David Brooks:

  Well, it's obviously Trump's strongest point. I mean, it's only 28 percent of Americans support Joe Biden's immigration policy. They prefer Trump's policy over Biden's policy by like infinite percent.

  And so Trump has the country on his side when it comes to this border. And the simple fact is, the Democrats have been sort of out of touch on this issue. In 2016, you had large numbers of candidates in a Democratic primary raise their hand and say they were for decriminalizing the border.

  That was — compared to where America is, that's far off. Second, the Biden policies just haven't worked. This — our asylum system was created after World War II to help those with extreme persecution. That was a long time ago. Right now, there are like 40 million people in the world who are facing that kind of persecution.

  We can't take all those people. And we can't have a policy that prioritizes the people who are breaking law, rather than people who are applying through the asylum system according to law. So, to me, the issue right now is not necessarily immigration. It's chaos.

  And so Biden has to do the thing which I think the British have done, which is to say, we're going to stop this violent process until we can digest all the people who have — already in the system. And that will at least try to impose some order, because, if there's just chaos, it's going to be just bad news for Biden.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  But the only problem is, that would be a great thing to do, David, but there's no money.

  One of the things about that Senate bill was that it was giving funding to allow the Customs and Border Patrol to do the things you were just saying. So, the chaos will continue, not because the president isn't doing enough, but because the Senate can't pass a bill that would make it possible for the president to do what he wants to do, but also for Republicans to get done what they say needs to be done for years now.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, let me ask you this, because the president is weighing some executive action, absent congressional action, that would allow him to tighten asylum rules.

  So if there is a problem — and both sides say that there is a problem at the southern border — and he has the authority to tighten the asylum rules, why not do it? What's he waiting for?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I mean, I wonder, does he really have the power? I wonder if the White House — and you should have asked me that question beforehand so I could have made some calls to the White House to see what they're doing.

  (Laughter)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  But the president has made it clear since the bill — before the bill was made public, or just after, that he's willing to do that. Why he hasn't done that, I wonder if that's because they're trying to really see the legalities of doing it.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, looking ahead to next week, it's going to be a busy one. We have got Super Tuesday and the State of the Union.

  But let's start with Super Tuesday, because more than a dozen states are set to hold presidential nominating contests. And this is a real milestone for the 2024 race. The results might be anticlimactic, right?

  But we will learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. What are you going to be watching for?

• David Brooks:

  How soon Nikki Haley drops out after she gets crushed in every state.

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  I — Nikki Haley is like 52. She's got a long political future in front of her. And if she stays in the race too long after Super Tuesday, she's really damaging the party that she, I presume, wants to be part of.

  And so I imagine that she will drop out. And the other thing to look for is how much weakness, how much softness is there is in the Biden coalition. Obviously, there were some noncommitted voters in Michigan. Is there a lot of that? I would strike — for all the people who are upset with Joe Biden, they're not exactly rushing out to Dean Phillips.

  Like, there's no Dean Phillips juggernaut. And so that leaves me believe people are nervous about Biden losing, but they like the guy, they support him, they think he did a good job. So he's — I think he has pretty strong support in the Democratic Party.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What about you, Jonathan?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes.

  (Laughter)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  No, the things I will be looking for will be the percentage spread between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. It's been growing since Iowa.

  But the fact that she lost her home state, OK, fine, in South Carolina, but she got 40 percent of the vote. That is a sizable chunk of the Republican electorate that says, we're not down with this guy.

  And so will that replicate itself in the Super Tuesday states? And when it comes to the Democratic side, I want to see if there are states that have uncommitted or noncommitted or Dean Phillips, how much support they get. And I suspect, especially since it's Super Tuesday, they're not going to get a lot of support at all.

• Geoff Bennett:

  I think perhaps the biggest story of this past week was the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, announcing that he would not seek another term as the Republican leader, ending a stretch as the longest-serving party leader in Senate history.

  I want to get your reaction to his announcement and really your assessment of his consequential and controversial legacy.

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I think it was epical, and mostly because he made it clear, I'm out of touch with the party.

  And so I would tell this historical story. In the 1930s, the Republican Party was a pessimistic, inward-looking party that shut down the borders, that shut down trade, that was isolationist. And that was the Republican Party of the 1930s. And that party lasted until 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower took an inward party and made it an outward party that was for internationalism, that was for free trade, that was for immigration.

  And that Ike-led party really lasted 60 years. And over the last couple years, we can say that party's over and we're returning to the 1930s Republican Party, isolation, some degree of nativism, and some degree of protectionism.

• Geoff Bennett:

  On that point, Jonathan, I was talking with a top Democrat the other day who said he thought he would never be in a position to say that he would miss Mitch McConnell.

  (Laughter)

• Geoff Bennett:

  But given the alternatives, the potential alternatives, that's kind of how he's feeling.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes, you know what? Let me give Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell his flowers. Let me just give him his flowers, because he is our version of the master of the Senate, wily, cunning. No one knows the Senate rules like Mitch McConnell.

  He's even — he even made up some rules, made up the rule that you can't — a sitting president cannot nominate someone to the Supreme Court with nine months to go before the election. The American people should choose the president who then chooses the justice. So he stole a Supreme Court seat from President — from President Obama.

  Fast-forward to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a month before the election. Three days, three days before the election, he turned tail and said, no, we must — we must have a new justice. And Justice Amy Coney Barrett got onto the Supreme — onto the Supreme Court, sealing a conservative supermajority, 6-3 supermajority.

  Another thing he did was remake the federal judiciary in the image that he wanted it to be in, which was young and conservative, a pipeline of federal judges, young federal judges, some of dubious quality, who would then rise up and fill higher — higher benches in the federal judiciary.

  And then, last but not least, Senator McConnell, when he was majority leader, voted not to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial for his role in the insurrection of January 6. If he had voted to convict Donald Trump, other senators would have followed along. Trump would have been convicted. We might not be in the position we are in today.

  And what made it what — his action even more galling was that, after he cast that vote and let Trump off the hook, he stood in the well of the Senate and gave a fire-and-brimstone speech that was the right thing to say. Unfortunately, it didn't match the vote he gave.

  So as — while I will give him his flowers for being a mastermind, a master political genius for what he wanted to do, he — I think he's responsible for a lot of the problems that we're facing right now in the country and our democracy.

  (Crosstalk)

• Geoff Bennett:

  What's that?

• David Brooks:

  Those aren't very nice flowers.

  (Laughter)

• Geoff Bennett:

  David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, our thanks to you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Geoff.