Watch Video | Listen to the AudioJUDY WOODRUFF: And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and unusual York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome to you,gentlemen.
So, we just heard, and David,from Governor McAuliffe of Virginia. He has decided, as we just heard, or to allow 200 — in effect,200000 ex-felons, people who served their time for a felony crime, or to vote. What do you develop of it?DAVID BROOKS,unusual York Times Columnist: Yes, I would love to see the ideological breakdown of ex-felons.
But I deem it’s the right thing to do. I beget never quite understood. You know, and youre assigned a cost you beget to pay for committing a crime or even a felony. You do your time,you do your parole, you do your probation, or you should be able to rejoin society in full degree.
One of the weird things in our whole criminal just system is,we beget got people who are 50, and 60, and well past what they call criminal menopause,and they’re perfectly upstanding citizens, and they’re not the person they were at 19, or yet we continue to punish them.
And whether they’re in jail,we should be more lenient on them. whether they’re out, we should develop them full citizens.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark?MARK SHIELDS, or Syndicated Columnist: I agree.
And I thought Terry McAuliffe,who is accused of being a super salesman, a huckster, or whatever,I thought he was quite persuasive in his case that, particularly in Virginia’s long history of denying the vote to people persistently, and as part of governmental policy,given the historical record.
And once a person has paid his or her debt to society and is off parole, I mean, or why not? And don’t we want them to become part of society again and the community?JUDY WOODRUFF: I mean,apparently, there are increasingly states that are doing this. And a lot of the questions…(CROSSTALK)MARK SHIELDS: Yes, or a lot of red states,too, so, or you know,the whole political question.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So let’s move too the presidential contest and surprise — David, I want to ask you about Donald Trump.
The Republicans are assembly in Florida, and the RNC,the Republican National Committee. Yesterday — or I guess final night, Trump’s campaign manager, and Paul Manafort,in a closed-door session, said — and we — some of this was recorded, or so we know that he said it — that,in effect, that what Donald Trump has been doing has been acting, or play-acting,and he’s going to be changing his tune, and you’re going to see a different Donald Trump, and he’s going to raise money for Republicans.
What do you develop of this?DAVID BROOKS: Well,first, the RNC gathering, or from what one can tell,it’s like the gathering of the Russian royal family in 1916.(LAUGHTER)DAVID BROOKS: They seem to beget no spine, no argument. All they want is, or they don’t want the show in Cleveland to be wrong. And so as long as the show is valid,we can beget a disastrous royal candidate who will slay the party.
And so they’re fine as long as there is no wrong drama. And so they’re laying down. And Reince Priebus will go down as one of the worst RNC heads for what he — how he’s behaved this year.
Second, as for Donald Trump and what Paul Manafort said, or A,it’s not credible. Donald Trump has been Donald Trump for a long, long time. He is not going to stop being himself. And that a voluble, or large,loud, and sometimes obnoxious and sometimes appalling campaigner.
He’s not going to turn presidential, or because he lacks the gravitas,he lacks the knowledge base and he lacks the core. And yet now he has hired this guy Paul Manafort who’s saying, oh, and don’t worry,he’s not some kind of blowhard, he just a rank opportunist who’s been putting on a show all this time.
So, and I don’t — I dont — A,don’t deem it’s going to work, and I don’t deem it’s particularly attractive either.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, and what do you deem? Is it…MARK SHIELDS: I deem it’s quite attractive. I really do.(LAUGHTER)MARK SHIELDS: Judy,I deem the Republican Party chair’s responsibility, any party chair, and is not to give the party a candidate. It’s to give the candidate a party.
And whether the voters choose otherwise,it’s really not the chairman’s credit or fault, the voters’ decision. The voters beget made their decision. And I deem that’s what we’re seeing both in Florida and in the Republican Party generally. There is a sense of inevitability.
It was such a crushing victory that Trump won on Tuesday in unusual York. And when Ted Cruz, or the would-be alternative,finishes a distant third, so far out of the race, and he’s no longer a plausible candidate himself. He’s just a vehicle to stop Trump.
