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AMY GOODMAN: As of today, President Trump has been in office for 36 days. Theres already a growing chorus of voices calling for his impeachment. Nearly 900,000 people have signed an online petition entitled "Impeach Donald Trump Now." Thousands of protesters poured into the streets Monday for "Not My Presidents Day" marches across the country. Thousands more stormed Republican town halls this week to confront Republican leaders over their support for Trump.

Even the city of Richmond, California, has joined the movement. On Tuesday, the Richmond City Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution calling on Congress to consider Trumps impeachment, arguing Trump is in violation of the Constitutions Emoluments Clause, which prohibits people holding federal office from accepting payments from foreign governments.

The demand for Trumps impeachment comes as he presides over an understaffed White House in near constant crisis. This comes as White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus sought unsuccessfully to have the FBI refute news reports that Donald Trumps campaign advisers were in frequent contact with Russian intelligence agents ahead of Novembers election. Thats according to CNN, which reported on Thursday the FBI declined to publicly corroborate Priebuss denial. Priebuss outreach to the FBI violated policies intended to limit communications between the White House and the FBI on pending investigations. Priebus denied the reports during an interview Sunday on Meet the Press.

REINCE PRIEBUS: I know what they were told by the FBI, because Ive talked to the FBI. I know what theyre saying. I wouldnt be on your show right now telling you that weve been assured that theres nothing to The New York Times story, if I actually wasnt assuredand, by the way, if I didnt actually have clearance to make this comment.

AMY GOODMAN: Allegations of White House communications with the FBI during the investigation into Russias influence have raised questions about whether the Trump administration has violated ethics restrictions meant to protect such investigations from political influence. Theyve also drawn comparisons to former President Richard Nixons 1972 discussion with aides who used the CIA to push the FBI away from investigating the Watergate burglary that later led to Nixons resignation.

Will the constant chaos, confusion and conflicts of interest in the Trump administration lead to President Trumps impeachment? Well, for more, we go to someone whos been at the center of the unraveling of a presidency and a vote for impeachment. Thats right, President Richard Nixons White House counsel, John Dean. Hes the author of several books, including The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It and Conservatives Without Conscience, as well as Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches.

John Dean, welcome to Democracy Now!

JOHN DEAN: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: So, we have 36 days so far into this presidency. It took a second term of office for President Nixon before the House Judiciary Committee voted on articles of impeachment against him. He would later resign, so he wasnt impeached. But can you talk about where Donald Trump is right now?

JOHN DEAN: Well, what I see and hear, in following it, are echoes of Watergate. If you recall, Watergate ran about 900 days. In other words, it went on for years, starting with a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee and right up to Richard Nixons resignation, followed by the conviction of his top aides. So it ran a long time. What were seeing is very accelerated. Its partially responsible because of the media and the technology today, but its also the behavior of Trump and his aides, as well as the medias vigilance on this. So were seeing things accelerated. And what I see or hear are echoes of Watergate. We dont have Watergate 2.0 yet, but we have something that is beginning to look like it could go there.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to turn right now to what took place in Richmond, California. It became the first U.S. city to call for an investigation into whether to impeach President Trump. A resolution approved by the Richmond City Council states Trump is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits people holding federal office from accepting payments from foreign governments. These are some of the city officials who voted unanimously in favor of the impeachment resolution.

COUNCILMEMBER JAEL MYRICK: Ordinarily, it would be odd to be talking about thewell, everything about this administration is odd. But it would be odd to be talking about the impeachment of a president only a month into his term. Unfortunately, with this president, its oddly appropriate.

COUNCILMEMBER JOVANKA BECKLES: The word is very, very clear that the residents of these United States are not in alignment with his movement of hate, his movement of fear, his movement of bullying and intimidation, and his movement of just out-and-out lies.

AMY GOODMAN: Voices of the city councilmembers in Richmond, California. Do you think what theyre accusing President Trump of could lead to his impeachment?

JOHN DEAN: It could lead there, Amy, if the Republicans didnt control both houses of Congress. Its a beginning. It takes a lot of momentum, much more than one city. It takes hundreds of cities. It takes really a national change of attitude about this president before were going to have an impeachment. Right today, given the fact that the House and Senate are controlled by the Republicans, theyre not going to impeach their president. As long as he gives them what they want and signs into legislation or signs into law a lot of the things that theyve had in their dreams for many years, theyre not going to give him any problem. Soand hes not going to give them any problem, because he doesnt want to have a fight with them. So, its going to be a while. Impeachment is not a legal process. Its a quasi-legal process, but its primarily a political process. And were not there yet. Now, a lot of people might like it. Its not going to happen until the political process reaches that stage.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me ask you about this latest breaking news out of CNN and also The New York Times, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus seeking unsuccessfully to have the FBI refute news reports that Donald Trumps campaign advisers were in frequent touch with Russian intelligence agents ahead of Novembers election, CNN also reporting Thursday the FBI declined to publicly corroborate Priebuss denial, Priebuss outreach to the FBI violating policies intended to limit communications between the White House and the FBI on pending investigations. And this goes back to Watergate, when you were at the White House.

