Brooks and Capehart talk about the response to the Minnesota ICE shootings

Jeff Bennett:

This week saw the shooting death of an American citizen by an ICE agent, and new signs of the Trump administration’s emerging vision of American leadership.

Now is the time to analyze Brooks and Capehart. These are New York Times columnist David Brooks and MS NOW’s Jonathan Capehart.

It’s been a week, gentlemen. Good to see you both.

So, Jonathan, this week was a grim turning point, as an ICE agent, as you well know, shot and killed an American citizen during an enforcement operation as part of President Trump’s expanded immigration raids. Your reaction to everything that unfolded?

Jonathan Capehart:

It’s a tragedy. Excuse me. It’s a tragedy that’s unfolding in other communities across the country.

I think Minnesota Governor Walz was right when he told the president, these federal agents, these ICE agents, they’re not making us safer. You are making society and our citizens more afraid.

Why are they not afraid? Not just because of what happened to Renee Judd, but because of the way they were operating, not just in Minneapolis, but in other cities across the country, unmarked, faceless, masked cars. People don’t know who these people are, rushing them in the streets, attacking them in their cars.

And so I think the indignation, or as I say, the righteous indignation that we’ve heard from state and local officials, from the governor, certainly from the mayor, I think is justified. And anyone applauds Mayor Frey, Mayor Frey of Minneapolis for being so upfront about what he wants ICE officers to do, and how he feels about it, which is more unreasonable, like dropping the F-bomb or killing someone living in his city by federal agents that no one asked for?

The mayor did not ask them. The governor did not ask for them.

Jeff Bennett:

Oh David, the video of the shooting went viral almost immediately. Just as quickly, the White House and Department of Homeland Security moved to label the act an act of domestic terrorism and said the ICE agent was acting in self-defense.

What does this whole thing reveal about how novels are prepared before investigations are complete?

David Brooks:

Yes, let me talk first about the general discussion, and then about the event that Jonathan was talking about.

In 1951, there was a brutal football game between Princeton and Dartmouth. After the game, the researchers sent the Princeton kids and the Dartmouth kids the same film video of the game. And the Princeton kids said, look, this movie proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Dartmouth kids took double the number of penalties.

The Dartmouth kids said, “This movie proves beyond a doubt that the Princeton kids did all the punishment.” So they were watching the same video. It is a very famous experiment in the social sciences. And I watched it happen in real time this week, because every Trump person in my feed, my social media feeds, was saying, this proves he shot her for just cause.

And every anti-Trump person on my page said it was murder. I haven’t seen a single exception. And so I think what this tells us is the norm, which is essential to democracy, of putting truth above your party and your team, and that norm is being eliminated, at least on social media, and hopefully not in real life.

As for the events of what actually happened, I will not judge what happened, because we will conduct an investigation. I’ll leave it to them. I hope Minnesota has the full information to conduct the investigation.

But what Jonathan said is absolutely true, which is that the atmosphere created by ICE is incendiary, and that people with power and guns are supposed to exercise restraint, and they are doing the opposite. The veneer of civilization is thin. And once people with guns and power start acting like thugs, well, things are going to escalate. And this is what we saw.

Jeff Bennett:

Jonathan, to David’s point about public debate, it’s like we’re living in this moment where the idea of ​​seeing and believing has been replaced by what you now think determines what you see.

Jonathan Capehart:

I mean, sure, but, I mean, maybe I’m coming at this from the point of view of being an African-American man, who for decades people have talked about racial profiling by police officers, and there’s been no video to prove it. Thus we were considered reactionary. We thought we were taking things too seriously, exaggerating, until someone videotaped Rodney King getting beaten up in Los Angeles.

Even so, people approached the matter with different viewpoints. Five years ago in Minneapolis, we saw Derek Chauvin keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9.5 minutes. Imagine if the young woman who filmed the video — who recorded this on her phone, had that video not existed, what would have been the story, the narrative that they tried to spin, even in the face of that video.

We now have a new video from Minneapolis, from Minnesota where — I mean, I understand your point, David, depending on your political view, you see what you want to see, but you see. And I think the idea of ​​the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Vice President of the United States, the President of the United States saying things, whether — you have eyes.

Just match the video to what they say. Put your politics aside. There – they’re not trying to get that car out of the snow. It’s a lie. And so I say all that to say, I applaud the people who go out into their communities, see what’s going on, pull out their phones and record it.

As we saw, many people were recording what happened to Renee Good. And it’s good for them, and it’s good for Minneapolis, and it’s good for Minnesota, but it’s also good for America, because as long as people are witnessing this with their phones and recording it, the administration from the president down can’t lie, outright lie, to the American people without there being video evidence that they’re lying.

Jeff Bennett:

Let’s shift our focus to foreign policy because President Trump is making clear that he will not be constrained by the law when he promotes a takeover or reimagining of the Western Hemisphere.

Here’s what he told the New York Times when asked if there were any limits to his global powers. “Yes, there is one thing, moral and rational. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people,” Trump said.

David?

David Brooks:

We are doomed.

(He laughed)

David Brooks:

By relying on Donald Trump’s morals, we are doomed to fail.

Sometimes, I think he’s just trying to keep the reality show going, and he has to show some signs of strength every week. But I tried to put my thoughts into the following – if I wanted to make the best case for this Venezuela process, Maduro was clearly one of the worst people in the world.

I think the best case is for Trump to be in office when a lot of really terrible systems are collapsing, and he is a destructive force, and he has some influence in causing terrible systems to collapse. This is true in Iran. The story is amazing what we see in Iran. This is true with Hamas. This is true with Hezbollah. This is true in Venezuela and Cuba.

There are a lot of terrible systems that are very weak. If he can push them back from the edge, it might be good for the world. The problem with this approach is what Stephen Miller told Jake Tapper on Monday, which is that we don’t believe in international law. We believe in strength. We believe in strength. Strong victories. Might makes right. deal with it.

The problem with that, it’s like the ICE problem, frankly. When there is restraint, when there are rules, when there is order, it makes people less violent. Between 1990 and 2014, in the world, there were fewer than 15,000 war deaths per year on average. Since 2014, there have been more than 100,000 war deaths per year around the world.

This is what you get when you erode the post-war international order. You allow brutality to prevail. And what he does with Stephen Miller might make it right, and that’s what you get.

Jeff Bennett:

How do you see that, Jonathan? If the administration works to revive the 19th century superpower view of the world and abandons the post-World War II order that the United States helped build, what is the outcome?

Jonathan Capehart:

chaos?

I mean, I look at what he did in Venezuela and I wonder: What’s the point? If it’s about regime change, is it real regime change if all you do is remove the leader and leave the regime in place? And so when you think about it that way, I now wonder, well, how much will the United States — will the American people be asked to do in Venezuela to hold that country together so that President Trump can go and get the oil?

Jeff Bennett:

How should the American people judge whether this approach makes the country safer or simply more frightening?

David Brooks:

Well, more afraid.

I mean it makes the country more afraid. If there is somehow — their logic — and again, I’m trying to be fair to the Stephen Millers of the world. Their logic is that it doesn’t matter what they think. It doesn’t matter what the party believes in Venezuela.

As long as we can intimidate them by being tough on them, they will do what we want, which is to let us build the country and we will take the oil. The immorality of it, people – my friends on the left were saying, you have to see through what George W. Bush is doing. He is waging a war for oil.

Now you don’t have to guess. Donald Trump just said so. This is the world of immorality.

Jeff Bennett:

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you, as always, for your insight.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks Jeff.

David Brooks:

Thank you.