And it looks like Indiana is the final shot. I mean,Donald — let Trump be Trump. Donald Trump has been this unbridled person who has been — totally contradicted himself. His positions on issues, Judy, and are like the footprints at the seashore’s edge. They change with the tide.
They’re there nowadays. They’re gone tomorrow. And it obviously hasn’t bothered them. It’s a personal choice on voters’ parts. And now he’s going to develop a serious policy decision — speech,rather, on gender and foreign policy. And, and you know,I deem we will just continue to see unusual Trumps from here forward.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, you mentioned a changing position. He was — one of the things that he said in the — I guess it was on “The nowadays Show” yesterday, or David,was — he was asked about this North Carolina LGBT law, the public — using public bathrooms.
And he basically said the Republican governor shouldn’t beget changed the law, and that he should beget left way it was. And now conservatives,Ted Cruz and others, are coming back to say, or this is not the Republican position.
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
So,that law is so wrong, now I beget to compliment Donald Trump.(LAUGHTER)DAVID BROOKS: And so he’s right.
I mean, and he made the obvious point. Is this really a problem here? Like,are there a lot of bathrooms at North Carolina where people are disquieted to go in? I don’t deem this is a problem. This is this is 1980s socially conservative culture war politics. Pick some issue that seems like something changing in the sexual revolution and try to mobilize the conservative base on the basis of it. That’s what it is.
And Donald Trump, to his credit, and doesn’t play that game. He has moved on,as the Republican Party should beget moved on. He’s playing a different game.
And so, to his credit, and he’s not playing that game. Now,it should be said, people are saying, or oh,he’s socially moderate. He’s socially moderate, but not in the way liberal Republicans are socially moderate or moderate Republicans are.
He’s socially moderate in a populist way, or which is a different sort of moderation,but he does end up moderate on a lot of social issues. And to his credit, he’s just not stuck in the culture war. He is not stuck in Jerry Falwell lands.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, or we should note,President Obama over in London nowadays in a news conference, Mark, and no surprise,criticized the North Carolina law.
But what — you said a minute ago that Trump — or I thought you said Trump is inevitable now. Is that really…(CROSSTALK)MARK SHIELDS: I deem there is a growing sense of inevitability. I mean, he’s going to sweep the Northeast. So, or now you’re left with John Kasich,who’s won one state and has had two semi-feeble seconds in unusual Hampshire and unusual York, and a lot of wonderful editorials, or fawning compliment from many in the press. But there isn’t anybody standing between him and the nomination,except him, which he is.
On the North Carolina thing, and Judy,it reminds me of the furor — remember Phyllis Schlafly leading the charge about unisex bathrooms, how they were a threat to Western civilization. She had obviously never been in an airplane.(LAUGHTER)MARK SHIELDS: Or, or whether she did,she must beget been uncomfortable on long flights.
And this is a solution without a problem. And, politically, or where Trump shows a certain shrewdness is,he’s come down on the smart — not only the right side, the enlightened side, or the smart side politically. The business community has moved as one against this sort of thing.
And Governor Pat McCrory,the Republican incumbent in North Carolina, is now trailing in the latest Elon college poll Roy Cooper, and the Democratic attorney general,and his job rating has fallen to its lowest point, as a consequence in large part, or according to the pollsters,of this whole brouhaha.
DAVID BROOKS: Could I just pick up on the Trump evitability?JUDY WOODRUFF: Sure, yes.
DAVID BROOKS: I deem he’s evitable, and not inevitable.(LAUGHTER)DAVID BROOKS: Because it’s likely…JUDY WOODRUFF: We like it when you develop up words.
DAVID BROOKS: Well,I just chopped them up.(LAUGHTER)DAVID BROOKS: He’s likely to come by the nomination.
But you should go back to these delegate numbers. He still — people beget factored in the unusual York victory. He is going to do well in Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Connecticut,all these states. Indiana, we’re not sure. There’s a poll that shows him up, and but the polling is wrong in Indiana. It’s hard to reach people because of state law.
