JUDY WOODRUFF: And now we turn to the analysis
of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist
Mark Shields and New York Times columnist
David Brooks, both joining us from their homes.
Hello to both of you.
I want to start with President Trump today
ordering the nation's governors to open up
houses of worship, saying, there's nothing
they should do to prevent churches, synagogues
and mosques from opening up.
Mark, the president told the governors that,
if they don't go along with this, he's going
to override them, although it's not clear
he has the authority to do that.
What do you make of the president's really
relentless push to get the country to open
up, his leadership at this moment in this
pandemic?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, the churches are
an intriguing and complex problem unto themselves,
that someone would order the churches to open.
And the reality is that the biggest concern
has been gatherings of 10 or more people.
And churches frequently involve a lot more
than 10 people in close quarters. And they
also have that problem with separation.
The president's commitment as a churchgoer
brings to mind Tom Wolfe's great line about
making world safe for hypocrisy. This seems
to be more political than ecclesiastical or
theological on his part.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, David, I want to ask you
to weigh in too.
And I want to bring in the fact that we are
seeing, as the president pushes harder and
harder for the country to open up, the support
for this is breaking along partisan lines.
We had a new poll this week, "NewsHour"/NPR/Marist,
showing that more Republicans are with the
president, more Democrats are more cautious.
How do you look at all this?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
First, the president is not subtle in his
culture war fighting. He wanted to defend
Christmas against the alleged war on Christmas.
And now he is doing this.
It's a pretty naked attempt to try to appeal
to evangelical voters. Churches happen to
be one of the places where we have seen a
lot of super spreading. One of the Korean
churches was in -- early in -- was one of
the worst things that happened. And so that's
-- it's just foolish.
The second foolishness is that a national
policy here is just not a good policy. This
is very context-specific. This virus is very
decentralized. It hits one place, it doesn't
hit another.
So, every decision that should be made, in
my view, should be at the local possibilist
level. And so Trump is just -- it's just politics.
It's just words out of his mouth.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, in terms of the president's
overall determination to get the country to
open up, is this something that, in the long
run, he looks stronger as a leader for having
done this?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, I think the president,
understandably, wants to switch the subject.
It's interesting. ABC News has measured each
month people's confidence in the president's
leadership and their trust of him on handling
the coronavirus. It was -- it reached a high
of 54 percent in March. Then it dropped down
to 44 percent. And now in the latest, in May,
it's at 39 percent.
So, the president wants to get off the -- his
coronavirus shepherding and get back, he hopes,
to an economy, which was his calling card
for reelection, and that somehow, in the next
six months, he could -- well, five months,
I guess now in a couple of weeks -- that it
could get revitalized confidence and optimism
in the economy, and show some progress.
That's it. I mean, it hasn't worked for him
as surgeon general. And he's got to try and
do it as the economic chief.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And just quickly on this, David,
one other thing.
A lot of people commenting when the president
goes out, as he is trying to, he's not wearing
a mask. Does it matter that the president
doesn't?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, that's exceptionally poor
leadership. You lead by example. That's elementary
school leadership.
I think the worst thing that could happen
right now is that we -- opening and not opening
became a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats
do differ, but not all that much. You still
get 75, 77 percent of the country supporting
social distancing.
In our polarized age, you just don't get that
much. If you look at the movement in red and
blue states, there's no real difference in
how people are behaving.
There's a significant distance -- difference
in how people see the future. Democrats, by
some gigantic percentage, 80 or 90 percent,
say the worst is still ahead of us. Republicans,
by some gigantic percentage, say that worst
is still behind us.
But the fact is, the opening up is happening.
And it's happening in all 50 states, and it's
going to happen everywhere. And it's not a
political decision. It's a question of striking
a balance between safety and economic opportunity.
And so it's not an ideological issue. It's
just the delicate balance that will be different
in every single place.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, it is a political year.
It's a presidential election year.
Both the president and Joe Biden in the last
couple of days have gotten in hot water for
some statements they have made.
I want to first let you hear what Joe Biden
said this morning. He was being interviewed
by a radio host who goes by the name Charlamagne
tha God.
And here's what Joe Biden said:
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, Radio Talk Show Host:
Listen, you got to come see us when you come
to New York, V.P. Biden.
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), Presidential Candidate:
I will.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Because it's a long way
until November. We got more questions.
JOSEPH BIDEN: You got more questions.
But I tell anyone, if you have a problem figuring
out whether you're for me or Trump, then you
ain't black.
CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: It don't have nothing
to do with Trump. It has to do with the fact
I want something for my community. I would
love to see you...
JOSEPH BIDEN: Take a look at my record, man.
I extended the Voting Rights Act 25 years.
I have a record that is second to none.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, after Vice President Biden,
Mark, said, if you're not voting for me, then
you're not black, here's what he said a few
hours later.
He called into a conference of the Black U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
JOSEPH BIDEN: I have never ever, ever taken
the African-American community for granted.
And I shouldn't have been such a wise guy.
I shouldn't have been so cavalier and...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Does something like this, Mark,
hurt him?
MARK SHIELDS: It hurts. I think he corrected
it quickly.
But it was a serious mistake, Judy. It showed
a -- first of all, a sense of entitlement
of black votes, African-American vote, that
somehow that they have to vote for Joe Biden.
