Brooks and Capehart on the latest round of chaos in the House

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• Geoff Bennett:

  With House Republicans facing yet another fight over who will lead their conference and a host of other political stories driving this week's news, we turn 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 all, as always.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Hey, Geoff.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing the first direct threat to his speakership after Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene filed what's known as a motion to vacate against him today for working with Democrats to fund the government.

  Jonathan, this resolution is not privileged, which, in plain English, means the House doesn't have to vote on it until Marjorie Taylor Greene says so, which effectively means that Speaker Johnson has this axe hanging over his head. How do you see this playing out?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, the speaker has had this axe hanging over his head since the moment he got the job.

  And when he got the job, the conventional wisdom was, because he's from that faction of the far right of the House, he will have a honeymoon period, that he will be able to do things that then-Speaker McCarthy wasn't able to do or the things that made him lose his job. And what we're seeing now is — and I think one of the last few weekends, few Fridays, I was here where I was asked this question, I said, he's living in fear of this motion to vacate.

  And, well, Marjorie Taylor Greene today decided, well, today's the day that I'm going to file this motion.

  But you raise a key point. She didn't file it as a privileged motion. If she really wanted him out, she would have done that, and that would have forced them to get — to vote on it in two legislative days. The way she's done it, they could punt it to a committee. And that's where it would go to die.

  But he has always been facing this threat. And now that it's out there, the key question for me is, what do Democrats do?

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, on that point, Congressman Tim Burchett said that if the House had voted today on this motion to vacate, it's entirely possible that Hakeem Jeffries could have ended up as speaker, given the way the votes might have fallen and how narrow that majority is.

• David Brooks:

  Yes.

  I mean, the first thing, the antics that she's doing are driving good people out of the House. And so Mike Gallagher announces he's going to leave next month. And Mike Gallagher, I have seen him present on China and things like that. It's like watching a scholar present, one of the finest minds in the House. Damning with faint praise, I get you.

  (Laughter)

• David Brooks:

  But so he's leaving.

  So, if — like Ben Sasse left the Senate. If it's just going to be craziness, why stick around? And so that is just a long-term effect on the country. I think — I look at the upside, as always. And I think if Johnson gets in trouble, Democrats are always saying, we will vote for Johnson if he brings the Senate's Ukraine aid bill up.

  And so, if it could force the House to vote on that bill and to pass the Ukraine aid bill, he could do that with Democratic votes, he would keep his job, and the country would be a winner.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What are the incentives for Democrats to help Johnson out if that's what is needed?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, it depends on who you ask.

  I did a reach-out to some members. And what's interesting is, the common refrain has been — or I should say the thing that I have gotten back mostly is a stand-alone Ukraine bill. A few others have said to — not a damn thing. I was wondering whether I could say the word damn on PBS.

  (Laughter)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  But there are Democrats who don't — like, no, no, we're not going to do anything to help Speaker Johnson.

  But the key thing is, it doesn't matter what those individual members say to me. It depends — what really matters is what Leader Jeffries says, because I think that's where the majority of the conference is going to take its lead.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Meantime, Donald Trump needs to find half-a-billion dollars, and he has to find it fairly quickly. He has until Monday to post a bond covering the full amount of the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him as he appeals this ruling.

  And if he can't somehow find the money, the New York A.G., Letitia James, she might start seizing some of his assets to help cover that obligation.

  David, for any candidate running for public office, especially the presidency, who is short on cash and who has to find $454 million, that is a serious liability, and it also raises in this case some national security questions.

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I mean, I have a few problems with the seizure. The Associated Press did a good survey. They looked like at 70 years of cases like this. And in cases where there was no clear victim, they have never seized assets before.

  And so if the people who claim a lot of this is a political witch-hunt, I think that Associated Press, I found it kind of alarming that the Trump case is not being treated like the other cases. Nonetheless, it is what it is. And so he's got to raise a lot of money really fast.

  And can he do it through TRUTH Social? His very weird online social media outlet is on the market. Suddenly, it would boost his net worth $3 billion, which is also troubling, because it made — in the first nine months of last year, it made $3.3 million and it's valued at $3 billion.

