Brooks and Capehart on whether the Supreme Court has stood up to Trump

[0:00] It's been a busy week leading up to the nation's 250th anniversary, with major Supreme Court [0:05] decisions and more primary upsets. [0:08] To discuss all this further, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. [0:11] That's The Atlantics, David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS Now. [0:15] Great to see you both. [0:16] I am. [0:16] Let's begin with the Supreme Court. [0:18] Closing out a term with some major decisions, a quick recap for everyone following along. [0:23] Over the term, they handed the president some losses on signature issues like tariffs, birthright [0:27] citizenship, mail-in ballots, that he couldn't fire a member of the Fed board, but they also [0:32] said he could fire members of independent agencies. [0:34] They upheld a state ban on trans women in sports. [0:37] They sided with him on immigration restrictions. [0:40] David, one common thread seems to be an expansion of executive authority given to President Trump. [0:46] Is that a good thing? [0:48] No, but I would have to say on the big authoritarian power grabs Trump tried, whether it's the [0:54] Federal Reserve, birthright citizenship, the tariffs, whether he could put National Guard [1:00] troops in Chicago against the local officials' interests. [1:02] The court stood up to Trump and slapped him back down. [1:05] And the court hates to take on a sitting president because they don't want to take on an elected [1:10] official. [1:10] Remember, the Roberts courts upheld Obamacare because they just didn't want to upset what [1:14] democracy had brought to us. [1:16] And so I'd say on the big authoritarian power grabs, the Supreme Court did pretty good. [1:20] And it is, this is grating on a very low curve, but it's the most effective branch of government [1:25] we have right now. [1:26] And so on the slaughter case, which was about the FTC and all those semi-independent agencies. [1:32] The firing of the commissioner. [1:33] The firing of the commissioners. [1:34] Yes. [1:34] It's not my preference. [1:36] I like the idea that starting mostly in the 1930s, Federal Reserve is obviously earlier, [1:42] that we set up some agencies that are protected from raw politics. [1:45] Yeah. [1:45] And I think that was a good thing to do. [1:48] But a significant branch of legal thinkers have thought, no, the administration is elected [1:55] by a president. [1:56] It should not be cushioned off from democracy. [1:59] I think that's the wrong decision, but it's a reasonable decision. [2:02] And so what the court did on this slaughter case with the FTC and all the other independent [2:05] agencies was not my preference, but reasonable. [2:10] And I'd have to say on the big issues of preserving our democracy, the Supreme Court did okay this year. [2:13] And the slaughter case, we should also underscore, overturned a hundred-year-old precedent as well. [2:18] Jonathan, how did you look at this? [2:20] Well, I don't know if the Supreme Court did okay by democracy. [2:26] I mean, David said you thought that the court didn't want to upset what democracy brought [2:30] to us. [2:32] Democracy brought to us the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [2:35] And the Supreme Court just gutted it, decimated it. [2:40] And states around the country, particularly in the South, moved quickly with the same speed, [2:46] if not faster, than when the court took the first whack at it in Shelby v. Holder. [2:52] So I'm not as cheerful when it comes to the court in terms of, you know, standing up to [3:00] the president on the big authoritarian pieces. [3:02] But the VRA, and particularly Chief Justice Roberts, really wanting to do something, to [3:09] his mind, correct it, predates President Trump. [3:13] But the other thing about the Supreme Court's term is that, you know, a lot of the decisions [3:17] that they made, you know, it would have been nice if Congress were functioning and had [3:23] actually, you know, exercised its Article I branch powers to do some of these things. [3:30] I mean, it's great that the judiciary is functioning, but it'd be really nice if the legislative branch [3:35] started acting like a co-equal branch of government instead of the staffing arm of the executive. [3:39] Well, let's talk a little bit about what could happen in that legislative branch, some of [3:42] those primary upsets we talked about earlier. [3:44] Because in the past few weeks, we have seen anti-establishment wins for Democratic candidates [3:50] in particular, first to New York. [3:52] We saw the Democratic Socialist candidate there, Daria Elisa Avila-Chevalier, unseat the five-term [3:57] congressman, Adriano Espaillat. [3:59] We also saw former New York comptroller, Brad Lander, unseat Representative Dan Goldman. [4:04] Then in Colorado, we saw Democratic Socialist Milat Kiros oust a 30-year incumbent in Diana [4:10] DeGette. [4:11] And we saw the state AG, Phil Weiser, there, who ran to the left of Senator Michael Bennett, [4:16] beat him in the gubernatorial primary there. [4:19] So, David, you see New York and Colorado. [4:22] Does two make a trend? [4:23] I think so. [4:24] I think this is a big... [4:25] The Colorado story is a bigger story than the New York story. [4:28] New York is my hometown. [4:28] I love it. [4:29] But Brooklyn hipsters and Columbia University are not exactly normal America. [4:34] But Colorado is Colorado. [4:37] It's a semi-purplish state. [4:39] Michael Bennett was elected three times to the U.S. Senate statewide, and he lost. [4:43] And then you had the Democratic Socialist candidate win. [4:46] And what you see, it's been compared, I think, accurately to when Dave Bratt beat Eric Cantor [4:53] in the Republican primary, and you saw a bunch of people said, my party, screw them. [4:59] We're going to tear it all down. [5:01] And in that case, and I think in this case, Democrats, they're just looking around for [5:04] the most furious candidate because they're furious at what's happened. [5:08] And so they're doing that. [5:09] And I understand the fury. [5:11] My problem is the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, should