And that was wrong. And it was haughty. And
it had a certain arrogance about it.
And, quite bluntly, in America, this marvelous
mixing bowl of a country, whites don't get
to tell blacks what being black means. And
I think that was a mistake on Joe Biden's
part.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
The -- Tim Scott, the African-American Republican
senator from South Carolina, had a good tweet.
He said, 1.3 million African-Americans voted
for Donald Trump, and it didn't make any of
them any less black.
It's just a bad rule in general to say someone
is less black, someone's less Jew, someone's
less Catholic. These are just tropes we don't
need. And so he said something. He was trying
to be funny on a show that's very edgy, and
he apologized for it.
So, to have a president who apologizes, that
might be a relief to a lot of people.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And so, Mark, the president
got in some hot water himself.
He was in Michigan yesterday visiting a Ford
assembly plant. He referred to Henry Ford,
the founder, of course, of the company, spoke
about what great bloodlines he had, which
a lot of people picked up on. Henry Ford was
known to be anti-Semitic. He praised Adolf
Hitler back in the late 1930s.
How does this add, or not, to our understanding
of President Trump?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, it's either -- either
he is stupid, unaware of Henry Ford, and is
talking in code language about bloodlines,
which just smack of eugenics and racial superiority
doctrines, and which Henry Ford was a major
pamphleteer.
I mean, he was a -- he wasn't a casual anti-Semite.
He was a practicing and convinced anti-Semite,
who accepted the cross of the German Eagle
Award from the Nazis in 1938. I mean, so it
wasn't just a casual thing.
So it was -- on Trump, it shows either the
insensitivity, or it's some sort of a subtle
whistle talk to white racists or white supremacists
that he admires them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, does -- do you think
it hurts the president?
DAVID BROOKS: No, I'm going with ignorance
on this one.
First, when he does -- dog-whistles, Trump
is not subtle about it. So I'm not sure why
he would start being subtle now. I just think
the guy doesn't read books. And so to know
the history of Henry Ford, to know what he
did in the '20s and '30s and what sort of
person he was, would require reading a history
book.
And I -- it could be that he knew all this,
but I don't think you see it watching cable
TV 10 hours a day. So, I'm going to give him
the benefit that he just didn't know.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, while we're talking about
the election, the contest between these two
men, Mark, the president has been on a campaign
lately against mail-in voting.
This is something Democrats are talking up.
The president is saying it's -- it leads to
fraud, it's illegal.
Is this something that could end up a serious
issue in the fall in November?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, it could be an issue,
Judy, but this is not the opening salvo.
Just to point out, it has been a Republican
organized effort for more than the last decade
to limit the number of voting precincts, to
make registration more difficult, to introduce
photo I.D. requirements, to -- all of this
totally bogus and fraudulent idea of voter
imitation, and that there are people voting
many times under several identities.
The most exhaustive study on this subject
was done by Loyola University Law School.
And between 2004 and 2014, they got 31 documented
cases of voter fraud out of a billion ballots
cast in those 10 years.
So, this is just a way of trying to discourage
and make more difficult. He criticized the
secretary of state of Michigan for sending
out applications for absentee voting to all
the voters of Michigan.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
MARK SHIELDS: But, at the same time, Judy,
he didn't mention Nebraska, Idaho, Iowa, South
Dakota, where similar letters have been sent
by the secretary of state, all of whom are
Republican states.
So, it's to suppress the turnout, not to encourage
people to vote, to discourage people to vote.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, there is no real evidence,
serious, substantive evidence, of voter fraud
in connection with mail-in voting. So, how
do you see this?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
No, there isn't. Encouraging people to vote
is good. Discouraging people to vote is bad.
We live in a democracy. Voting is a civic
act that we should be encouraged.
I'm also struck not only by the wrongness
of it, but by, in my view, the stupidity of
it for Republicans. They have got it in their
head they need to suppress voting. But if
you look at who likes mail-in voting, as Mark
said, it's a lot of Western states. They don't
want to drive so far in normal times, and
now they don't want to endanger themselves.
Mitt Romney had a comment that, in Utah, he
said, we overwhelmingly vote by mail-in, and
it works pretty well for us. If you look at
Trump voters, he's got a lot of rural voters.
And he's got, frankly, a lot of disengaged
voters, low-information voters who aren't
too active in politics, but who showed up
for Donald Trump in 2016.
It seems to me he would want to lower the
barriers to voting in order to keep those
people engaged with him.
It's all mystifying.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right.
Well, I wanted to get to the inspectors general.
Maybe you want to say something in 10 seconds.
The president in six weeks, Mark, has gotten
rid of four different inspectors general.
It's unfair to ask you about it, but maybe
three words each?
(LAUGHTER)
MARK SHIELDS: Well, it's obvious that the
president -- Susan Collins, senator from Maine,
was right.
The president was quite chastened by the impeachment
experience and is far less arrogant, hubristic
and overreaching.
No, this is -- this is just unforgivable.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And David?
DAVID BROOKS: (AUDIO GAP) bad for America.
It was sort of a haiku.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will take haiku.
Thank you both. My apology for not giving
you more time on that one.
David Brooks, Mark Shields, we thank you.