JOHN DEAN: It does.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what is improper here, and possibly what is illegal here? And talk about your position as White House counsel at the time. What were you seeing happening there? And what these allegationswhy they are so significant?

JOHN DEAN: Theres actually nothing illegal about talking to the FBI. Nobody has to talk to the FBI when they come to see them or knock on their door, unless theyre carrying a subpoena or acting directly for a grand jury. To my knowledge, theres no grand jury at this stage of any kind of inquiry into Mr. Trumps or his aides conduct. So, theres probably nothing overtly illegal. There is a policy that was written in the late 2000s between the FBI and anybody in the rest of the executive branch, or the Congress, for that matter, talking to them about a ongoing investigation. That appears to be the regulation that may have been violated. And what happened is, one of the assistant directors pulled Priebus aside in the White House after a meeting and just said The New York Times story is a little bit overboard.

AMY GOODMAN: McCabe of the FBI.

JOHN DEAN: Yes, yes, excuse methe FBI investigation was a little bit overboard as reported by The New York Times. And it was just a passing remark. And then Priebus tried, apparently, to reach back and get more out of them. And thats where he probably crossed the linea regulatory line, not a legal line. So, but this is a

AMY GOODMAN: This is pressuring both McCabe and then a call to the head of the FBI, Comey

JOHN DEAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: to get them to publicly say that these stories about the contact between Trumps people and Russia were not true.

JOHN DEAN: It was an effort on behalf of the White House that failed. Comey was not about to buy into it. He has an ongoing investigation, and he wasnt about to undercut it by giving that kind of comment to Priebus. So, thatthis investigation has to play out. And it will play out. It will play out on Capitol Hill. It will play out in the FBI.

Russia kind of breaks down into three categories. Theres the pre-election activity: Did the Trump campaign have contact with Russians and somehow know that they were hacking into the DNC, trying to hurt Hillary and help Trump? Thats the first question. Then theres the period between the election and the inauguration, when Flynn was having contact with the ambassador. Did the president, and how manywho else on his staff was involved in those efforts to try to possibly undercut the Obama administration? And, of course, the third big area that theyre investigating is: What is the truth or falsity of the dossier that appeared from the MI6 former employee, a fellow by the name of Steele, who reported what he was finding from some of his contacts in Russia as to whether or not Russia had compromised Donald Trump? Those are sort of the big three areas theyre looking at in the Russian investigation. And any one of those could cause Mr. Trump a serious problem.

AMY GOODMAN: Back in 1972, you had Richard Nixon discussing with aides using the CIA to push the FBI from investigating the Watergate burglary. Were you in on those discussions?

JOHN DEAN: What happened is, before that happened, I had been overI had been called over by the acting director of the FBI, Pat Gray, to have an update and a report. And I came back and reported to Haldeman what was going on. Its interesting, Amy. And Ive gone through every single Watergate conversation for the book I did, The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It. We transcribed everything, about 600 tapes that had never been heard before. So I tracked it from the beginning to the end. And what happened in that conversation is Haldeman sort of took what I told him and pushed it much further than either Mitchell or I thought appropriate, and tried to sell the president on this as being a tool to use the CIA to cut off the FBI. Now, that was later called an obstruction of justice. Im not sure, technically, it was. But what it did is it caught Richard Nixon in a lie, because he had denied he had known anything about any cover-up until I told him much later, when I started having direct dealings with him. And it was the lie that caught him more than that particular incident.

AMY GOODMAN: Were going to break and then come back to this discussion. Were talking to John Dean, who served as counsel to the presidentthat was President Nixonauthor of a number of books, including The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It and Conservatives Without Conscience, as well as Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. Well be back with him in a minute, and then well go to our exclusive interview with Seattle Seahawks football star Michael Bennett, why he chose not to go on an Israeli government-sponsored trip to Israel. Stay with us.

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As Calls Grow to Impeach Trump, Former Nixon Counsel John Dean Sees "Echoes of Watergate" - Democracy Now!

It may be the most widely debated and commented upon newspaper slogan since ... well, has there ever been a widely debated newspaper slogan?

The Washington Post added a new phrase beneath its online masthead this week Democracy Dies in Darkness and the commentary flowed immediately. The slogan quickly trended on Twitter, drawing tweets even from the Peoples Daily newspaper in China. It was fodder for a few late-night cracks from Stephen Colbert, who suggested some of the rejected phrases included No, You Shut Up, Come at Me, Bro and We Took Down Nixon Who Wants Next?

