“Brooks and Capehart on Jan. 6 video, war in Ukraine”, PBS NewsHour

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• Amna Nawaz:

  For insights into the larger implications of Tucker Carlson’s access to that January 6 footage and what the year of war in Ukraine can tell us about the future direction of that conflict and the world, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

  Good to see you both.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Hey, Amna.

• David Brooks:

  Good to see you.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Let’s pick up where Lisa left off there, Jonathan.

  This idea Speaker McCarthy has handed over these thousands of hours of security footage to Tucker Carlson, there are those who argue, just let everyone see everything and make up their own minds about it. Is there validity to that?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, sure, simply because the speaker has given all of this footage to Tucker Carlson.

  If you’re going to give it to him, you should give it to MSNBC, CNN. Give it to everyone. Give it to PBS. Give it to everyone so that they can look at it. But you know what? I don’t need to see 44,000 hours’ worth of footage.

  I watched our government being attacked by supporters of the former president live on television in real time over several hours. I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is going to do with this video, with the footage and how he’s going to present it on his show. But whatever it is, and however he does it, and whenever he does, it will be a disservice to his viewers. It will be a disservice to this country.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, we don’t know what he’s going to do with it. I am baffled, though, by this idea that it seemed like for a long time Republicans wanted to get as far away from January 6 as they could. This feels like they’re resurrecting it now.

  Why talk about it more?

  (CROSSTALK)

• David Brooks:

  Marjorie Taylor Greene was ecstatic over this.

  So this is clearly what they wanted and what they wanted in exchange for voting for Kevin McCarthy. I guess their argument is that the people on the committee were not exactly friends to Donald Trump, and so somebody who is more friendly to Donald Trump should have a whack at it.

  And so you want to pick the Edward R. Murrow of our day, Tucker Carlson.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  And so think…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Amna Nawaz:

  Sarcasm duly noted, I just want to say.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I will laugh.

  (LAUGHTER)

• David Brooks:

  I think, in general, opening it up as long as they protect the procedures of this — of the Capitol security, and as long as you don’t release those opening up widely, giving anything — any public official giving everything to one news organization, that’s just bizarre and against the rules of what we do.

  If you give it to one news organization, it should be a dump off the record, but just doing it out in front of the day, it’s just — it’s not done. You give it to the public.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Are you worried about how they will use it?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I worry about everything Tucker touches these days. I used to work for him for a long time.

  But I think the conspiracy theories are out there. There may be more conspiracy theories. It’s hard to imagine them building another mountain of nonsense on top of the existing mountain of nonsense that comes out.

• Amna Nawaz:

  We will be waiting and watching and I’m sure talking about it some more.

  That’s one of the issues dividing a lot of Americans right now. We also asked in our latest “PBS NewsHour”/Marist/NPR poll a number of other issues that Americans have varying opinions on. We asked both of you what stood out to you from that poll. And you actually pointed to the same question that I want to highlight here, which is on the question of U.S. support for Ukraine.

  When you take a look at those numbers, we asked people what they thought about the level of support. About 42 percent of people said we’re providing the right amount of support. But this number, the third of people who said we’re providing too much support, did stick out to me. And if you dig down deeper into that, there is a partisan divide as well. That’s Republicans in that group overwhelmingly feel that there is too much support from the U.S. going to Ukraine.

  Why did that stand out to you, Jonathan.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Well, it stood out to me because of what we have been hearing from the Republican House majority, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others, talking, and, even before he became speaker, Kevin McCarthy, talking about, well, maybe we’re giving too much support, we’re sending too much money to Ukraine.

  So the fact that 47 percent of Republicans say that it’s too much, and 54 percent of Trump voters say that it’s too much, to my mind, says that, after the president releases his budget on March 9, or when the president goes back to Congress for more funding, that we will then start to see this friction that we have only been talking about in theory play out in public.

  And I think, from the administration’s perspective, that kind of daylight is not helpful, because what the president has been banking on is a unified front…

• Amna Nawaz:

  Right.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  … both within the American government for Ukraine, but then among the alliance.

  And if that frays within the United States, then the fear is that that fraying could also impact the alliance as well.

• Amna Nawaz:

  What do those numbers say to you?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I mean, it’s fascinating on the Republican side.

  Our — there was a Pew poll that had similar numbers to ours, which had 40 percent of Republicans saying we’re giving too much and 41 percent said we’re giving the right amount or should give more. And you’re beginning to see this play out in the Republican field.

  And so you have got — you have got, well, Donald Trump. You have got President Tucker Carlson and other major Republican figures saying, too much, too much, too much. And then you have got, meanwhile, Tom Cotton, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley all saying, not enough, not enough, not enough, and so radically different policy agendas.

  And, this week, Ron DeSantis went on “FOX & Friends,” and he sort of danced between the two, sort of edging a little toward — but what you’re seeing is a party bitterly divided over something of real substance. And I think the primaries will just reveal that over and over again.

