Brooks and Capehart on the partisan redistricting battle

[0:00] the u.s justice department dropped its probe into federal reserve chair jerome powell after [0:06] admitting it lacked evidence and voters in virginia approved democrats redistricting efforts for all [0:12] of that and more we turn now to the analysis of brooks and capehart that is the atlantic's david [0:16] brooks and jonathan capehart of ms now it's always great to see you both so the doj dropped its probe [0:22] as we said into fed chair jerome powell in part to clear a path to the for the confirmation of kevin [0:27] warsh is his successor uh but also because the federal judge effectively crippled u.s attorney [0:33] janine pierrot's investigation uh david what do you see as the takeaways who would have thought [0:38] lack of evidence hurts a prosecution uh you know i think first of all donald trump like every president [0:43] frankly would love to have a fed chair do what he wants because he can juice the economy at the right [0:48] time for the election trump was obviously the only one who would actually act on that and it should be [0:52] said we should appreciate the fact the federal reserve system is one of the crown jewels of our [0:56] country it was passed obviously in the progressive era but you look at greenspan what bernanke did [1:02] was miraculous i think powell has been an excellent fed chair the fact that we have these independent [1:07] agencies who are doing their job with civil servants doing their job is just something we should be [1:13] proud of and the fact that it's under threat and still under threat should still alarm us even if [1:19] we've had a reprieve on this the second point is that tom tillis the senator who was retiring who was [1:25] holding up the warsh nomination it would be interesting to see if other senators who are not retiring [1:31] start doing that kind of thing standing up to trump now there's approvals is in the 30s and not in the [1:36] 40s and i anticipate that a few more senators will do will discover some courage when it comes time to [1:42] standing up to the administration that they have lacked for the last eight years what do you think about that [1:47] jonathan is president trump's approval rating starts to soften do you think more republicans will [1:51] will use leverage wherever they can find it one can only hope um you know senator tillis he won this [1:58] particular war because he made it clear for weeks he's not voting for anybody's confirmation until that [2:05] lawsuit went away um and you know look give the give the president a little bit of props here in that he [2:14] just said okay fine fine the prosecution is over i'm going to get my guy in and maybe he will he will [2:20] do what i want him to do in interest rates but we'll have to take mr warsh at his word that he says that [2:26] he's not going to be a puppet of the president we'll see and pal's term ends next month does this episode [2:33] change the dynamics around his departure or the the search the the appointment the confirmation [2:40] the expected confirmation of his successor you know i well if you're powell you're worried that they're [2:47] going to come after you again and i think that's one of the reasons he's reluctant to leave uh because [2:51] he won't have some certain protections but i i think he he kept on doing his job no matter what [2:56] and this is a very tricky economy uh with inflation's rising and it was it was not expected that he would [3:02] be able to drive down inflation without a recession and he did it that's amazing and i thought what kevin [3:07] morsh is a pick the best possible pick that trump could have had i we i've seen him speak at [3:12] conferences for years and he's a serious guy who a normal republican might have picked which is not [3:18] always the case with the trump administration substantive guy so i think all things considered [3:23] that part of the government is in reasonably good shape and they have a gigantic new building [3:30] that is true look the fed has spent decades really trying to guard its independence from [3:35] political pressure has that wall held or has something shifted in all of this well it's held [3:40] in for all the reasons that david was just talking about but now it's going to be tested with um kevin [3:47] warsh and you talked about you know he's serious and substantive and that is all great right now but how [3:54] many serious and substantive people in the before times have gone into trump 2.0 and have done exactly what the [4:04] president wants to do that is in contravention of everything that they've said before and i'm [4:09] thinking specifically of secretary of state marco rubio in in in a lot of ways will a fed governor [4:17] warsh still be serious still be substantive and still have um being the good graces of the president [4:24] let's shift our focus uh to virginia because virginia voters this week approved a democratic [4:29] redistricting plan that could allow the party to pick up as many as four new seats in the upcoming [4:34] midterm elections david what do you take away from that result well as jonathan may recall i hate [4:39] this whole thing you know i hate it when texas did it i hate it when california did it i hate it [4:44] when virginia did it i believe in elections i would like there to be districts where both parties have [4:49] a shot of winning and the number of those districts in this country is now vanishingly small uh i understand [4:55] why the democrats did the republicans started it that's all fair uh but it we're just become a less [5:00] good democracy uh but for the republicans the lesson is be careful where you start and it's [5:07] weirdly like iran in in this case and in iran trump did not anticipate that the other side would take [5:13] some reaction he couldn't see like one step ahead i don't expect to see three steps at one step ahead [5:19] and so it was pretty inevitable once they did texas that california would do this and virginia would do [5:22] this and on net the republicans are probably worse off than they were before this whole thing started [5:27] the one thing i'll add and why