geoff: Congressional gridlock on
key issues like immigration and
taxes are being affected by the
2024 presidential race.
For all this and more, 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.
Good to see you both as always.
I want to start with your
reaction to the U.S. Tonight
starting a series of military
strikes against Iran backed
militias in Iraq and Syria.
This response, we should say, is
expected to be just the
beginning of a longer response.
David, you first.
David: I think it was
proportionate.
We have to be strong and show
resolve, establish deterrence,
establish defense freedom of the
seas, but you don't want to sew
chaos.
I think with the demonstration
has done is hit the Iranian
backed militias without hitting
Iran itself.
Some officials say we should
have hit Iran.
I have become suspicious that in
the Middle East you have to
strike the problem to seek a
solution.
That is what Israel is trying to
do to hamas.
The idea that we can somehow
defang, that probably would not
work.
This was a proportional
response.
Geoff: Jonathan, how do you see
it?
Jonathan: I agree with David,
but I would also add that the
timing of this is
interesting because today we had
the dignified transfer of the
bodies of the three American
service members who were killed.
You had the secretary of defense
there on the tarmac for this
very solemn ceremony.
You had the president and first
lady there at Dover air force
base for the solemn ceremony.
I think it was carried live on
television, but it was carried
in full when the video came in.
The entire nation got to see
this.
Then the world found out the
United States responded.
I think that sort of timing,
plus the use of b-1 bombers in
this operation, sends a very
clear signal to the region but
also to Iran that the united
States is not messing around.
Geoff: President Biden and his
top aides have been clear they
do not want the proxy war to
become a more significant
conflict.
They don't want to draw the U.S.
Into a wider war in an already
unstable region.
How do you head off that
possibility when it appears to
be inching closer?
>> With goldilocks.
Just right.
It sends a message that we don't
want a war right now either.
That doesn't mean they won't
want it someday.
There was a good essay in
foreign affairs.
Go back to the 1930's.
There were three regional
complex.
Japan was sweeping through
China, Germany was obviously
establishing fascist role in
western Europe, and Italy was
trying to establish a fascist
empire in Africa.
What happened over the next
three years was those three
separate regional conflicts
coalesced into one big conflict
that we called World War II.
What we need to prevent is that
Iran, China, and Russia will not
coalesce into one anti-liberal,
completely.
Is why this moment is so
fraught.
That is why the administration
has tried to be strong but
temperate in the middle of it,
to spark that kind of
coalescence.
Jonathan: But also keep in mind
that the strikes that have
happened tonight, our time,
apparently is the beginning of a
campaign that the administration
has been signaling for a while,
that this could be an ongoing
campaign that could last weeks,
if not longer.
Geoff: As one official put it,
this is the beginning of the
beginning.
Let's shift our focus to the
South Carolina primary tomorrow,
the first on the democratic
nominating calendar.
You might have seen that
interview with congressman
Clyburn earlier.
President Biden is expected to
win South Carolina.
But in what way is this a test
of his support and enthusiasm
moving forward?
David: And Joe Biden won among
young black adults in 2020 89%.
Now he is down to 60% with young
black adults.
That is a significant loss.
That is a lot of people you're
losing, so he has to reestablish
that.
I was struck in your interview
how he emphasized the student
debt.
I think that did turn a lot of
people.
I think gaza has turned a lot of
young black voters.
They have to win them back.
I think Clyburn put it well,
which is you have somebody nine
months -- ask somebody nine
month before an election who
they are going to vote for.
They are thinking, how do I send
a message?
When they are in the voting
booth and Joe Biden and Donald
Trump are here, it will be a
different decision-making
process.
We should not confuse polls
today with an actual election.
Geoff: Do Democrats see it that
way?
They have complained for years
about this disconnect between
properly -- popular policies
and the fact that president
Biden is not getting credit for
it.
Jonathan: If there is anything
the viewers should know and
understand, if they don't know
this already, to David's point
about once people get into the
voting booth and have the choice
between president Biden and
Donald Trump, African-American
voters are pragmatic voters,
probably the most pragmatic
voters in the American
electorate.
We are used to not getting
everything that we want.
All the time.
And yet, when we go into the
voting booth and have to click
the lever and vote for somebody
we think will best protect our
families and our interests, that
is when the pragmatism kicks in.
I can understand people being
upset about student loans, what
is happening in gaza, voting
rights, criminal justice reform.