• Amna Nawaz:

  It’s striking too, as we mark one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine this week, a war, we should remind people, many thought would not last but a matter of days, we actually went back and saw what both of you had to say a year ago.

• David Brooks:

  Oh.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Here’s just a snippet of what you were saying a year ago when it came to the war in Ukraine.

• David Brooks:

  We were blessed to live for many years, probably all of our lives so far, in this era of rules.

  We may be ending that era and reentering an era of great power rivalries, such as we saw in the 17th century and the 18th century and the 16th century and the 15th century.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  We are seeing right there the battle between democracy and autocracy, and having democracy win is not assured, especially because democracy here in the United States is the weakest it’s been in memory.

• Amna Nawaz:

  First of all, I will say it’s nice to have you both here in person, rather than your home studios.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Amna Nawaz:

  But, Jonathan, do you still see it the same way? Does democracy stand a better chance today than it did a year ago?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes. Arguably, yes, because, at that moment, we weren’t quite sure whether Ukraine, whether President Zelenskyy, who no one had any kind of expectation of him or of the country, but we were disabused of that within — within days.

  And the fact that we are here entering year two is extraordinary. It says a lot about President Zelenskyy. It says a lot about the Ukrainian — it says more about the Ukrainian people, their willingness to fight for their — for their country, men and women, anyone. Remember those early pictures of people learning how to shoot guns because they were going to defend themselves against the Russians.

  But that fight between democracy and autocracy is still there. And we could be facing a situation where that battle is — will become more fraught as Russia gets more desperate.

• Amna Nawaz:

  David, what about you? Are we deeper into this new era, as you described it?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, we are.

  I mean, it’s hard to overestimate how big a deal this war has been. When you think about the events of the last year, it’s been — it’s been earthshaking, literally earthshaking. And, first, the humanitarian crisis has just been overwhelming. But, second, the Western alliance has been reformed. American influence in the world has expanded. Military strategy has been utterly changed by the war.

  There’s been a global decoupling of our economies. Energy flows have radically changed. Russia and China have come together. These are all sort of big events that have all been set off by this war. And I think, basically, the contradictions have become focused.

  We in the West, including Japan and other countries, but the democracy-loving countries, the countries who want to maintain the liberal world over, have been strengthened and hardened by the people of Ukraine.

  But, even this week, the Russians and the Chinese are getting closer together. And so it really looks like a global power struggle between people who want to respect human dignity and people who not so much.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Could China’s entry into this war, as we have seen U.S. officials warning against the provision of lethal aid, could that change the direction of the war?

• David Brooks:

  For sure. And one thinks of Korea, the Korean War. And so that was a war started by a Russian dictator. They had some success, but they thought the U.S. would never get involved, and they thought it would be an easy victory. It turned not to be.

  The U.S. got involved. They pushed them back. They got the Chinese involved. The Chinese altered the course of the war for a little while. And then we pushed them back. And it was a deadlock. And we signed an armistice that people thought was temporary. Turned out to be not temporary.

  And so, as people look to the future of Ukraine and the possibility of a negotiated settlement, I think a lot of will determine what happens this spring. And then we can start to think about, how can we get through a negotiated peace? But, right now, we’re not there. And I’m sure Putin is hoping China will fundamentally alter the logic of the war.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Jonathan, Americans have felt the effects of the war to some degree, right, certainly the reshaping of the global energy market, the knock-on effects of all of that, and bearing witness through the reporting, like our colleague Nick Schifrin has been doing out there.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Right.

• Amna Nawaz:

  But it’s not necessarily the same, certainly for Ukrainians and even for Europeans, who are feeling it more immediately.

  Do you think, the longer this goes on, we do see a decline in support? And what does that mean for the future of the war?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Yes, unfortunately, because of our oceans, and most of the American people have no real skin in the game, it’s easy for us to go from the euphoria of cheering on an underdog to, like, yes, this has been going on while, I’m going to go on and think about other things.

  But we, in this business, we cannot — we cannot be a part of that process. We have to keep telling the stories. We have to keep doing the reporting. We have to keep explaining why this is important. This just isn’t because Russia invaded Ukraine. There are bigger issues here that David — that David pointed out.

  And if China does provide lethal aid to Russia, how does the Biden administration hold back on those F-16s that President Zelenskyy has been asking for? If this truly is a battle between democracy and autocracy, at some point, democracy will have to — will have to rear up on his hind legs and smack down autocracy. And we could see that after we see what happens with the spring offensive.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Do you see this stretching another year, David?

• David Brooks:

  For sure, yes.

  But I see us holding still and hold — the West holding firm. I was in Dublin. And I’m waiting in my — to get my passport checked. There’s a loud Irish lady running the line. And she says: “Clear way. Clear way.”

  And she’s got this Ukrainian family at the end of the line. She said: “These people are going first. They’re going first. These are the most important people in the world right now.” And we all bow and shake hands.

  And so that Irish lady, her — on her own, will help the Western alliance stay intact.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Amna Nawaz:

  I think we can all buy into that idea.

  David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you so much.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Amna.

• David Brooks:

  Thank you.