Others called it ominous, awesome, and heavy-handed. Slate offered an alternative list: 15 Metal Albums Whose Titles Are Less Dark Than The Washington Posts New Motto.

The addition of the dramatic and alliterative phrase was generally misinterpreted as an indirect reply to President Trumps phrasemaking about the news media (dishonest, the enemy of the American people, etc.). But thats not the case.

The Post decided to come up with a slogan nearly a year ago, long before Trump was the Republican presidential nominee, senior executives said. The paper hasnt had an official slogan in its 140-year existence, although it did get some mileage with a long-running advertising tagline, If you dont get it, you dont get it.

The papers owner, Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, used the phrase in an interview with The Posts executive editor, Martin Baron, at a tech forum at The Post last May. I think a lot of us believe this, that democracy dies in darkness, that certain institutions have a very important role in making sure that there is light, he said at the time, speaking of his reasons for buying the paper.

Bezos apparently heard the phrase from legendary investigative reporter Bob Woodward, a Post associate editor. Woodward said he referenced it during a presentation at a conference that Bezos attended in 2015 in which Woodward talked about The Last of the Presidents Men, his most recent book about the Watergate scandal.

But Woodward, who has used the phrase in reference to President Nixon for years, said he didnt coin it; he read it some years earlier in a judicial opinion in a First Amendment case. He couldnt recall the specifics of the case or the name of the judge who wrote the opinion.

It goes way back, he said. Its definitely not directed at Trump. Its about the dangers of secrecy in government, which is what I worry about most. The judge who said it got it right.

Woodwards source appears to be Judge Damon J. Keith, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, who ruled in a pre-Watergate era case that the government couldnt wiretap individuals without a warrant. In his decision, Keith apparently coined a variation on The Posts motto, writing that Democracy dies in the dark.

In any case, the phrase was at the center of discussions when a small group of Post employees, including Baron and Publisher Fred Ryan, began meeting last year to develop a slogan. One planning document for the group suggested finding a positive variation on the early contender Democracy Dies in Darkness.

The goal of the papers slogan, the document said, would be to communicate that The Post has a long-standing reputation for providing news and information with unparalleled analysis and insight. ... Our position must be conveyed disruptively so we can shake consumers out of their news-as-commodity mindset.

It added that any slogan must be memorable and may be slightly uncomfortable for us at first. It also had to be lofty, positive [and] not bossy and pithy enough to fit on a T-shirt.

The group brainstormed more than 500 would-be slogans. The choices ranged from the heroic (Dauntless Defenders of the Truth) to the clunky (American democracy lives down the street. No one keeps closer watch.) to the Zen-like (Yes. Know.).

The group ultimately ended up where it started with Democracy Dies in Darkness.

Which means that the slogan, which will be added to print copies of the paper next week, could be among the most famous four words that Woodward has ever contributed to The Post. In time, the phrase might even rival All the Presidents Men, the memorable title of the bestseller Woodward wrote with Carl Bernstein about Nixons fall.

Well, Woodward said, its better than Follow the money, the famous movie line that Woodwards character got from his anonymous Watergate source, Deep Throat.

Read the rest here:
The Washington Post's new slogan turns out to be an old saying - Washington Post

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD Mercedes Schlapp was delivering a warning about the dangers of young Americans support for socialism when she turned to face the thousands of conservatives in the crowd.

Parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles this is your responsibility, Schlapp, a columnist at the Washington Times, told a Conservative Political Action Conference event on Thursday. You have to take this message to your children and your nieces and nephews.

Schlapp was moderating a panel titled FREE-stuff vs. FREE-dom: Millennials' love affair with Bernie Sanders. It was both an exploration of young peoples skepticism toward capitalism and a brainstorming session for what should be done about it.

The old story used to be, Wait until they have a mortgage, and then theyll become conservative, said Timothy F. Mooney, an attendee who is a partner at the Republican political consulting firm Silver Bullet. I honestly dont think thats true anymore.

This week marks a celebratory moment for attendees of CPAC the first such conference since Republicans captured both branches of Congress and the White House this November. But beneath much of the enthusiasm, some conservatives here acknowledge theyre also worried that their recent victories could be undone by a generational shift toward the left.

After all, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders won more votes from those under 30 than any other presidential candidate in primary history. Donald Trump is wildly unpopular with people under 30 (they disapprove of his job performance by a 67-25 margin, according to Pew), and millennials will soon be the countrys biggest voting bloc. And polls show that, for the first time ever, young people are more supportive of socialism than capitalism.

Conservatives and free market adherents are well aware of the trend-lines and wrestling with their response.

