“Brooks and Marcus on political reaction to Trump officials using app to discuss Yemen plan”, PBS NewsHour

Published March 28, 2025

Mar 28, 2025

New York Times columnist David Brooks and columnist Ruth Marcus join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including Trump officials sharing sensitive information on a commercial app, the reaction to the revelation, the state of U.S. foreign relations and President Trump’s bid for Greenland.

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Geoff Bennett:From Trump officials sharing sensitive information a commercial app to Donald Trump’s bid for Greenland, it’s time now for Brooks and Marcus. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Ruth Marcus, a longtime columnist formerly of The Washington Post. Jonathan Capehart is away this evening.It’s great to have you both here.Lots of news to discuss this week, starting, David, of course, with the controversy over those secret details of pending military strikes in Yemen that were posted on that unsecured group chat that mistakenly included our friend journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.We have had a couple of days now to — more than a couple, a few days now, to digest this. What stands out to you as the consequences?
David Brooks:Yes, I have spiraled.When I first told Geoff’s story, I just thought mind-boggling incompetence, like something I have never seen before. And it just seemed like — and I have been saying for weeks, the Democrats should talk about nothing but Trump incompetence, incompetence, incompetence.But then it got uglier. I was at the gym, believe it or not, when I was — I watched Pete Hegseth come off an airplane and make his first comment, attacking Geoff. And — but just mostly it was an aggressive form of bald-face lying that is — tells you a lot about a guy.It was obvious they were caught with a screw-up. A normal human being, I really think 99 percent of human beings said, we messed up. We messed up. We’re going to fix this. We messed up.I think — but not the Trump administration. They went on a vicious attack of character assassination, of ad hominem, of all the ugliest things it’s possible to dredge up, and that was their universal instinct. And so I found it incredibly ugly as the story went on.
Geoff Bennett:Ruth, what about that? I mean, it’s characteristic of a White House that never admits wrongdoing. What do you make of the way that they have answered this national security scandal with a fiercely political argument?
Ruth Marcus, Columnist:Well, surprise. I think this is a really — I thought — when this first broke, I thought this is an incredible screw-up and a great story.And, by the way, when he came to The Washington Post as a summer intern, I was Jeffrey Goldberg’s big buddy, professional partner, so I would like to say, I get all the credit or the blame for whoever he turned out to be.(Laughter)
Ruth Marcus:But the I think this is one of these sticky moments for an administration.We saw it when Bush said, “Heck of a job, Brownie,” when we all knew that they were messing up with Katrina. We all saw it when the Biden administration messed up the exit from Afghanistan. This is one of those moments that’s actually bigger than the moment itself, because, first of all, anybody can understand, anybody at the gym understands you do not treat operational details in this insecure way.They can draw distinctions all they want about whether information was classified or not. Everybody knows this was bungled. Number two, it just illustrates what we also all knew, those of us who are honest with ourselves, which is this crew — and I will start with the FOX News host who was tapped to be the defense secretary — is not ready for prime time.If they were ready for prime time, they would not be discussing secrets like this on an open channel. And, finally, the counterpunching. You can get away with a lot. We have all made mistakes, and some of us who’ve over the years have learned even to apologize for them.If they had just said, we messed up and moved on, I think they would have served themselves better than doing what they have done now, which is to attack Jeffrey Goldberg, who was a — the only responsible participant in this whole event.And people don’t — are not going to treat this — this is going to be remembered as a bad moment for this administration.
Geoff Bennett:And, David, there’s also the substance of what was said on this chat. I mean, the Trump administration has signaled that the transatlantic alliance, as we know it, is over, at least as compared to the last 80 years of history.But, in private, on this chat, what we saw from J.D. Vance, he says, I just hate bailing Europe out again. The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, described Europe as freeloading in the chat. He calls the continent pathetic.What does that lay bare, and what are the implications of that?
David Brooks:Yes, this is our level of foreign policy thinking, like, oh, we don’t like those guys.Basically, you have got an administration and these guys, down to the ground, they divide everything into hard and soft. And they think Putin is hard and Europe is soft. They think universities are soft and they’re hard. And so, are you masculine or not? And they code Europe as soft, which is ridiculous. Europe is a diverse country with a lot of hard people and soft people.But this is part of a — not only one screw-up. We have had two months or 50 days, wherever we are, of a comprehensive weakening of our security apparatus. They’re diverting FBI agents away from terrorism. They’re firing people who are now being recruited, I have read, by Chinese and Russian agents to see if — the former U.S. employees.They’re gutting the national — the nuclear security Agency. They’re gutting the security clearances. So this is a comprehensive assault that will make America less safe.
