<a class="post__byline-name-unhyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/geoff-bennett" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author"> <span itemprop="name">Geoff Bennett</span> </a> <a class="post__byline-name-hyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/geoff-bennett"> Geoff Bennett </a> <br> <a class="post__byline-name-unhyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/ian-couzens" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author"> <span itemprop="name">Ian Couzens</span> </a> <a class="post__byline-name-hyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/ian-couzens"> Ian Couzens </a> <br>Leave your feedback<br>New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including the busy first week for the Trump administration, what President Trump has prioritized since reentering the White House and his pardon of Jan. 6 rioters. <br><i>Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.</i><br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>Well, it has been a busy first week for the Trump administration.<br>To delve into what President Trump has prioritized since reentering the White House, we turn tonight to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.<br>It's good to see you both.<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Hey, Geoff.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>So President Trump is acting on his campaign promises at the quickest pace in recent memory.<br>Jonathan, what do these past few days suggest to you about how the next few years might go?<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Well, look, all the things he's doing from the pace to what exactly specifically he's doing, he told us. He told us exactly how these first few days were going to go. So that is not what's surprising.<br>What is surprising to me is just sort of the level of meanness in some parts, smallness in other parts, but also aggressiveness in other ways. And I'm thinking about his moves on immigration, his moves of snatching the security details from Pompeo…<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>Bolton.<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Bolton.<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>Fauci.<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>And Dr. Fauci.<br>I mean, this is — it is startling. But I also — politically, I understand why he's moving so quickly and so broadly, because the clock is ticking. His term is four years on paper. But the way politics runs in this town and in this country, he's got maybe a year-and-a-half, maybe two if he wants to get over the finish line a lot of these things.<br>But I will point out, there are two specific promises he did not keep. He didn't end the war in Ukraine on day one, and he didn't lower prices on day one.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>When we spoke before the inauguration, David, you said you weren't going to pre-panic, that you were going to wait and see what Donald Trump does. How are your nerves?<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>I'm still in pre-panic mode. I haven't panicked yet. I thought the Fauci, Bolton, and Pompeo, taking away the security detail was small and vicious and ugly.<br>There are other things I liked. They reformed NEPA, which is the National Environmental Policy Act, which is a Nixon era thing that got expanded under Carter. And that really was, these are environmental regulations that really did restrict home building. They restrict green energy plants. They restrict manufacturing.<br>And so one of the reasons we have high housing prices is because it's very hard to build in a lot of places, especially places like California, because of NEPA and other things. Kamala Harris said she was going to deregulate. I'm not sure she could have been able to do it, but Trump did it. And so we have much greater grounds to hopefully the home building.<br>And housing can be affordable for young people. So that's a very positive thing that Trump people did. On immigration, I obviously don't approve. He's doing what he said. And I understand why people who are undocumented in this country, the 13 to 15 million are scared, terrified out of their minds. I totally understand that.<br>But it should be said that the way politicians talk about immigration and the way policy experts talk about it is totally different. They can talk about mass deportation. But we have 750 immigration judges for a country of 330 million. Some of these judges have backlogs of like six years, eight years.<br>Who's going to pick up people? The military, the National Guard, they don't want to do this. They have a recruiting crisis already. So the changes that are going to come on the immigration front are going to be a lot slower and more drawn out than a lot of people may think.<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Although, I mean, on the campaign trail, he said, we're going to go after violent undocumented immigrants, or, as he says, illegal aliens.<br>But between the Laken Riley Act and other things, the definition of who they're going after has broadened to the point where, yes, immigrant families, families where some are documented and some are undocumented, yes, the terror in those families is real.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>Let's talk about the pardons, the January 6 pardons, for nearly all of the defendants, and then the president commuted the sentences for the remaining, I think it was four.<br>It suggests that Donald Trump doesn't feel any real constraints. I mean, he's even considering inviting some of these pardoned rioters to the White House. What's the impact, David, of that sense of impunity?<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>Well, I mean, the Proud Boys, this was a guy, one of the leaders, this was a guy who was supposed to be in prison until 2040. There's not like some misdemeanor.<br>And so these are serious violent criminals that he pardoned. And it's basically a middle finger to the Capitol Police, to law and order in general. And it's a big sign that I value Steve Bannon's opinion over rule of law.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>And he commuted, I should have said 14.<br>One of the things I have heard from Trump allies, and you mentioned this too, Jonathan, an argument-ender, was that the president said he was going to do this. He's entirely transparent. And they also point to his decisive victory, that he won every battleground state, won the popular vote and the Electoral College with the knowledge among the American people that he was going to do this, all of this, pardon the January 6'ers and the whole thing.<br>How do you quibble with an argument like that?<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Yes, the president has absolute pardon power, and he is within his right to do that.<br>But what — where I am so enraged by this, I am so tired of being jaw-boned by people who are constantly talking about backing the blue and how they're so for law enforcement and how those of us who want some accountability for police when they get things wrong, that somehow we are anti-police.