not be where you go. [5:15] The Democratic Socialist Party was started in the 1980s by Michael Harrington, a very wonderful [5:19] guy, a serious intellectual, and he wanted the DSA to, you know, move us toward Denmark, [5:24] a perfectly good political position. [5:26] Over the last five years, that party has been hijacked and taken over by an authoritarian [5:31] wing which supported Hamas in October 7th, who supports Cuba, who supports China, who supports [5:39] Maduro's Venezuela, who supports pretty much every left-wing authoritarian regime in the [5:43] country. [5:44] So I understand wanting to register a protest against Washington. [5:48] But are the Democrats really going to take a position that we're going to become left-wing [5:52] authoritarians just as the Republicans become right-wing authoritarians? [5:55] And the final thing to be said is the Democratic Party became great, not by fighting the right, [6:00] but by fighting the left. [6:02] It was Hubert Humphrey in 1946 who pushed the communists out of the Democratic Party, the [6:06] DFL, the Democratic Party, Labor Party. [6:08] It was George Meany who pushed the communists out of the labor movement, basically. [6:13] And they defined who they were by pushing against the right, but also by pushing against [6:17] the left. [6:18] And we're going to see if the Democratic mainstream has the guts, the conviction, or even the clarity [6:22] of thought to push against what's happening. [6:25] And we'll see. [6:26] Jonathan. [6:26] I'm not going to get outraged. [6:33] I'm not going to fall into the Democratic trap of, oh, my God, the Democratic socialists [6:37] are taking over the country when we're talking about, one, wins in deep blue seats in congressional [6:43] districts. [6:44] Two, when we're talking about what really, to me, is the big trend here is that the establishment, [6:51] the incumbents are being thrown out. [6:54] And folks are angry. [6:56] They're angry because of affordability. [6:58] They're angry because the president is robbing the nation blind. [7:02] They're angry because it doesn't seem like any of these elected officials are doing anything [7:07] to hold the president accountable for what's happened. [7:10] I mean, Diana DeGette is no conservative. [7:13] She was a progressive. [7:15] Congressman Dan Goldman, not a big capital P progressive, but he was left of center. [7:22] Brad Lander, another person who beat Dan Goldman, he's no socialist. [7:28] He's basically a mainstream Democrat in New York City. [7:32] And so to my mind, I think we need to pay attention to what voters are saying. [7:37] If they're choosing the Democratic socialist candidate, then Democrats need to pay attention [7:43] to, well, why did they choose the DSA candidate and not someone who's a little closer to the center? [7:51] Could it be that their message on the economy, their message on what they're going to do is resonating? [7:58] And, you know, quite honestly, you know, Mayor Mamdani, who has put his weight behind a lot of these [8:02] candidates, the thing he has going for him is New York City is doing fine. [8:07] A lot of people predicted that, oh, you elect a socialist and the city will go to pot. [8:12] And instead, I'm not going to say it's the opposite, but the dire predictions haven't proven true. [8:18] And so I think there's still time to look at other races to see whether the DSA is actually [8:25] a thing and a thing in the way that the Tea Party had become for Republicans in the way back. [8:32] Lots more races ahead. [8:33] We'll talk about it some more. [8:34] But I'm not sure if you heard or not in the meantime, America's turning 250 tomorrow. [8:39] We've been talking about it a little bit. [8:41] When we step back to see how Americans are looking at their own country right now, we have some [8:45] insights from our latest PBS News-NPR Marist poll. [8:48] It found 65% of people say that they're proud to be American. [8:52] 83% say the country has moved away from its founding principles and ideals. [8:58] And at the same time, some 53% of Americans say the country's best days are still ahead of us. [9:04] So, David, do you see more reason to be concerned and there are more reason to be hopeful? [9:10] I'm hopeful. [9:10] We go through this. [9:11] We go through periods every few decades where people just want to burn everything down. [9:16] And it was brutal to live through those periods. [9:18] But we get through them. [9:19] And we get through them because we're a nation of awesome vitality. [9:23] We have the vitality to change and to fix things. [9:26] And we've done it again and again in the 1770s, the 1830s, the 1890s, the 1960s. [9:30] So, we're going to do it again. [9:32] And I have tremendous love for the country, but also tremendous compassion for the country, [9:36] for the evils we've done, for those who've suffered from those evils. [9:39] And you've got to have love for your country and compassion for the country at the same time. [9:43] Jonathan, last word to you. [9:44] On this, I should say, your birthday weekend. [9:46] Belated happy birthday to you. [9:47] Well, thank you very much. [9:48] I consider myself to be part of the 65% who are proud of their country. [9:52] You know, it's times like these when I feel most patriotic because this is when I get to say, [9:59] you know what, this country's mine. [10:00] This country is mine, too. [10:02] My ancestors were brought here in chains and they helped build this country and to help to make it a great power. [10:08] My ancestors, meaning black community writ large, marched in the streets demanding that this country live up to its ideals in the 1950s and the 1960s, [10:19] which made it possible for me to sit here right now. [10:24] There's backtracking, there's regression, but I am optimistic because this is America. [10:32] How could I not be optimistic when the history that allowed me to be here is going to be the history that is going to keep us going forward? [10:41] Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, thank you so much to you. [10:44] Thanks, Alna. [10:44] Happy 4th. [10:45] Same to you. [11:00] Donate now or even better, start a monthly contribution today.