But when you are faced with an
existential threat like Donald
Trump and the damage he could do
if he gets another term, Joe
Biden looks even better than he
does now.
Geoff: Let's talk about a couple
of the legislative priorities
that are being affected by this
campaign, namely the tax plan.
The house voted Wednesday
evening to pass a 78 billion
dollar bipartisan tax package
that would temporarily expand
the child tax credit, restore a
number of business taxes.
Rather, tax credits for
businesses.
The vote was 357 to 70.
You'd be hard-pressed to find
350 members of congress to agree
on what day it is, yet you had
357 members of congress agree to
move forward with this bill, yet
it may not go anywhere in the
senate, at least not anytime
soon.
David: I understand why you
don't want to pass something
that might help your opponent in
the fall of an election year,
but we are in the beginning of
February.
If the entire year we are not
going to pass something because
we don't want to help somebody,
that seems awfully cynical,
especially when one of the
issues is a child tax
credit, which was briefly
expanded and lifted 3 million
children out of poverty.
We may get to it, but the other
thing sitting there is what I
think of as the global chaos
bill, where we are helping Iran
-- we are helping Ukraine, we
are helping Israel to defeat
hamas, and securing the southern
border.
If we are going to tolerate
global chaos for another few
years because we don't want to
help our opponent or ourselves,
that is obscene politicization
of the legislative process.
Geoff: That seems to be the
dynamic with the bills.
Chuck grassley said the quiet
part out loud that he did not
think it was an Republican's
interests to move forward with
this bill that could be a win
for president Biden in an
election year.
Jonathan: What it shows is
between the tax bill and
immigration bill, the tax bill
roaring out of the house and
being blocked in the senate by
senator grassley, the
immigration bill in the senate
that nobody has seen yet, and
yet you have the speaker of the
house and Donald Trump trying to
kill it before it gets out,
congress is broken.
Congress is broken.
The house is broken, the senate
is broken.
And really what we are saying,
to pick up on David's point, it
is -- what is the word?
The metastasiation of
what happens when justice Scalia
died.
Merrick Garland was nominated to
be the nominee, and the senate
Mitch Mcconnell, majority leader
at the time, says, no.
And it was February.
No thanks.
We should wait for the
presidential election.
Look where we are now, where
legislation can't even get out
of either chamber because it
would give a win to the
president, never mind the real
American people who would be
helped by both pieces of
legislation getting out
andgetting to the president's
desk for a signature.
Geoff: I want to bring up the
focus of Laura Baran Lopez's
report of Taylor Swift being
attacked by right-wing talking
heads.
What is the political utility of
targeting the most popular
entertainment figure in the
world?
Why would Republicans even
engage in that enterprise?
>> When Ronald Reagan was
president, the Republican party
three purposes.
Celebrate an America where a
wholesome pop star fell in love
with an attractive football
player.
This is as americana as you can
imagine.
Yet, what has happened in her
trump is abnormality.
It is detachment from normal
American life to conspiracy
mongering.
What has also happened is you
have this entertainment complex
of hucksters and a showman who
want to generate buzz, and what
is a better way than to attack
the NFL and Taylor Swift?
Jonathan: The types of
conspiracy theories that are
being thrown around would make
Carrie Matheson go, come on.
This is insane.
I cannot help but laugh to the
point of crying, but then crying
because this is what has
happened to one of the two major
political parties in this
country where you have a guy who
ran for the Republican
nomination saying that for the
chiefs to win the super bowl so
that she can come out on the
field and endorse the president
-- people.
Just pass the immigration bill.
Pass the tax bill and let's have
a real conversation instead of
doing this hucksterism and
nonsense happening on the right.
Geoff: Not for nothing, I hear
you are a bit of a Taylor Swift
David: I like early Taylor.
Geoff: Favorite song?
David: She speaks for me.
She wears short skirts, I wear
t-shirts.
[Laughter]
She is the captain, I am on the
bleachers.
You wake up and find what you
are waiting for was here all the
time.
A story of my life.
[Laughter]
I am getting carried away here.
[Laughter]
Her last album, she has a lyric,
my covert nor schism disguised
as altruism like some kind of
congressman.
That is a great lyric.
It means she has been talking to
Lisa Desjardins about how their
narcissism displays itself.
I will vote for anybody Taylor
tells me to.
[Laughter]
Geoff: Do you have a favorite
lyric?
Jonathan: I do not.
I am more of a Beyonce guy.
Geoff: Thank you both.
Have a good weekend.
♪♪