Brooks and Capehart on the cost of the Iran war and Trump's strategy

[0:00] AMNA NAWAZ For more on the political debate over the war in Iran, we turn now to the analysis of [0:04] Brooks and Capehart. That's The Atlantic's David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNOW. [0:10] Great to see you both. JONATHAN CAPEHART I am. [0:11] AMNA NAWAZ So, as we sit here and speak now, [0:13] as we report at the top of the show, there's still a U.S. crew member from that downed [0:17] fighter jet missing, a search-and-rescue operation underway. We know Iranians were [0:21] also able to shoot down another aircraft over the Gulf shot at a Blackhawk helicopter that [0:27] returned to base safely. Iranian leaders are looking for that missing crew member on the [0:31] ground. David, all of this is just two days after the president said in an address to the nation [0:36] that the U.S. had crippled the Iranian military and the war was nearly over. [0:41] What's your reaction to all of this? [0:42] DAVID BROOKS Yeah, this is one of the disadvantages of having a huckster for president, [0:45] that he does just he can't tell the American people that, when you're going to war, it's [0:50] horrible, and that Iran is a serious country that's been preparing for this for nearly half a century. [0:57] And [0:57] they're going to fight back, and they're going to make counter-moves like this or like the [1:00] Straits of Hormuz. To me, what happened, I have been somewhat moderately hoping there'd be some [1:05] positive outcome. And I think there has been some. We have had to go to the Middle East for [1:09] almost every decade for the last 50 years because of radical Islam, which the Iranian regime [1:15] typifies. But this is clearly the week when the costs of the war are so exponentially larger than [1:22] the benefits of what we're getting in these marginal weeks. The costs to Russia is, [1:27] is now getting all this revenue. Iran is getting all this revenue. The European economy and the [1:33] world economies are in crisis. NATO is in shreds. And so the costs are just exorbitant now, [1:40] not to mention the human suffering. And so if Trump doesn't see that we're losing, every day [1:47] he continues this thing, he's going to just face more and more political problems, military [1:51] problems, and all sorts of problems. And so he just needs to admit what's going on. And I doubt he has [1:58] the mental ability to do that. [1:59] AMNA NAWAZ I mean, this is a war of choice. [2:03] We didn't need to take this action now. What's funny, but not funny, playing on cable right now [2:11] on a loop is Top Gun Maverick. And if anyone has seen that movie, the whole plot is about [2:17] a U.S. military operation deep inside Iran, and two fighter pilots have to eject out of their [2:27] planes. [2:28] I bring that up because there was more of a plan in the fictional plot of Top Gun Maverick [2:33] than there appears to be in this very real, very live situation in the United States' war with Iran. [2:44] Look, I applaud the president for finally addressing the American people. But he is a [2:49] month too late and told us nothing we had not already heard from him, from his administration, [2:56] through various ways. What he should have done was told the American people [3:02] really why we went, how we're getting out, and then spend more than half a phrase [3:08] on the 13 service members who lost their lives in this war of choice, his choice. [3:13] AMNA NAWAZ Yeah, David, to Jonathan's point here, that those 19 minutes that the president [3:17] addressed the nation, right, said, this is why we're here, this is what we're there to do, [3:22] there were some contradictory statements. There's negotiations ongoing, but we're going to bomb them [3:26] back to the Stone Ages. We're winning, but there's still a lot of work to do. Did you get clarity [3:31] on what the goal of this war is from that speech? [3:33] DAVID BROOKS I got reverse clarity. [3:35] If you go back to Trump's first book, The Art of the Deal, I don't know if it's his first book, [3:39] but that early book, The Art of the Deal, he would talk about how he tries to confuse everybody by [3:43] multiple different options. And I say this, I try this, I do that. It's all like a weave or a chaotic [3:49] weave, as he would say. But when you're running a war, when you're asking people to risk their lives [3:55] and, in some cases, lose their lives, you owe some clarity to the country. And you owe some clarity [4:01] on the idea that this is what we're going to try to