The whole point of elections is to offer multiple competing visions for the future, but this was confusing to the cast of Friday’s PBS NewsHour with host Amna Nawaz how 2024 Republicans can “undermine” federal agencies, such as the Justice Department, while seeking to run them. Washington Post associate editor also proclaimed that such campaigning represents “projection.”
Nawaz declared that “It is striking, Jonathan, that a lot of the language is working to undermine many of the same agencies that these folks are running, are asking people to let them be in charge of, as president of the United States, right?”
Even if you take away the charges of weaponization away from this conversation, the idea that bureaucratic inertia should be allowed to run its course is antithetical to elections. Still, Nawaz wondered, “And how do you see the long-term potential consequences of something like that? Can that go back in a bottle?”
A solemn Capehart responded by declaring, “I don't know. We're living in the middle of it now. The people who are now in Washington, part of the new — this new Republican majority in the House, they were elected to come to Washington and break it… because they think it deserves to be broken, because they think it's rigged.”
Capehart then accused Republicans of projecting their own desires onto the DOJ:
A lot of the language that comes out of former President Trump and a lot of Republicans is all about projection, the weaponization of the DOJ, just that — the term weaponization. Well, we know because Donald Trump has promised, if he's re-elected, he will — he said ‘I will be your retribution. I will go after the people who are coming after me, because, if they're coming after me, that's a proxy for them coming after you.’
For all of Capehart and his fellow liberals making this allegation, when Trump was president, Hillary Clinton was not charged and Robert Mueller was never fired. Meanwhile, countless Russia collusion theories fell apart, so maybe there is a good reason why Republicans think the DOJ is “broken” and in need of reform.
Still, Capehart maintained, “That kind of language is incredibly dangerous, not just for our institutions, but also for our just national political discourse, how we talk about each other, but also, to David's point, the respect we should have for these institutions, because, without these institutions, where is America?”
Institutions should be worthy of respect and if the 2024 GOP candidates want to advance that goal, then that is a good thing.
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Here is a transcript for the June 16 show:
PBS NewsHour
6/16/2023
7:33 PM ET
AMNA NAWAZ: It is striking, Jonathan, that a lot of the language is working to undermine many of the same agencies that these folks are running, are asking people to let them be in charge of, as president of the United States, right? And how do you see the long-term potential consequences of something like that? Can that go back in a bottle?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't know. We're living in the middle of it now. The people who are now in Washington, part of the new — this new Republican majority in the House, they were elected to come to Washington and break it.
And so, you know, whether it's Donald Trump or another Republican president, the folks who vote for them hope that these people come here and break this town, because they think it deserves to be broken, because they think it's rigged.
And a lot of the language that comes out of former President Trump and a lot of Republicans is all about projection, the weaponization of the DOJ, just that — the term weaponization. Well, we know because Donald Trump has promised, if he's re-elected, he will — he said “I will be your retribution. I will go after the people who are coming after me, because, if they're coming after me, that's a proxy for them coming after you.”
That kind of language is incredibly dangerous, not just for our institutions, but also for our just national political discourse, how we talk about each other, but also, to David's point, the respect we should have for these institutions, because, without these institutions, where is America?