  So it looks to me like another form of fund-raising disguised as investment. And that is already crooked. And then you take what a desperate Donald Trump is likely to do, do what his son-in-law did, go to the Saudis and get some money, and it just opens up for a desperate Donald Trump all sorts of corrupt possibilities.

• Geoff Bennett:

  One of Donald Trump's attorneys was on FOX recently, and the anchor in this instance asked if he would accept money from Saudi Arabia or Russia to help cover this bond. Here's how that played out.

• Martha MacCallum, FOX News Anchor:

  Is there any effort on the part of your team to secure this money through another country, Saudi Arabia or Russia, as Joy Behar seems to think?

• Alina Habba, Attorney For Former President Donald Trump:

  Well, there's rules and regulations that are public — I can't speak about strategy — that requires certain things. And we have to follow those rules.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I'm curious by the use of the word strategy.

  I don't know. I think someone who's running for president of the United States should automatically say, yes, I owe a half-a-billion dollars. I'm not going to go to foreign governments, because that would open me up, as president of the United States, to foreign interference and foreign influence.

  But we're not talking about any old, regular person. And, of course, he's going to take the money from wherever he can get it. That's been his entire career. And I have to disagree with David. No, take the properties. If any of us at the table were in that situation, we would be in serious trouble.

  And it would be within the right of the attorney general to say, you know what, we're going to take your golf club or we're going to take your tower. And, quite honestly, I would love to see the A.G., the New York attorney general, do that, because then it would be the most tangible sign for the nation, the world, and for Donald Trump that you have been held accountable.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, as we reported earlier, there was this U.S.-sponsored resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It failed to pass the U.N. Security Council today.

  But it still marks, David, a toughening of the U.S. stance toward Israel by the Biden administration, which had vetoed two previous resolutions. How do you see this relationship and how do you see this playing out?

• David Brooks:

  It's unprecedented that there is this much tension between Israel and the United States.

  And I think the Biden administration is right on a couple of things and wrong on one big thing. They're right to demand a cease-fire or to try to get a cease-fire, so that there can be humanitarian aid to go in. They're right to pressure Israel to take moral responsibility and strategic responsibility for the Gazans, for the people who are there.

  They're also right that Israel has to have a day-after plan. And so, all that thing — I think the administration is absolutely correct to be pressuring Israel on.

  Where I differ is on their new policy this week that Israel should not go into Gaza in the way they think they have to. Now, they're — according to the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, there are 6,000 to 8,000 Hamas fighters in there. You can't leave Hamas in power after this.

  There's no possibility for a two-state solution. There's no possibility for economic reconstruction. There's no possibility that foreign NGOs, if Hamas emerges from this surviving, competent and, frankly, victorious.

  So, Israel can't go into Rafah the way they went into Gaza City with that massive destruction and doing insufficient to get those civilians out of there, but, in my view, they — it's terrible, but they have to go into Rafah because they have to eliminate Hamas to have a decent future.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Jonathan, what about this relationship between Netanyahu and President Biden?

  President Biden, he's an old-school politician. He believes that personal relationships are how you get stuff done. As it was described to me, the two of them met each other 40 years ago, when Joe Biden was the junior senator from Delaware, and Netanyahu was the deputy chief of mission here in Washington.

  Did President Biden put too much stock in their personal relationship early on?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Perhaps he did, just leader-to-leader. Hey, we have known each other a long time. We're the United States. We're allies. Please, listen to me, listen to us.

  And what the prime minister has done time and time again in private, but also increasingly in public, is defy the president, defy Biden, defy the United States, which I think explains why we have seen a ratcheting up of this pressure that you're talking about on the part of the United States towards Israel.

  But I try to make a distinction here when talking about this. There is, I don't think, much daylight between the United States' support for the nation of Israel. What we are seeing, however, is a lot of daylight, yawning daylight, between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu.

  And this is where those personal relationships come into play.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, great conversation. Thank you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Geoff.