do. And if he had said, we're trying to make it [4:06] impossible for Iran to be a regional power, that's a defined aim. I think it's a plausible aim. But [4:11] when it shifts every day, you're not just confusing the Iranians. Can you imagine fighting in this war [4:17] and where you don't know what the president wants you to do or what the goal here is? [4:21] It's a horrible position to put anybody in. [4:23] AMNA NAWAZ What's your take on the speech? [4:24] DAVID BROOKS [4:25] Well, I think I've said a lot about the speech. But, again, it's a month too late, quite honestly. [4:32] AMNA NAWAZ Meanwhile, of course, all of this was [4:34] delivered against the backdrop of some very tough polls for the president. You've seen these. A [4:39] new CNN poll this week showed that roughly two-thirds of Americans say that the president's [4:43] policies have worsened economic conditions in the United States. [4:47] And then there was this video I'm sure you saw. It was the president's remarks at a [4:51] closed press event that was first posted, then later deleted from the White House YouTube. [4:56] DAVID BROOKS [4:56] In which he talks about some of his budget priorities. Take a listen. [4:59] DAVID BROOKS [5:00] It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. [5:07] They can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, [5:12] military protection. We have to guard the country. [5:15] AMNA NAWAZ David, we just reported today that the defense budget request from the president is $1.5 [5:20] trillion, one of the largest requests in modern history. What happened to the whole affordability [5:25] message? [5:26] DAVID BROOKS [5:26] Well, I mean, gas prices went up. You know, he can't — they can't keep a model on this. [5:31] One of the things that strikes me about Trump is a basic loss of basic economic knowledge. [5:37] So, for example, in reference to the Iran war, he said, it's not our problem because we don't use [5:41] oil that goes through the straits of our moats. And, literally, that's true. But what he does not [5:45] seem to understand is that global energy markets are global markets. We have one global economy. [5:52] And it raises prices here, just as it does everywhere else around the world. It's not like [5:55] we're not being hurt. [5:56] DAVID BROOKS [5:57] The second thing he doesn't understand — and he's not the first president to misunderstand this — [6:01] is that you can't — it's very, very hard to create manufacturing jobs. [6:06] He promised to create manufacturing jobs. We have lost 100,000. Joe Biden tried to create [6:11] manufacturing jobs. I think, one year, Joe Biden lost 200,000. This is a long-term trend. [6:16] China has lost tens of millions of manufacturing jobs. As the economy moves forward, [6:19] you lose manufacturing jobs. And the idea that the tariffs and the other things were [6:24] going to restore manufacturing jobs without costing Americans money, [6:27] at the cash register, that was always a fantasy. And yet he just — he's like — he's living in [6:32] an economic model of, I don't know, 1942 or something like that. We live in a global [6:38] economy, and he does not know how it works. And, as a result, you get these policy failures. [6:42] AMNA NAWAZ Jonathan, there is so much frustration [6:44] out there, right, on the economy, on a lot of other issues. [6:47] We saw a lot of that in the streets, in those massive No Kings protests that [6:51] took place just a few days ago, larger attendance this time than even last time they were held. The [6:57] frustration is there. Are Democrats doing enough to tap into it, to mobilize that? [7:02] JONATHAN CAPEHART I would think so. I mean, I don't know [7:05] for sure. They better be. Look, I think this is the fourth No Kings rally. And, as you pointed out, [7:12] each rally has been bigger than the one that preceded it. This last one was the largest [7:17] of all of them. Put aside whether Democrats are taking advantage of all this, [7:24] what we're seeing on the streets of America are [7:28] people who are angry and frustrated. Most of them are probably Democrats. But I wouldn't be surprised [7:35] if there were some Republicans, if there were some people who voted for Trump who are not happy with [7:42] the way he is conducting the economy, the war, the country. I mean, we're talking about a president [7:50] who doesn't have any economic knowledge, or his economic knowledge sort of sits firmly in the 1980s. [7:58] But you also have an administration that's filled with very rich people, billionaires, [8:04] people