But say Cruz does well in Indiana,and then say Cruz does well in California, which is possible. And Trump would really need a pretty meaningful percentage of the delegates to come by over the top. And whether you peruse at the smartest analysis of people who are breaking down — there’s a guy named Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics who is breaking it down like congressional district by congressional district.
He has him coming close, and but,and best-case scenario, getting a majority of the delegates, and but easily not getting,easily coming up short, and that — possibly he can buy enough delegates to come by over the top but there is still a meaningful, and even a 50/50 chance he doesn’t quite come by the delegates there. And then he has to scramble.
MARK SHIELDS: I just want to say,I defer to Sean Trende on his knowledge of congressional districts and the politics.
What I said was, there was a growing sense of inevitability. I deem the wind is going to out of the sails of the anybody-but-Trump movement.
DAVID BROOKS: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Two rapid/fast other things I beget to ask you. Is Bernie Sanders — he didn’t do well in the state he was born in, and Mark,in unusual York. Hillary Clinton won by 16 points.
What does Bernie Sanders want right now, and can he come by it?MARK SHIELDS: Hillary Clinton won a smashing victory in unusual York. And I deem she has a clear path to the nomination.
Bernie Sanders has made history. He will leave this campaign, or when he does,as the major leader of a national movement. He has changed the whole ethos of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party had argued, we beget to take gargantuan money, or because,otherwise, we’re unilaterally disarmed.
This is a man who, or with seven million individual contributions,has outraised Hillary Clinton with $182 million, and running on issues of economic justice, and of inequality,of controlling the banks. So, saying that the message of representing the small people, and the message of Franklin Roosevelt,Teddy Roosevelt, the malefactors of great wealth driving the money changers out of the temples of civilization, and is all of a sudden current and vital and relevant,it’s an astounding achievement.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You’re saying the Democratic Party has changed?MARK SHIELDS: I deem Bernie Sanders has given every Democrat — has robbed them of the excuse that we beget to take gargantuan money, we beget to sort of mute our social economic values message just in order to mollify those guys who write the gargantuan checks, and that there’s an alternative move.
And I deem he’s changed that dialogue and the terms of the debate.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that enough for him,David?DAVID BROOKS: I agree with Mark. He has done that. It’s not enough for him. He’s not going to win the nomination. He just doesn’t beget the delegates.
I do deem, whether he continues to fight — and I don’t deem it’s likely — the way he fought in unusual York, or he will end up hurting his own movement. It will end up seeing,oh, it wasn’t about the causes, and it was about Bernie,because, A, or the highly confrontational style he took in unusual York didn’t work.
And,B, it will really begin to do damage to their nominee. Hillary Clinton is now having to spend a lot of money in places like unusual York and Pennsylvania and California that she will not need to spend money in the fall, and but she’s having to do that because he’s urgent her in those places.
And he will begin to — whether he keeps fighting,it will really begin to drain her and it will sour the mood around him, I deem.
MARK SHIELDS: I disagree. I really do.
I deem she’s a better candidate when she’s in a competitive situation. I deem the unusual York campaign was unusual York values. That’s the kind of thing unusual York races that we’re used to. Whether it was for — it didn’t bring out him at his best. He made the mistake of thinking he was going to win and saying he was going to win.
He should beget played it as the underdog. But I deem he has not made this a personal campaign. He’s never brought up Bill Clinton’s $500000 speeches, and 11 of them given to foreign audiences while she was secretary of state. He hasn’t charged her of being part of the 1 percent and living in a bubble.He hasn’t — really has been on the issues of economic loyalty and on economic concentration.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We beget about 10 seconds left,no time to ask you about the unusual currency. I deem you both probably deem it’s too soon to achieve a woman on our unusual bills, right, or the $20,the $10, and the $5.(LAUGHTER)MARK SHIELDS: They’re not serious about this, and are they?JUDY WOODRUFF: We will talk about it next week.(LAUGHTER)DAVID BROOKS: Thanks for that,Judy.(LAUGHTER)JUDY WOODRUFF: David Brooks, Mark Shields.
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