The weekly gathering of Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks on PBS News Hour was extra animated this Friday as the duo decried DOGE’s “cruelty,” claimed “democracy is teetering,” and labeled President Trump an “extortionist.”
Host Amna Nawaz asked Brooks about Elon Musk’s Friday visit to the Pentagon, “What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?”
Brooks immediately began trashing Musk’s efforts, “To me, it's revelatory. You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world. Like, that's the essence of what it is. The second thing it is, it's cruelty and ruthlessness.”
Doubling down, Brooks continued, “And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump. People here, we don't like what you believe, and we're just getting rid of you. And so that cruelty is kind of naked. And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration. These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn. The DOGE people went to Harvard. They went to Stanford. They worked at McKinsey. These are not populists. These are elitists.”
Brooks further assessed, “These are conservative micro-elites who've been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites. And that's what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.”
Nawaz then moved to other topics, “We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.”
Turning to Capehart, she asked, “And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they're going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don't lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?”
Nawaz failed to mention the Paul Weiss situation was about a federal contractor’s DEI policies while the Columbia one revolved around the schools response, or lack thereof, to anti-Semitism on campus.
Capehart began, “It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I will focus on Perkins — I'm sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.”
Reaching desperately to find some way to claim a contractor’s HR policies are a threat to democracy, Capehart concluded:
And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard. When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary's ability to stop a president like Trump? And that's what's so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.
Brooks tried to have it both ways, “Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he's an extortionist. That's actually a difference. There's — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.”
While Brooks acknowledged that Trump’s Columbia demands were reasonable and should have been done years ago, he still lamented, “On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that. Here's my next demand. Here's my next demand.”
Finally, he claimed, “And so I think it's time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say, no more deals. We are standing up, because there will be a time — and, again, I don't think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, ‘No, no more deals.’”
Elected leaders holding a bunch of unelected, far-left college professors and administrators accountable is not a threat to democracy; it is democracy.
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Here is a transcript for the March 21 show:
PBS News Hour
3/21/2025
7:36 PM ET
AMNA NAWAZ: And a lot of that anger at town halls has been directed at Elon Musk, but, David, as Jonathan mentioned, we're 60 days into this presidency. What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, I did not have DOGE being the center of the Trump administration before January 20, but it certainly has become the center.
And, to me, it's revelatory. You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world. Like, that's the essence of what it is. The second thing it is, it's cruelty and ruthlessness. I have had so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with people inside federal agencies when the DOGE boys comes to town.
And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump. People here, we don't like what you believe, and we're just getting rid of you. And so that cruelty is kind of naked. And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration. These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn. The DOGE people went to Harvard. They went to Stanford. They worked at McKinsey.
These are not populists. These are elitists. These are conservative micro-elites who've been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites. And that's what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: And this is why people are angry, exactly to that point.
NAWAZ: Let me ask you too, about a couple of the earlier conversations we had on the show, because this is a big deal. We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.
And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they're going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don't lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?
CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I will focus on Perkins — I'm sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.
And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard.
When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary's ability to stop a president like Trump? And that's what's so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.
NAWAZ: David?
BROOKS: Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he's an extortionist. That's actually a difference. There's — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.
And so that's what we're seeing here. Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss. And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I'm hurting my institution. But if I lose $400 million, I'm also hurting my institution. These are real choices that people have to make. And I understand that.
In the case of Columbia, I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control. And if they were publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you have got a problem. And they created this problem.
So I understand why, I got to save my university. I got to save $400 million.
On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that. Here's my next demand. Here's my next demand. And if you look at the history of Zelenskyy, Macron, people — all the people who've tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they will all end up losing in the end.
And so I think it's time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say, no more deals. We are standing up, because there will be a time — and, again, I don't think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, “No, no more deals.”
