Brooks and Keyhart on Trump’s approval ratings and mental acuity

Jeff Bennett:

President Trump this week tried to address his low approval ratings for the economy.

To analyze this and more, we now turn to Brooks and Capehart. These are New York Times columnist David Brooks and MS NOW’s Jonathan Capehart.

Good evening, gentlemen.

Jonathan Capehart:

Jeff.

Jeff Bennett:

So, President Trump is taking issue with affordability after initially saying it was a hoax perpetrated by Democrats. He talked about today’s drug prices. He carries this message on the road to the battlefield in North Carolina. Naturally, he delivered this speech to the nation on Wednesday evening.

And Jonathan, this speech comes at a time when the President’s approval ratings on the economy are weak. If the goal is to reset the political narrative before 2026, is this the way to do it?

Jonathan Capehart:

No. No, it’s not.

He literally screamed at the American people for 18 minutes, about 20 minutes. I wondered: Is he trying to convince the American people by screaming that what he is saying is true, or is he trying to convince himself?

There’s a whole lot of polls that we’ve talked about on several Fridays, showing that the American people think the country is headed in one direction, while the President of the United States insists that all is well, and it would be greater if you bought fewer pencils and fewer dolls for your kids.

So I don’t think he’s going to succeed in convincing the American people that his policies are the way to improve their lives, no matter how many speeches he gives, no matter how much debate he gives, because when he does these things, invariably, if the topic is affordability, if that’s the specific topic, he meanders into other areas that muddy his entire message.

Jeff Bennett:

Well, David, what might move skeptical voters?

David Brooks:

Low prices.

(He laughed)

David Brooks:

I met a CEO who said, when a customer complains to me, and I take it to my team, and they say, no, the customers are wrong, that’s just an anecdote, we have data, the CEO said, I always believe the anecdote, because you can’t argue with people outside of their experience.

And you go to the grocery store, and you think you didn’t buy anything, it’s $140, it’s true. Everyone feels it. So rhetoric can only do so much. People got angry. As Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal, it sounded like he was angry at his words.

I don’t think he’s panicking. Some people think he feels retreated and panicked. If you look at his overall approval rating, he’s at 42 right now, which is a normal area for him. I just think he gets more aggressive with age or because of something, with stress. It’s just a level of aggression toward everyone and everything, including us, the American people.

Jeff Bennett:

Well, let’s talk more about that, because Republicans have spent years telling voters to trust their eyes when it comes to former President Biden’s age and mental capacity.

Do Democrats now have the right to apply the same standard to President Trump? You mentioned his aggressiveness. There is definitely this growing ban. You’re looking at TRUTH Social’s post after Rob Reiner passed away. Look at the way he verbally abuses some female correspondence. How do you see it?

Jonathan Capehart:

I’ve said many times at this table, even with — to questions that have nothing to do with his mental acuity, what about his mental acuity? If any other president had said what he said or done what he did, they would have been dragged to the rug, and people would be asking, Where are the doctors? Let’s see his medical records.

And yet he goes on and does things like this. What he said in the TRUTH Social post and then in front of the cameras about Rob Reiner’s murder was a low I didn’t even think he could reach. However, he proved me wrong in trying to believe that he possessed even a shred of moral substance.

We should ask about the president’s mental acuity. We have to ask, given he’s 79, is he qualified for the job? And you just listen to what he says, and the policies that he has, just the tariffs, in particular, and no one seems to be bothered by that. But I’ll keep asking the question until more people start asking the question and we get answers from the White House.

Jeff Bennett:

David, at this point, if this were a CEO of a company, or a military leader, the expectations – for transparency, the expectations for transparency regarding one’s capabilities would be higher than they are for the president of the United States.

David Brooks:

Well, that’s been true since 2017 or 2016.

Yes, I’m concerned about its moral intensity. I mean he’s a narcissist. But Rob Reiner’s tweet was – and I would say the events of the entire week, to be honest, he takes his narcissism, which is usually at 10, and it goes up to 15 this week.

And that’s what Rob Reiner’s tweet was – you take a man who was murdered, perhaps by his own son, and tweet yourself, he can’t think of another family’s pain. This is a mental problem. It is certainly an ethical problem.

