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.
Hello to both of you.
David, let's start with what Vice President
Biden had to say this evening on the "NewsHour"
in response to what's happened in Minneapolis.
How do you read his message?
DAVID BROOKS: I was disappointed in it, to
be honest.
You know, I think, collectively, we have had
one of the worst weeks of our lives, 100,000
dead, an economy still in freefall, weird
conspiracy theories in the beginning of the
weekend against Joe Scarborough, a racist
incident in Central Park, murder in Minneapolis.
I want to see more outrage. I want to see
outrage at a president who's grown more contemptible
by the day, including his tweets about what
happened in Minneapolis. I want to see somebody
addressing the underlying issues that lead
to the inequalities in places like Minneapolis
and all around the country.
I just want to see a more aggressive Democratic
challenger, who's really got broad arguments
for collective change, structural change.
I want to see a candidate who is as angry
as he ought to be, to be honest.
And I understand he's trying to be moderate
and trying not to whip up flames. And that's
all to the good. He wants to win over swing
voters. But this has been an exhausting and
a terrible week. And I want to see a leader
who can reflect what we have been living through.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark, are -- what are you hearing?
Someone too moderate?
MARK SHIELDS: I agree with David. It's been
a terrible week, a horrible week.
But, Judy, this is a presidential year. It's
a political decision. American voters have
a rather strange quirk which repeats itself,
and that is, when a president disappoints
them, they go looking, quite frankly, for
what was missing in that president in the
-- in his successor.
And I think it's fair to say, as the only
president in history who has never attained
a positive job rating from his fellow citizens,
that Donald Trump has disappointed a lot of
people.
And I think what they're looking for is maturity.
I think they're looking for restraint. I think
they're looking for somebody who is a uniter,
and not a divider. And I think that's what
-- the job description that Joe Biden has
to fill in 2020.
What he had to say on the "NewsHour" tonight
was thoughtful, was restrained, was mature.
It was not stirring, as David was looking
for. But I really think that the American
people, the American voters are looking for
that maturity and that judgment in 2020.
JUDY WOODRUFF: David, what about that?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's a fair point. We want
maturity. We don't want somebody who's going
to go off crazy.
But you can err on the other side. And I do
think what this pandemic has done has exposed,
as everyone keeps saying, the structural ravines
in our society. And I do think there is a
hunger for change and change of some significant
nature.
I'm conservative. I'm not for revolution,
but I am for a comprehensive agenda, so that
when the George Floyds in the Ward 3 of Houston,
where he'd been living for so many years,
and they're going to church every week, and
they're serving in their communities, spreading
their faith, and then they go off to Minneapolis,
they're not going off to a world of danger,
and they're not living in Ward 3 Houston in
a world of danger.
And I just think changing the structure of
those neighborhoods has to be on the agenda
here, not just police training. And I'm sure
Biden believes this, but I just think that
it's got to be articulated.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It's a tall order, to put it
mildly, to change so many of the things that
we're talking about.
Mark, how does a presidential candidate -- I
mean, there is a lot of understandable frustration,
even anger on the part, not just in the African-American
community, on the part of many Americans,
watching what's happened.
What's the -- what's the right way to express
that?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, I mean, there is
a legitimate, authentic outrage. And there
should be.
I mean, Mr. Floyd joins the ranks of Eric
Garner and Freddie Gray and -- that are -- of
unarmed black men who died in police custody.
And the fact that blacks die at a rate twice
as high as whites on a per capita basis of
police violence, are the objectives of -- the
recipients of police violence in this country
is unacceptable.
And the irony is and it remains that, in these
poorest of communities, which are often crime-ridden,
there's a greater dependency on the police
for safety. And the relations between the
police and the black community in this country
are important.
And this obviously sabotages and undermines
it. But I don't think there's any question
that we're looking for healing, rather than
dividing.
But remember this, Judy. We had the first
black president in the history of the country
elected twice, elected and reelected. And
he was succeeded by the public address system
of birtherism, a man who deals in theories
that are so unacceptable and irrational, charging
that his opponent, Republican opponent, Ted
Cruz's father, who had fled Castro's Cuba,
was involved in the assassination of President
Kennedy.
And, I mean, so this is -- this is the political
landscape in which we're dealing. And I think
that's the harsh reality of 2020.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And not only that, David.
Coming back to what I think you said in your
first comment about President Trump this week,
not just in the comments last night about
looting and shooting, but in other comments
this week, that -- I mean, Twitter instituted
a new policy where they flag some of the president's
tweets, including one that had to do with
Minneapolis.
Are we sliding down a slippery slope here?
I mean, do we -- can we come back from a place
where we are now, where pretty much anything
goes on -- not just in social media, but in
public discourse?
DAVID BROOKS: We're at the bottom of some
big mountain in the Alps.
