AMNA NAWAZ: From more on the moon the ground from voters and the other big political stories that are shaping the week, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Capehart.

That is New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Great to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's pick up where Lisa left off there.

David, kick us off here.

The anger she reported on yesterday from people at a town hall for Republican lawmaker in Nebraska, frustration with the Democratic lawmaker tonight, he's not doing more, what do you take away from this?

And what do you think lawmakers are taking away from these town halls during this recess?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's a traumatic time, obviously.

A lot of us feel traumatized and embarrassed, grief-ridden by what's happening in the country.

But a couple of things have to be said.

First, the town halls are not representative of where the country is.

Obviously, people who show up at a town hall are unrepresentative.

And if you look where the country is, you have got to have anecdotes, like a town hall.

Oh, maybe that's something.

But then you have got to have data.

And so far, the polls show Trump is slipping a little, but not a lot.

And so we haven't yet seen the kind of collapse the town halls kind of suggest.

The second thing is, what does fight mean in this context?

Like, we all want to fight back.

But what does fight mean?

Does fight mean going on social media and saying something all your followers agree with?

Like, that doesn't sound like fighting to me.

It may make you feel good, but that doesn't sound like fighting.

And so, to me, fighting is probably the wrong word in a democracy.

Persuasion is the right word.

And I do think there are persuadable Trump voters, and those are the people you have to care about.

He's not going to worry if people in Indivisible don't like him.

If you can persuade Trump voters that he is incompetent.

Don't go after moral outrage.

Say, he just doesn't know what he's doing, and he's causing you serious harm, and specify what the harm is.

He's taking away this medical care.

He's taking away that.

He's taking away that.

You can't get your passport renewed.

You can't get your VA benefits.

The history shows you have got to have very specific things that they are losing, that people are losing, that Trump supporters are losing that will get them to change their mind.

Just screaming, marching, resistance, the stuff that was tried in 2017, don't really think that works.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, persuade not fight?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Breaking news, I disagree.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I disagree.

Look, when Democrats talk about fight, they're not talking about it in the -- in terms of violence, in terms of not having any purpose.

People are angry.

These aren't just progressives.

It's not just people from Indivisible.

It's people around the country who see what has been happening since January 20, and who are very angry and very afraid.

And they run the political spectrum.

And so I think it's a mistake to say that -- to mistake the fact that the president's polling is slipping but hasn't collapsed, don't confuse that for the country not being angry.

We're just two months in.

And the president and Elon Musk have done so much in this time that the impact of what they have done is going to be felt.

And the anger and the desire of people wanting Congress, but particularly Democrats, to fight back -- and the fight is not just fighting without any reason or any purpose.

What Democrats want is for their elected members to do what Trump did for his members.

Trump fought -- Trump's followers and supporters like him because he fights.

He doesn't necessarily win, but he shows that he is fighting for them because he's standing up for them.

Democrats want their elected officials to stand up for them.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned Elon Musk, and we should mention today as well that Mr. Musk was at the Department of Defense, right, being hosted by the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth there, really an unprecedented top-level meeting that he was attending,part of his campaign, we believe, to continue to cut government spending.

And a lot of that anger at town halls has been directed at Elon Musk, but, David, as Jonathan mentioned, we're 60 days into this presidency.

What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I did not have DOGE being the center of the Trump administration before January 20.

But it certainly has become the center.

And, to me, it's revelatory.

You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world.

Like, that's the essence of what it is.

The second thing it is, it's cruelty and ruthlessness.

I have had so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with people inside federal agencies when the DOGE boys comes to count.

And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump.

People here, we don't like what you believe, and we're just getting rid of you.

And so that cruelty is kind of naked.

And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration.

These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn.

The DOGE people went to Harvard.

They went to Stanford.

They worked at McKinsey.

These are not populists.

These are elitists.

These are conservative micro elites who've been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites.

And that's what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And this is why people are angry, exactly to that point.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let me ask you too about a couple of the earlier conversations we had on the show, because this is a big deal.

We saw President Trump going after institutions, including big law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.

And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration.

We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they're going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services.

Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don't lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering.

And I will focus on Perkins -- I'm sorry - - on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere.

We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive.

And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.

And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard.

When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary's ability to stop a president like Trump?

And that's what's so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.

AMNA NAWAZ: David?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he's an extortionist.

That's actually a difference.

There's -- a transaction is, we do a deal.

Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.

And so that's what we're seeing here.

Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss.

And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I'm hurting my institution.

But if I lose $400 million, I'm also hurting my institution.

These are real choices that people have to make.

And I understand that.

In the case of Columbia, I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago.

They really did get ideologically out of control.

And if they were publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you have got a problem.

And they created this problem.

So I understand why, I got to save my university.

I got to save $400 million.

On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that.

Here's my next demand.

Here's my next demand.

And if you look at the history of Zelenskyy, Macron, people -- all the people who've tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they will all end up losing in the end.

And so I think it's time for the universities as a body -- and we saw this with the Princeton president -- to say, no more deals.

We are standing up, because there will be a time -- and, again, I don't think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration.

There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals.

AMNA NAWAZ: There's the institutions.

And then there's also we're seeing the individuals who are holding the line wherever they are.

Judge Boasberg seems to be one right now who's overseeing the case that involves the wartime Alien Enemies Act the president has invoked to deport hundreds and hundreds of Venezuelan nationals to an El Salvadoran prison.

This is someone the president and Elon Musk have called for to be impeached, along with other judges.

Jonathan, impeachment of a federal judge would take Congress to act.

Do you see that happening?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't, primarily because, if they were really serious about it, they have got the Republican majorities.

They should have done it by now.

And Congressman Swalwell, Eric Swalwell of California, has called them out on this, particularly the threat against Judge Boasberg.

You want to do it?

Fine.

Bring it to the floor.

But he also said that Democrats would fight it.

And they should, because these threats against not just Judge Boasberg, but other judges, threats of impeachment, it's an attack on the judiciary.

That's the other piece of the previous answer that I gave, that they're attacking Judge Boasberg.

They're attacking other judges.

My big concern going forward is, let's say that, when the judge issues his decision, does the president, does the Trump administration abide by his decision?

And from everything that I have seen so far, I don't expect them to.

And then where are we?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

I'd just like to talk about one other set of conversations I find myself having frequently.

These are people in the judicial system, in the government agencies.

People are saying, well, if I speak out, how am I going to guarantee my safety or my family's safety?

I can't tell you how many conversations I have had in the last six or seven weeks, whatever it's been, how much does a personal security detail cost?

It turns out it really costs a lot.

But that's how people are thinking, and that's the climate of fear that pervades everything that's going on here, a sense, I have got to keep my head down or else I won't be safe.

And we didn't expect to live with that.

AMNA NAWAZ: We did not.

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, always great to see you both.

Thank you so much.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.