Brooks and Capehart on campus protests and Trump's vision for a 2nd term

William Brangham:

As protests against the war in Gaza grew on college campuses this week, we also got the clearest vision yet for what former President Trump might do with a second term.

That brings us to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Gentlemen, so good to have you both here, David joining us from Chicago.

Sorry to see you stuck in a television set over there.

(Laughter)

William Brangham:

Jonathan, to you first.

On these protests that we saw growing across college campuses around the country, calls for divestment, some clashes, police being sent in some cases. What do you make of this growing protest movement?

Jonathan Capehart:

Well, one, what we're seeing is the passion of the students and the passion of the community around these universities over the issue of what's happening in Gaza.

Remember, these protests started happening because of the humanitarian crisis there in Gaza. My big question is, will these demonstrations and these protests continue after graduation and after school is out? What I'm looking at is, colleges are convening spaces. But what happens when you lose your convening space? Will these demonstrations happen once all the students go back home?

That's the one thing that I'm wondering. Also, we have seen a proliferation of these demonstrations in the last week. And I wonder if it's because a lot of the students, a lot of the demonstrators in campuses who haven't been — haven't gone on record, they're going on record to show, no, we have something to say about this, we're taking a stand.

And so maybe by this time next week or in a couple of weeks, I wonder if we're going to see the same level of intensity among young people on this issue.

William Brangham:

David, we saw that President Biden was asked about whether these protests and the message of those protests was going to change his views on policy vis-a-vis Israel and Gaza.

He said that it wasn't. We have also seen this bipartisan passage of a law — of a bill clarifying what is antisemitism formally, I guess, so that schools that don't punish it overtly could be punished themselves.

Do you think that there will be continued political reverberations from these protests?

David Brooks:

Yes, I think big time.

In the 1960s, Ronald Reagan ran for governor running against the Berkeley protests. Richard Nixon ran for president running against the protests. It's not so much the message of the protests. It's the violence that surrounds them.

I'm teaching at the University of Chicago this term. And a couple hundred yards from here, the encampment at our school is there. And the university had a very clear policy. We celebrate your right to express your point of view, but we don't allow you to make the campus violent. We're not going to let you disrupt campus. We're not going to allow you to disrupt learning.

And, today the president, Paul Alivisatos, sent out an e-mail to everybody in the community saying, we celebrate the right to make your statements. Unfortunately, the students have been disruptive. They have torn down Israeli signs. They have silenced speakers. They have made the campus — they have interfered with learning in the campus.

And so he sent out a somewhat ominous e-mail. And I have to say, things are pretty tame here compared to a lot of the other places. So what Americans support is free speech. What they don't support is what looks like anarchy.

And so I think if the protests continue to veer in the direction they're veering, you could see some pretty serious repercussions, which is why Biden is speaking, which is why Chuck Schumer is speaking, trying to distance themselves from what the protesters are doing.

William Brangham:

I mean, Jonathan, a lot of the critics of these protests like to say that it's all antisemitism, just a hot stew of anti-Israeli bias.

I was at one of the NYU protests earlier this week, and there is some of that, for sure. But it's mostly young people, as you were describing, who are despairing over what is happening in Gaza. How is it that people who care deeply about this issue can't — can somehow protest and not be risked being branded as antisemites?

Jonathan Capehart:

OK, what — excuse me.

So, there's antisemitism, but then you anti — you said anti-Israeli.

William Brangham:

I'm even conflating it myself here.

Jonathan Capehart:

Exactly. And that is the issue.

It is possible to criticize the government of Israel, the state of Israel, the prime minister of Israel, the policies, what he says, his actions, without veering into ugly antisemitism. If you don't like what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, not allowing enough humanitarian aid to go through, that is a legitimate criticism.

But to then go into all the ugliness, some of the ugliness that we have heard, that's not OK. I don't understand how — why it's so hard to state your objections without being bigoted about it.

William Brangham:

I'd like to pivot a little bit.

David, this week "TIME" magazine published this really remarkable story about Donald Trump. It was called "If He Wins." And it was based on two interviews with Trump and a series of interviews with his associates.