Jeff Bennett:

Let’s turn our focus to the Department of Justice, which has begun releasing documents from the Epstein Files, all of the files and possessions surrounding the life, death, and criminal investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Jonathan, now that these files are out, we expect them to be pushed out within weeks, do you expect this to finally put an end to the questions, the conspiracy theories around this case, or is there something special about this case that can’t be closed?

Jonathan Capehart:

No, I don’t think that will put an end to the questions or conspiracy theories, especially the documents that come out of the Department of Justice because of redactions.

At the beginning of the show, I showed a particular piece of paper where everything was blacked out. So, whatever the reason behind these revisions, conspiracy theorists will always find a reason to keep the conspiracy alive.

And so on until — unless and until the administration does proper accountability — remember, in the good old days, when the attorney general would come before the American people and give a very sober assessment of what they found and the hard work they had put in and pledge that we would be honest and transparent? We don’t have this.

Instead, what we experienced is a lot of ambiguity. Quite frankly, I was surprised when I got a breaking news alert that they had released the documents, because they made us expect less, and certainly expected them to ignore the law.

Jeff Bennett:

And, David, we should say there were photos of you included in the House Democrats’ statement last week, which you addressed.

David Brooks:

Yes, I’ll explain that and then move on to the bigger issue.

So, in 2011, I attended the TED conference, and there was a dinner adjacent to that conference, which, in my memory, there were maybe twenty or thirty people, different round tables. I was at that dinner. It appears that Jeffrey Epstein was present at that dinner.

As far as I know, I’ve never met him. I did not exchange a single word with him. We should be at different tables. And in my life – I’ve reviewed all my email files – I’ve never exchanged a word. I had no contact with Jeffrey Epstein. The pictures are not of me or Epstein. There’s one of me alone, because no one wants to talk to me at a party, and another of me talking to Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google.

So the bottom line is, I had no idea who Jeffrey Epstein was in 2011, so I didn’t know he was at the party, and I had no contact with him.

On the larger issue, when Ro Khanna was talking about all the women who want satisfaction, they want – I – it’s clear we all hope they get it. I would like to know why, the FBI has already investigated this a lot. If there were 20 men guilty of sexual assault, why were they not prosecuted?

I guess that’s the question I have at this moment. Why weren’t they even charged? This is where justice must be served.

Jeff Bennett:

As we wrap up our conversation here, I want to talk about the White House saying that President Trump renamed – or rather – we should say it this way – Trump appointed members to the board of the Kennedy Center, and that board voted, the board says unanimously, to rename the Kennedy Center, as you can see there, the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Arts.

It’s great, because the Kennedy Center is more than just a performance space. It is a memorial to the fallen president.

Jonathan Capehart:

That’s right, a memorial to the murdered president.

However, I take this back to the president’s mental acuity, although that does not mean he is crazy. This is him being a downright and complete narcissist. He’s already done this before. It is now the Donald J. Trump Peace Institute. He’s got something that looks like the Arc de Triomphe which will be placed on the other side of the Memorial Bridge.

I saw somewhere that memorials are usually erected to people who have left us, either by murder or death, and who have done noteworthy things. We haven’t seen, at least I haven’t, a sitting president traipsing through Washington, putting his name on anything and everything.

This is not normal. I’m glad you described what happened today the way you did. The Center cannot be legally renamed by the Kennedy Center Board of Directors or by the President of the United States. The fact that his name is now on the building less than 24 hours after this happened, tells me that the president doesn’t care about the law about anything, whether it’s about that monument or whether it’s about boats in the – off the coast of Venezuela or anything else.

Jeff Bennett:

Are we seeing an evolution here in how President Trump publicly asserts his authority?

David Brooks:

Yes, this is well placed. It is an assertion of authority. Do you think, who has big balconies everywhere?

Mao Zedong. Stalin. Authoritarian leaders know that a certain portion of the population likes it when they see a great leader loved and revered. I have a building next to my house on Capitol Hill, which is Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump, two giant pictures. It reminds you of going back to the Stalin era.

So turning yourself into a demigod is a form of psychological accumulation of power. And I think, as sad and pathetic as it sounds, I think that’s what he’s trying to do.

Jonathan Capehart:

Yes.

Jeff Bennett:

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

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks Jeff.

David Brooks:

Thank you.