Brooks and Capehart on Democratic concerns about Harris’ momentum

New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including the race for the White House enters its final weeks with some Democrats concerned Kamala Harris’ momentum has plateaued and Donald Trump unleashes a torrent of false statements and distortions about the federal response to hurricanes.
Geoff Bennett:
Former President Barack Obama hits the campaign trail for Kamala Harris as the race for the White House enters its final weeks, and Donald Trump unleashes a torrent of false statements and distortions about the federal response to Hurricanes Milton and Helene.
Let’s turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart. That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.
It’s great to see you both.
Jonathan Capehart:
Hey, Geoff.
Geoff Bennett:
So, the polls show a race that is as tight as ever 25 days out from Election Day, and Democrats are doing what Democrats do best. They are worrying, they are fretting that Kamala Harris’ early momentum might have stalled.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
I want to start with your assessments of the race.
David, you first. Has there been a vibe shift?
David Brooks:
Yes. I mean, her momentum has stalled. She was going, going up. Then she seemed to plateau, and I would say, if you look at the polling movement in the last week, Trump is doing slightly better, and I should emphasize slightly.
And so he’s doing a lot better in the Sun Belt swing states. In the Industrial Midwest, he’s doing slightly better, but, again, very slight. And so you would have to think — when I look at the results right now, where we are — and, of course, it could all change — I do think the decision not to pick Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, we could look back on that as a major mistake.
And, second, I think she made a mistake this week by not breaking with Joe Biden on a bunch of major issues. She was asked twice on two different shows, is anything really different? And she basically said no. And this is a country where, what, 28 percent think the country’s on the wrong track. Joe Biden has like a 41 percent approval.
It seems to me elementary act of politics, I’m my own person. This is how I would change.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan, how do you see it?
Jonathan Capehart:
The race today is the race as it was when she became the top of the ticket, as it was the night of the dreadful debate in June 27, as it was in the months before that. It’s close. It’s always going to be close. It was always going to be close.
And the fact that Democrats are panicking, I’m not shocked by it. I’m annoyed by it, because you could do all the panicking you want, but it’s going to come true if folks don’t get out and vote. And I don’t know if I agree with there’s been a vibe shift and she’s plateaued and in all of this other stuff.
I think that what’s happening is, reality is setting in. It’s going to be close. And this idea that she made a mistake in not picking Governor Shapiro, I just have to disagree with that strenuously. She picked Governor Walz. I think Governor Walz is a terrific candidate.
And I think what she needs to be doing in this campaign is continuing to go out there and do what she’s done all week this week, going out and talking to people on the various shows and podcasts and everything and telling — showing them who she is and what she’s for.
And what I found interesting is, of all the interviews, the Howard Stern interview was terrific, but I also thought her interview with Stephen Colbert was very good. And I was thinking of your column, David, in that in watching her in this interview with a comedian, you — I felt like you actually got to see the real Kamala Harris, personality-wise, but also what she stands for, what she believes in a manner that is more comfortable than when she’s sitting before “60 Minutes.”
Geoff Bennett:
Well, Jonathan teed up your column. I will ask you about it.
Jonathan Capehart:
I’m here to help.
(Laughter)
Geoff Bennett:
You wrote that she had an incredible first act, but the question now is, can she construct an effective second and third act? What might that look like?
David Brooks:
So I consulted the experts, and so I looked at what screenwriters like Aaron Sorkin and dramatists like David Mamet say about that. And they say, what drama is, it’s intention and obstacle. You want to see the main character have an acute, passionate desire. They want something very specific, but then there has to be an obstacle in their way.
And so it’s about broadcasting your acute, passionate desire. And I agree with Jonathan. Kamala Harris has begun to show, this is what I want. This is the ruling passion of my soul. But I think that has not fully come out.
And one of the things that haunts me is watching campaigns past is a disease a lot of politicians fall into, including outstanding people, which you might call hold-back-ism, which is, they’re surrounded by all these strategists. The stakes are incredibly high. They do the game plan, instead of their heart.
And so I would say Mitt Romney was a very wonderful human being, but he held back. He never really fell on the crowd and let the crowd hold him up. I’d say the same was Hillary Clinton, that she never really said, take me, this is what I want. I trust you.
And I think Harris is doing a lot better on that front as of this week, but I think there’s some ways to go.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, Barack Obama will spend the final weeks before Election Day stumping for Kamala Harris. He appeared at a rally in Pittsburgh yesterday, and he really painted a searing picture of Donald Trump as malicious and incompetent.
But before that rally, he had a stop at a campaign office and he admonished Black men, whom he suggested are hesitating to vote for Kamala Harris because she’s a woman. Take a listen.
Barack Obama, Former President of the United States: We had not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running.
Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. When I hear about this stuff, I start feeling like we don’t have enough of a sense of what’s at stake here. These are not ordinary times and these are not ordinary elections.