democrats should should mute their enthusiasm is that 2030 is [5:33] coming and then you get real redistricting based on where populations are flowing and populations [5:39] nine out of the ten fastest states are republican states nine of the ten fastest shrinking states [5:43] are democratic states republicans are people are flowing to texas and florida and all those republican [5:47] states and it could be the case in 2030 even with all this the democrats will be in rough shape [5:52] because it'll be very hard for them to win the electoral college as the electoral college and house [5:57] votes go to red states yeah you mentioned florida jonathan florida republicans are apparently [6:02] considering redistricting and redrawing their maps what do you what do you make of this is this just [6:07] hardball politics or is there something more corrosive happening here yes it's hardball a hardball [6:12] politics and you know we have the the president to thank for it you know i'm surprised you did not um [6:17] maybe he's older than the singing demographic that you usually quote but i i think of james brown [6:25] and his song static and there's a great line in it that says don't start none won't be none and had [6:31] the president not gone to governor abbott and said give me five seats then you wouldn't have had governor [6:37] newsom jump out there and say oh wait what no we're going to do something so you know as much as we [6:44] we say that you know the president started this i want to give kudos to governor newsom for having [6:49] the backbone and the spine to stand up and say this is not going to happen as bad as gerrymandering is and [6:56] elections should determine who elected officials are when one side is trying to cheat before our [7:03] eyes we have to do something in response and i'm glad he did in the time that remains let's talk about [7:08] iran because president trump extended the ceasefire with iran but he also said he's in no rush and wants [7:14] to take his time is that measured patience or does it reflect the absence of a clear end game craziness [7:21] i mean he i thought he wanted off ramp uh and he doesn't seem to be asking he should be desperate [7:27] for it this is an issue that could destroy or severely damage the trump administration the way iran [7:34] contra severely damaged the reagan administration second this is weirdly turning into this the suez crisis [7:41] in 1956 the british it wasn't over the straits of hormuz it was over the the suez canal they said [7:46] they're gonna they're trying to block the canal we won't let them and then the white eisenhower in [7:51] the u.s said too bad too bad you're a weak power you thought you're a superpower those days are over [7:57] and a lot of people around the world are saying to the america you think you're a superpower you can't [8:01] even open the straits of hormuz your days of super hours over so donald trump should be eager to [8:06] get the hell out of this fight how do you see it jonathan um similarly i mean watching this whole [8:12] thing i've been confused from the moment the bomb started dropping on iran because i don't know [8:18] why specifically the president took this action i don't know what his game plan was has been or or [8:26] will be um it's as if he's trying to he thinks of a closing a diplomatic deal is the same as closing [8:33] a business deal that you can just do it overnight or one blustery performance and you know you [8:40] get people to the table to agree to your terms um that's not how this works i keep thinking about the [8:46] the iran nuclear deal the jcpoa you had five nations involved in this plus the european union i believe [8:52] and um it took months and months of negotiation i was like where's the wendy sherman where's secretary [9:01] carey where's um ernest moniz the secretary of energy these were all people plus the treasury [9:08] secretary these were all people who painstakingly negotiated the iran nuclear deal and instead what [9:14] we have from the trump administration is steve whitkoff and jared kushner who happens to be one [9:20] the president's son-in-law and two has major financial interests in the region how on earth does anyone [9:29] expect for the trump administration to come to a deal that will will be lasting in the interests of [9:36] the united states and that will put a lid on the damage that's being done in the middle east right [9:41] now and adding to the perceived confusion the secretary of the navy was also ousted reportedly [9:47] having nothing to do with performance in the field but because of his closeness to president trump and [9:52] uh over a shipbuilding dispute with uh pete hegseth secretary hegseth what does a leadership shake up [9:59] like that signal especially given that there's an ongoing naval blockade in iran well he was part of [10:05] the grown-ups uh he was he's a successful business person who probably knows how to run an organization [10:10] and probably had his own ego as successful as he's been to say like i kind of know what i'm doing i'm not [10:16] going to do a pete hegseth and do whatever donald trump tells me to do i'm not going to do a pete hegseth and be [10:21] basically be a buffoon on stage and so he tried to stand up for the strategy he thought was the [10:26] right strategy and that's that in the trump second term that doesn't get you very far i'm very struck [10:32] by it's not only people like him i'm struck by how many of the more intellectual trump supporters [10:39] are really upset about this he's lost a lot of people not only tucker carlson and people like that [10:44] but there's a writer named chris caldwell who in that world is probably the smartest and the most [10:49] intellectually sophisticated and they're all like it's not only this was a bad idea but even regular [10:55] trump voters are saying where's the thinking process here well you you had a red red line [11:01] and then you walked right through it david brooks jonathan capehart see you here next friday [11:07] take care have a good weekend support journalism you trust support pbs news donate now or even better [11:28] start a monthly contribution today