<br>And yet here's this guy who just pardoned people who we all watched with our own eyes on January 6, 2021, beat and savage law enforcement officers. Five law enforcement officers died as a result of injuries and other things that happened on January 6. And he goes and he pardons them?<br>I do not want to be lectured by Republicans, and I think I speak for a lot of people who are center-left and Democrats. Do not lecture us about your support for law enforcement when you back a president who just did what he did on the January 6 people.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>Do the pardons take that cultural issue off the table for the GOP?<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>You mean defending January 6 or — oh, I mean, even the people I know who are pro-MAGA, very pro-Trump, they thought January 6 was a terrible atrocity.<br>And so he's not only catering to his base. He's catering to the edge of his base. And it should be said, in our Constitution, we have a wonderful Constitution, but the pardon power of the presidency is like in my top three bad things that are in there, because every president has abused that power, including Joe Biden just a few weeks ago. Donald Trump, of course, takes it to the next level.<br>But the crucial element of the Trump presidency is his attempt to have what I called on our show on Monday an electoral monarchy, that all power is personal. I don't have to follow the norms and rules of the Constitution because I'm king.<br>And the January 6 pardons were a perfect exemplification of that.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>And you could argue, Jonathan, that the swing state voters who were angry about high grocery prices, angry about the high cost of living, housing prices and the rest, they're still waiting to hear what Donald Trump will do on that issue in particular.<br>Does that provide an opening for Democrats in any way?<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>I mean, sure, but let's keep in mind we're only four or five days into the new Trump term. I would say let's give it another — let's see what next week holds. Maybe he will do something then.<br>But if he doesn't move specifically on bringing down prices and addressing those economic concerns of the American people writ large, but of his voters in particular, then, yes, Democrats should jump out there and point out the fact that he's kept a lot of his promises, but he hasn't kept the promises that everyone says got him elected president.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>And he's been clear — to your point about keeping a lot of his promises, he's been clear about trying to dismantle the U.S.-led the global order, telling the Davos elite this past week that you either do what's what's in our best interests, and if you don't want to play ball you're going to pay a price in the form of tariffs.<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>Yes, my small violin for the Davos elitists.<br>(Laughter)<br>(Crosstalk)<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>I would say a couple things on foreign policy.<br>The first, one thing that's I think that's been undercovered that has been truly terrible, maybe the most terrible thing for me, is the decimation of the national and national security staff, some of the intel staff. These are career people for patriotic people who work like 70-hour, 80-hour weeks. They serve every president. And they have expertise.<br>You take all those people. A lot of people showed up and they were asked to go home and we don't know if you're ever coming back. And so who's going to run our foreign policy? Get somebody who — people who don't know anything about intel? You can't learn intel by sitting on a college campus. You have to be in the intel community.<br>And so I worry about the decimation of our human capacities. I have some hopeful thoughts about just the vibe about Russia these days. Russia has — they're winning very gradually the war in Ukraine, but at tremendous economic cost, human cost, cost to the regime. And you see these little vibes that maybe Putin and Ukrainians can come to the deal, which is what Putin wants — or what Trump wants. That may happen. That may be a little hopeful glimmer.<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>What do you make, Jonathan, of Donald Trump's effort to dismantle and undermine organizations that were set up after World War II to make the world safe for democracies and to promote prosperity?<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Set up after World War II under — with whose driving force, whose leadership? American leadership.<br>I mean, we have had largely peace in the Western Hemisphere because of those institutions, because the United States and the establishment back then understood that a peaceful, prosperous world has to be one that's at peace and that also has the imprimatur of American democracy, meaning respect for the rule of law.<br>People should be free to vote for the governments, vote for their leaders and that there should be human rights and a free press, a free, uninhibited press that holds those governments accountable.<br>And what's so dangerous about now a second Trump administration is that he has shown through his actions in his first term and most definitely now, five days in, that he is running completely counter to that. And so what — how does the world look at the United States and those institutions now? Can those institutions hold without American leadership and an American president who cares about those institutions?<br><strong>Geoff Bennett:</strong><br>Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks, our thanks to you, as always. Have a good weekend.<br><strong>Jonathan Capehart:</strong><br>Thanks, Geoff.<br><strong>David Brooks:</strong><br>You too.<br><span>Watch the Full Episode</span><br>Jan 24<br><span>By</span> Laura Barrón-López, Shrai Popat, Eliot Barnhart<br>Jan 24<br><span>By</span> Nick Schifrin, Dan Sagalyn<br>Jan 24<br> <a class="post__byline-name-unhyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/geoff-bennett" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author"> <span itemprop="name">Geoff Bennett</span> </a> <a class="post__byline-name-hyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/geoff-bennett"> Geoff Bennett </a> <br>Geoff Bennett serves as co-anchor of PBS News Hour. He also serves as an NBC News and MSNBC political contributor.<br> <a class="post__byline-name-unhyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/ian-couzens" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author"> <span itemprop="name">Ian Couzens</span> </a> <a class="post__byline-name-hyphenated" href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/ian-couzens"> Ian Couzens </a> <br> <span>Support Provided By:</span> <a href="https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000677869" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more</a> <br>Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.<br>Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.<br>© 1996 - 2025 NewsHour Productions LLC. All Rights Reserved.<br>PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.<br>Sections<br>About<br>Stay Connected<br>Subscribe to Here's the Deal with Lisa Desjardins<br>Thank you. 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