PBS News Hour host Amna Nawaz, Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart, and New York Times columnist David Brooks came together on Friday to mourn the first month of Donald Trump 2.0. Together, the trio would lament the supposed lack of “guardrails” that is allowing Trump to run “roughshod” over the government in pursuit of “Ivy League right-wing nihilism.”
Nawaz began with Capehart, “Can I just get both of you to briefly weigh in on this? Because we're nearing one month into the Trump presidency. Is it clear to you where the guardrails are, Jonathan?”
Capehart was naturally a doomer, “No. No. In a perfect world, Republicans on the Hill would be the guardrails, the rails. They would do things like, I don't know, maybe not approve some of these unqualified people to the Cabinet. But they haven't done it. And in the case of Speaker Johnson, he's not a guardrail. He's an enabler. He's a true believer. And so without that resistance from one of the branches of government, the executive is, I think, running roughshod.”
A solemn Nawaz then wondered, “David, do you agree with that?”
Brooks was less gloomy about “guardrails,” but still intensely critical:
Yeah, I think the courts will stand up. Even the Trump appointees, they have very firm opinions about executive power. They believe in the independent judiciary. They believe in the — that we have three branches of government. I think that those guardrails will be there. What I object to is, Donald Trump was elected mostly by working-class people who have real problems. They have health disparities with the rest of us. They have educational disparities. They have workplace — they live in communities that have — where social capital is low.
Brooks further accused Trump of being concerned with the wrong things, “Donald Trump was elected by those people. You’d think he'd care enough about them to do something on behalf of the people who elected him. Instead, he's going after, you know, USAID. He's going after any place he thinks there might be liberal people with college degrees.”
The idea of trimming the bureaucracy is a Republican idea that predates Trump, but Brooks has never been completely onboard with even that pre-Trump version of the GOP, so it was hard to take his next point too seriously, “And so what we're seeing is not populism. What we're seeing is a sort of Ivy League right-wing nihilism. And, to me, that is so disorienting and so shocking and so appalling that you can't even serve the legitimate needs of the people who put you in power. They're totally off the board this last month.”
The sad truth is USAID lost the trust of half the country, but if Trump can cut the liberal culture war bits and make USAID great again, is that really nihilism?
Here is a transcript for the February 14 show:
PBS News Hour
2/14/2025
7:43 PM ET
AMNA NAWAZ: Can I just get both of you to briefly weigh in on this? Because we're nearing one month into the Trump presidency. Is it clear to you where the guardrails are, Jonathan?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: No. No. In a perfect world, Republicans on the Hill would be the guardrails, the rails. They would do things like, I don't know, maybe not approve some of these unqualified people to the Cabinet. But they haven't done it. And in the case of Speaker Johnson, he's not a guardrail. He's an enabler. He's a true believer. And so without that resistance from one of the branches of government, the executive is, I think, running roughshod.
NAWAZ: David, do you agree with that?
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, I think the courts will stand up. Even the Trump appointees, they have very firm opinions about executive power. They believe in the independent judiciary. They believe in the — that we have three branches of government.
I think that those guardrails will be there. What I object to is, Donald Trump was elected mostly by working-class people who have real problems. They have health disparities with the rest of us. They have educational disparities. They have workplace — they live in communities that have — where social capital is low.
Donald Trump was elected by those people. You’d think he'd care enough about them to do something on behalf of the people who elected him. Instead, he's going after, you know, USAID. He's going after any place he thinks there might be liberal people with college degrees.
And so what we're seeing is not populism. What we're seeing is a sort of Ivy League right-wing nihilism. And, to me, that is so disorienting and so shocking and so appalling that you can't even serve the legitimate needs of the people who put you in power. They're totally off the board this last month.