Geoff Bennett:
Jonathan, I’m coming to you on this, because there are Democrats who see this as unfair scapegoating. And if you’re going to focus on race and gender, you could have nearly every Black man in these swing states vote for Donald Trump and it wouldn’t be enough to make a difference.
If he was going to focus on race and gender, he could focus on white men who are breaking for Donald Trump, or go back to 2016 and the white women who put Donald Trump into the White House, effectively, who broke for Donald Trump. How do you see this?
Jonathan Capehart:
We’re talking about a Black man who is the former president of the United States and for whom this is a very personal issue.
Now, I watched the entire 15-minute remarks, and we have got to put this in context. He’s at — I’m glad you pointed out he was at a campaign office. He was talking to African American campaign workers and volunteers. And the key thing in the 15-minute remarks is when he said, and I think anybody you are talking to at a barbershop, anybody you are talking to in your house, in your family, at a church who is coming with that kind of attitude, I think you need to ask them, well, how can that be?
He is giving the people in that room the arguments and the talking points to try to convince those folks in their families, in their communities that there is a reason, not necessarily to not vote for Trump. What he’s really pushing up against is the couch,people who might opt not to vote because they don’t think the system has worked for them.
And in the entirety of these 15-minute remarks, he talks about how the change that folks want doesn’t come quickly, because that’s not how things work. And he walked through what happened during his presidency, what happened during other presidencies.
And so folks who feel like the former president was lecturing them or talking down to them or singling them out, I understand where that’s coming from, but that’s not what he’s doing. Remember, President Obama is somebody who rarely speaks out, but, when he does, it is with intention, and he means what he says, and he’s trying to get across a message.
And the fact that it’s rare when he speaks, people listen to what he says. And he hopes, the former first lady Michelle Obama hopes, but, most importantly, the Harris/Walz campaign hopes that his words will be galvanizing to those campaign workers, but also to the Black men and their Black families, motivating them to get out to the polls and vote.
Geoff Bennett:
You know, David, big picture, sometimes, it takes the former president to provide the clarity of argument that a candidate can’t provide themselves.
I mean, thinking back to 2012, it was then former President Bill Clinton who had to make this argument for Barack Obama when his campaign kind of hit a rough patch. The question, though, is, is the Obama appeal, separate from this argument about his message to Black men, is it transferable? Is it transferable these days to a Kamala Harris?
David Brooks:
Not really. I mean, people are voting for the candidate. They already voted for Barack Obama. They voted for Bill Clinton. I think it helps. Like, Bill Clinton really rescued that 2012 convention.
And, partly, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton are, like, Fernando Tatis and Shohei Ohtani, who are baseball players.
(Laughter)
Jonathan Capehart:
I got Ohtani. I knew who that was.
David Brooks:
And so they’re superstars. And so they’re really good at what they do.
And so it’s not — it doesn’t — bad to have a superstar on your team. But I think people are — they can separate one candidate from another. They know they’re voting for Kamala Harris this year.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, as you wrap up our conversation, Florida and parts of the Southeast are struggling now to recover from two hurricanes in the course of two weeks.
And we have seen how the response has been hampered by just a torrent of misinformation and disinformation from Donald Trump and others, to include Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican from Georgia, who claimed the federal government can control the weather.
You know, Charlie Warzel of “The Atlantic” has a great piece, where he says, this isn’t just a misinformation crisis. It’s something darker. It’s a cultural assault on institutions and individuals that operate in reality.
How do you see this moment that we’re living in?
Jonathan Capehart:
Well, one, let’s just call it what it is. I will call it what it is. It’s not just misinformation and disinformation. It’s lies.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes.
Jonathan Capehart:
Lies that are putting people’s lives at risk, that is tearing apart communities, people who are in danger, who are at the most stressful point in their lives trying to outrun a hurricane and being told that your government is not — where you pay taxes, your government’s not coming to help you, your government is giving money away to other people?
All lies. And what makes this even more reprehensible is that Republicans who know better are not speaking out in force and en masse to say, this is not right, this is wrong, President Trump, please stop doing what you’re doing.
I give the governors of Georgia and Florida, the Republican governors of Georgia and Florida credit for saying the Biden administration has been very helpful, pushing back against the misinformation. But I want Republicans to be more direct in saying, who’s feeding the — who’s feeding the disinformation and the lies and to hold that person accountable.
Geoff Bennett:
Is there any way back from this, when we have this ecosystem that exists where people actually believe that the federal government can control the weather, something as nonsensical as that, seriously?
(Crosstalk)
Geoff Bennett:
I mean, it’s an indictment of our time.
David Brooks:
Well, each party has to police their own side, and Republicans have failed at that big time since 2015.
I think the larger question for me is, the rise of Donald Trump shows it’s an advantage to have no conscience, that you can rise and succeed in America, both in his business career and in now in his political career,if you actually have no conception of right or wrong, you only have a conception of yourself.
And that’s sort of a disturbing lesson for a generation to come.
Geoff Bennett:
David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, thanks so much.
Jonathan Capehart:
Thanks, Geoff.
David Brooks:
Appreciate it.