And it lays out a series of ideas that Trump wants to enact or would consider enacting in his second term. I'm just going to put up a list of some of the things here. It involves monitoring women's pregnancies, perhaps deploying the U.S. military inside the United States to round up migrants, building large migrant detention camps, firing U.S. attorneys who don't prosecute cases at Trump's direction.

Now, I know some of these things we have heard from Donald Trump before, but I wonder what — when you see them all together like that, what do you make of this, this portrait of a possible second Trump administration?

David Brooks:

Yes, I'm reminded the first Trump administration when you couldn't believe your mind could get more mind-boggled than it already was by what he was doing.

This was a truly mind-boggling interview. The Republican Party used to be a party that was — wanted to restrict the power of the state, and this is a radical desire to expand the power of the presidency. And the idea that we're going to have National Guard rounding up immigrant families that have been here for years and years and deporting them, those images will get ugly.

The idea of President Trump sort of saying, you're going to prosecute this, it's unprecedented. So it was just one mind-boggling thing after another, gutting the Treasury Department, gutting the Justice Department. And, really, it was Trump sort of giving himself permission to be completely unleashed.

And we forget that he was a little surrounded by mature Republicans in the first term, and now he's saying, no more of that. I'm going to be — I'm going to do what I want.

And, this time, if reelected, he will have a cadre of Trumpians, which he did not have in 2017. And so it was really a display of radical authoritarianism, which he's proud of.

William Brangham:

How did you see it?

Jonathan Capehart:

In the run-up to this "TIME" magazine interview, we had been hearing from him on some of these things on the campaign trail.

But, before, we have been hearing from senior advisers and supporters of his, say, at Project 2025, going on the record, talking…

William Brangham:

This is the Heritage Foundation…

Jonathan Capehart:

The Heritage Foundation.

William Brangham:

… document for how a second Trump admin might unfold.

Jonathan Capehart:

Right.

And they're pulling in all these resumes and the types of people who they would have at the ready as a turnkey operation for the next Republican president, who they think will be Donald Trump. Those were the people who were talking about this.

What was interesting about the "TIME" magazine interview and also his interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is, Trump is the one who was going on the record in an interview with a reporter saying, yes, I'm going to use the National Guard. I'm going to deploy them to American cities. Yes, we're going to round up millions of undocumented immigrants — migrants and put them in prisons on the border. Yes, we're going to do all of these things.

And what was most chilling to me, well, among many things in the "TIME" magazine interview, was that I had always known about Project 2025. I have talked about it many times on my show on MSNBC.

What I did not know was that Project 2025 is one of four groups out there right now that are who are planning for a Trump 2.0 administration, taking on various aspects, so that, if he does indeed win election in November at, maybe by 1:00 p.m. on January 20, 2025, he will be able to get a whole lot of things done, because they will have figured out where the guardrails are, how to remove them, how to remove the people who be — who would stand in the way of things that they want to do.

William Brangham:

David, in that "TIME" magazine piece, specifically talking about this upending of the Department of Justice that you were talking about, the reporter quoted one judge, saying, look, those guardrails that we're talking about, those are still there.

If he tried to fire U.S. attorneys that didn't heed his calls to prosecute his political enemies, there would be a public uproar, there would be quitting, there would be a revolt, basically.

Do you believe that that's true? Do you believe those guardrails are there and are strong enough?

David Brooks:

I have some doubt. I think there would be a lot of quitting. I think there are a lot of people of integrity who would not tolerate this.

But the sad fact is, and if you look at the polling — and this goes back a long way in American history — there's a lot more desire for — authoritarianism may be a strong word, but somebody is willing to break the rules to get things done.

And so you go back to the 1930s, there were strong calls for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to make himself a dictator. Fortunately, Roosevelt was a solid Democrat, so he wasn't going to do that. But if you look at public opinion, there has always been a constituency: This is an extremely messed up country. We need some guy to take control. And if he has to break a few eggs along the way, let him do it.

William Brangham:

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, always good to see you both. Thank you so much.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, William.