who are saying one Cabinet secretary said that all people needed to have was a piece of [8:09] chicken, a piece of broccoli, a tortilla, and something else. You had the Commerce Secretary, [8:15] who is a billionaire, say, if my mother-in-law didn't get her Medicaid check or Social Security [8:22] check, she wouldn't complain. She would just wait. I'm sorry. You are living in a completely different [8:28] than the rest of America. And I think the president, by saying what he said there, [8:34] doesn't quite understand the people in the country that he is running. [8:39] AMNA NAWAZ Speaking of the members of his administration, [8:42] we have now seen the second Cabinet member fired in a month by the president. [8:47] The attorney general, Pam Bondi, is out after 14 months in office. There have been a few names [8:52] already floated as possible replacements, including the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, [8:57] U.S. attorney in D.C., and the U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights and Human Rights, [8:58] Janine Pirro. The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, senators like Eric Schmidt and Mike Lee. [9:04] David, what do you make of the decision to fire her? And who do you think replaces her? [9:08] DAVID BROOKS Our friend Ruth Marcus had a piece in [9:10] The New Yorker today saying, of all the attorney generals in the history of America, [9:14] she's the worst. And that's a very plausible argument to be made. She gutted the agency, [9:22] any lawyer with integrity, or most of them, they just can't stomach this. Her handling the Epstein [9:28] files was obviously horrendous. And she was ineffective at doing the [9:33] illegal things that Donald — that she tried to do on behalf of Donald Trump. [9:37] And so the difference with this and the Kristi Noem firing was that Noem... [9:42] JUDY WOODRUFF Former Homeland Security Secretary. [9:43] DAVID BROOKS Former Homeland Security. One got the sense that Trump knew that the ICE [9:46] policy had gone too far. The Bondi fire, one has the sense he believes the Justice Department and [9:52] the lawfare, the prosecuting political entities, didn't go far enough. So one assumed, [9:58] that he's going to pick somebody who will go farther. And that's why I would love to see a [10:04] Mike Lee, for example. He's at least — he's an intelligent man with an independent career. [10:09] I doubt we're going to see somebody like that. I think we will see somebody [10:13] wholly owned by Donald Trump, who will do whatever he wants, [10:16] which is to further politicize the department. [10:18] GEOFF BENNETT OK, the one person who — I'm saying it here [10:23] right now — who will not be the next attorney general of the United States is Jeanine Pirro. [10:27] JUDY WOODRUFF Why do you say that? [10:29] GEOFF BENNETT Famously, [10:30] the famous adage is, you know, a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. [10:35] She literally could not indict a guy who threw a sandwich — wasn't ham, [10:40] I think it was salami or something — at a federal officer, could not indict that person. [10:45] So, no, she shouldn't be attorney general. My money is on Deputy Attorney General, [10:51] now Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch. I don't know if he can actually get there [10:55] because of legal things, but he is exactly who David is talking about. [11:00] He is someone who is a wholly owned person. He was the president's personal attorney [11:04] through all of those — his legal fights when he was no longer president, [11:09] including the one where Donald Trump got convicted. [11:13] So, either Todd Blanch or a member of the Senate, because that's — those are the [11:18] only two people who I could imagine could get through Senate confirmation. [11:22] JUDY WOODRUFF Well, wasn't Todd Blanch, in 30 seconds we have left, [11:24] also went down to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison? [11:27] GEOFF BENNETT Yeah. [11:27] JUDY WOODRUFF They want that coming up in a confirmation hearing, you think? [11:29] GEOFF BENNETT Absolutely. [11:30] GEOFF BENNETT Hey, look, Trump wants what he wants, [11:32] although we don't know who he wants yet. So we'll find out. [11:34] JUDY WOODRUFF We will find out. [11:36] Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, always great to see you both. Thank you. [11:39] JONATHAN CAPEHART Good to see you. [11:40] JONATHAN CAPEHART Support journalism you trust. Support PBS News. [11:57] Donate now, or even better, start a monthly contribution today.