Geoff Bennett:Meantime, let’s talk about Greenland, because, as we reported earlier this evening, the vice president, he led a delegation there, and it was reflective of President Trump’s desire to control this semiautonomous Danish territory.What do you make of President Trump threatening territorial expansion in the Western Hemisphere, trying to annex Greenland? How does that contrast with his America first ideology and his rhetoric?
Ruth Marcus:America only. It’s not just America first. It’s America only. It’s the toddler who says, I see that, I want it, give it to me. It could be Greenland. It could be Canada. It could be the Panama Canal back.Whatever he wants, he’s going to get, as if there isn’t what we thought was an international rules-based order. And just to amplify what David was saying, though I do want to say feminine is not necessarily bad.(Crosstalk)
David Brooks:Yes. Yes. I was trying to talk in their voice, yes.
Ruth Marcus:I will take it…
David Brooks:Yes. OK. Ruth is going to beat me up after this.(Laughter)
Ruth Marcus:I am not going to beat you up, because that would be not feminine of me.(Laughter)
Ruth Marcus:But we are — I used to ask during the first Trump administration when I would see foreign policy experts about how reparable the damage was.And I thought — and they would say it was irreparable, and I would say, well maybe we can fix it. And I thought President Biden did a very good job of knitting back together alliances that had been terribly frayed. When I see the way President Trump is talking about Greenland, I must have it, or the way he’s talking about, he and others are talking about European allies, they’re freeloaders, or the way he talks about the 51st state, I think we are not going to be able to put this broken system back together once he’s gone.And I think that is a very scary moment.
Geoff Bennett:Do you see a through line here? I mean, if you look at his America first rhetoric, and now this expansionist rhetoric, make sense of it for us.
David Brooks:Yes, some of it is I think what Ruth said. It’s just a kid wanting things.But if there’s a through line, I guess he has some thing in his head — well, first he’s delusional if he thinks the Greenlanders want to be Americans. And if some big — Donald Trump comes and say, I want you to join our country, who — what country on Earth is going to say, oh, OK, we will do that?But the through line, if I can think of it, is, he really likes the late 19th century. And this was an era of American — of ugly American imperialism. And so I think he — we had territorial expansion, Philippines and all over — all this stuff. And it was not a good moment in American history. But he somehow wants to do it all over again.And so he has this thing for McKinley. But if you go back to, Spanish-Mexican war, like you — all this stuff was just a dark moment. And I think it’s what he likes.
Ruth Marcus:The world might have worked that way then. It does not work that way now. It needs to work through a lot — if it’s going to work, it needs to work through alliances of people who treat their allies with respect. And they can save the masculinity for their enemies.(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:Lastly, Ruth, it’s great to have you here. After an impressive and impactful career at The Washington Post, you decided to step down. Help us understand why.
Ruth Marcus:Well, first, I want to say that I’m really grateful to be here at the “News Hour.”And the reason is, after I decided to resign after 40 days, six months and six days, but who’s counting?
Geoff Bennett:Forty years.
David Brooks:Forty years.
Ruth Marcus:Forty years. Sorry, 40 years, six — yes, thank you.I had, among other comments, a lot of people from the — who are viewers of the “News Hour,” saying, we hope we will see you there. So I’m very grateful that you’re having me, even though I’m kind of professionally unhoused for the moment.(Laughter)
Ruth Marcus:I decided to — I had to resign because I could no longer tell my readers that I was able to write what I wanted about the things that I thought were most important to say.And what happened was, back in October, when Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, decided not to run the already drafted endorsement of Kamala Harris and not to run presidential endorsements later, I disagreed with that decision and I wrote a column expressing my, I thought, polite disagreement with that decision. And it ran.When Jeff Bezos decided that he was going to shift that — the opinion section more broadly in a way to limit dissent, as David pointed out on this segment when Jonathan was here, I also wrote a column. And that column, I had to write it because it was what I believed. I had written the previous column. That column didn’t run.And when that column didn’t run, I knew that my time at The Post had come to an end because I could no longer write what I wanted to say.
Geoff Bennett:Well, we are glad to have you here.
Ruth Marcus:Thank you.
Geoff Bennett:Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, thanks so much. And have a great weekend.
David Brooks:You too.
Ruth Marcus:Thanks. You too.