You know, what Trump said about looting leads
to shooting, he didn't make that up. That,
he got from a 1968 Miami police chief who
was a law and order, let's get the thugs.
And that had -- that is not an innocent phrase.
That is a phrase that has a long history of
brutality behind it. And so he went to that
phrase fully knowing what it was going to
lead to.
And it follows a week -- I happened to be
on "Morning Joe" on Tuesday when Mika Brzezinski
read out this dignified letter from the widower
of the young woman who died in Scarborough's
office 19 years ago.
And it was a man who was just trying to defend
the dignity of his family against rumor-mongering
from the president. And I thought that was
going to be the bottom of the week. And that
was only the beginning of the week.
And so what Twitter did to the tweet to mark
it, but not eliminate it, to me, is the right
thing. I think people need to see what Donald
Trump is doing. And I remain resolved that
this country can be united around -- against
racism, and -- but marking it, because we
should have standards.
An Internet platform has the ability to regulate
what's on the platform, and without having
liability for it. And that's what the law
says. And so I thought Twitter basically adopted
the right policy.
And the assault on Twitter, which the Trump
administration seems to be trying to do, is
an attempt to deny every platform's right
to have standards of decency.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Mark, this happens to
be the platform that President Trump, I guess
he has something like 80 some million followers.
This is the platform he uses to communicate
with his followers.
When it was suggested this week that he just
delete his account, the answer was, no, this
is the way I talk to the American people,
to the world.
MARK SHIELDS: Well, not simply to communicate
with his own followers, Judy.
It's where the president announces appointments,
announces firings, changes of policy, addresses
the world. I mean, isn't -- Donald Trump criticizing
Twitter is like a whale criticizing the ocean.
I mean, that's where he lives. That's where
he thrives. And I don't think there's any
-- anybody can dispute that.
I think the encouraging sign is that the criticism
of him, especially on the smearing of Joe
Scarborough and the allegation of somehow
he was involved in the death of a woman who
died when he was 800 miles away, one month
after he had announced his retirement from
the House of Representatives, I think -- I
think the encouraging sign is, when The Washington
Examiner and The Wall Street Journal and even
The New York Post tell the president, this
is unacceptable, this is wrong.
And, even politically, I think you can see
Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in
the House, now twice has criticized the president,
first for his attack on Marie Yovanovitch,
the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in his tweets,
and now in his tweets on Joe Scarborough,
and saying, this is -- this is wrong.
And I can see that there is a political advantage
seen, by some Republicans anyway, to distance
themselves from Donald Trump. And, for that,
I am -- I'm encouraged.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Last thing I want to ask both
of you.
And that is, David, this is the week we marked
100,000 American lives lost in this pandemic,
just in a matter of just a few weeks.
I don't even know how to ask the question,
but what is there to say at a moment like
this?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, we have had presidents
who have led us through moments of national
mourning, and they step out of politics, and
they uncloak themselves, and they just become
sufferers among a sea of sufferers.
And that's what Barack Obama did after Sandy
Hook. That's what Abraham Lincoln did after
Gettysburg, George W. Bush after 9/11, Ronald
Reagan after Challenger. They touch the sources
of our culture. They -- Robert Kennedy talked
-- quoted Aeschylus after Martin Luther King
was killed. Barack Obama sang "Amazing Grace."
They pick the things that unite us, and they
broadcast it back to us. And it allows us
to have the presence of a comforter, a presence
of a leader.
And the fact that Donald Trump didn't even
have an Oval Office address, to me, remains
mind-boggling. And so we're a country that
has to walk through this hailstorm of Twitter,
at a time when we feel vulnerable because
of what's happening all around us. And it's
just an awful moment.
And I hate to be such a downer on a Friday
evening, but this is -- it's been a bad week.
I'm sorry.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And I hate to be bringing it
up at the end of this week.
But, Mark, in about 20 seconds, how do you
pull it together?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, I mean, this is
a unique experience for America, because those
who are dying are dying alone, without the
comfort of their family.
Their families are deprived of the comforts
of the rituals of wakes and funerals and memorial
services and the company of friends and survivors
who come to comfort them.
And that at a time when we really do need
the voice, that leader who can speak to all
of us and for all of us, that is missing,
sadly, missing.
David mentioned Robert Kennedy in Indianapolis
in 1968.
Full disclosure, I was working for him in
that presidential campaign.
And he said, to those who are black, to the
black audience when he announced the assassination
of Martin Luther King, to those of you who
seek violence, and, understandably, I had
a member of my family -- for the first time,
he spoke in public of the assassination of
his brother, who was killed. And he was killed
by a white man.
And what America needs is compassion. America
needs love. And please go home and say a prayer
for Martin Luther King's family and for the
country.
And that's what we need right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Mark Shields, David Brooks,
we thank you both.