On Thursday, 23-year-old Jonathan Stack was at CPAC with a group of young conservatives called Turning Point USA. Dozens of Turning Point students milled around the convention hall, wearing matching T-shirts with Socialism Sucks written on the front in Sanderss iconic font and style. The Bernie-themed shirts serve as a way of drawing young people into a conversation that can become an explanation of conservative and free market principles, Stack said.

When I go out to campuses, people immediately see this and they walk right up. Then they see what were talking about and we can have a good discussion, says Stack, a student at Penn State.

Of course, not every Sanders supporter is a willing convert. But Stack says many are persuadable, and he is convinced more will become so during the Trump years: Right now, its just a Bernie Sanders fad I really believe in what Trump and the Republicans can do with full control when people see those changes in two or three years, theyll change on capitalism.

Similarly, other Turning Point students agreed they had close friends who supported Sanders but that those friends didnt understand the implications of his socialism. I dont know if they know what the true form of socialism really means, said Isaac Michaud, of the University of Maine.

Once Sanderss fans did understand, many of the students believed, theyd change course. Added Alli McGough, 21, of the University of Iowa: I have a lot of friends who like Bernie. But they dont understand it they just hear, Free stuff; thats what I want. They dont understand how taxes work. Its just whats cool right now.

Joe Field, 17, a high school senior from Davenport, Iowa, said he has gone to activist training summits to learn about conservative principles. Davis is frequently debating friends of his who support Sanders in his government classes, on weekends, in school because he thinks theres no guarantee theyll eventually come back into the fold.

You cant just ignore them and say theyll come around, Field said. You have to go out every day and argue about lower taxes, and no tariffs, and stuff like that.

Older conservatives also cited a range of tools they hope will snap the Sanders spell. Some said young Americans would fall out of love with socialism as they grew older. Others expressed hope that an accelerating economy would improve millennials faith in capitalism.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said in a panel discussion that if millennials saw that national monuments that pay homage to Americas heroes, theyd be more likely to adopt American values.

"Come to Washington, go to the National Mall and see the memorials to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln all of these great people who stood for all of these great ideas, DeSantis said. Its all about articulating what it means to be an American. That sense of history and understanding, I think, will make a big difference."

Overwhelmingly, most argued the biggest difference would come from changing American education. Chris Astriab, 64, of Fairfax, Virginia, said students had forgotten Economics 101 because they failed to teach it school.

They need basic economics about how the free market works, Astriab said. These kids are so spoiled today that they don't even realize that the free market made them a possibility. Thats the biggest problem.

Other attendees cited the need to use government resources to reform American universities because the indoctrination just starts younger and younger these days, said Brandon Johnson, 43.

I dont know if its through cutting of use of funding or civil rights lawsuits, since a lot of these universities do engage in organized conspiracies to suppress assembly by conservative groups, said Johnson, a lawyer who volunteered on the Trump campaign.

If professors are saying Trump is Hitler in class, if they want to use their teaching pulpit to bully their students, they should be willing to deal with the consequences. Change the tenure system.

If fixing higher education didnt work, conservative attendees stressed that young Americans needed to be reminded of life under the Soviet Union, arguing that they were insufficiently aware of the dangers of authoritarian states under communism.

They need to take a one-week ticket to Cuba, spend some time there, and then come back and tell me about socialism, said Ana Quintana, of the Heritage Foundation, at the CPAC panel about Sanders.

This was a common refrain: The panel repeatedly mentioned lessons from countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union, saying that millennials had to understand that socialism is inseparable from dictatorship. Dr. Greg Dolin, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union and another panelist, agreed with Quintana: Part of the problem is millennials are in thrall with socialism because they havent experienced it; theyve only seen flowery eulogies to Fidel Castro.

The panelists also argued that young people simply hadnt realized that many of the products that they know and like are created by capitalism. They saw an unrecognized contradiction between millennial consumption habits and their political ideology.

Guess who is using Uber? Dolin said. [Millennials] like the freedom and the ability to pick up the phone and order food from any of the 20 restaurants in town. But you cannot have Uber and a socialist-run health care system its both or neither."

But despite the panels discussions and campus drives, at least one attendee remained convinced there was essentially nothing conservatives could do to cure young peoples love of socialism. The only people Bernie appeals to are those in college with no direction, who are like welfare students and welfare people whose money is paid for by their parents, said Geraldine Davie, 76, of Virginia.

Theres nothing conservatives can do to change those mush for brains. Theyre just going to have to wait When they have a job and a baby, they can talk to me about socialism. Because then theyll say, no thanks and become rugged individualists.

See more here:
How conservatives want to break Bernie Sanders's spell over young ... - Vox

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, from that, lets turn to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. Thats syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

So, gentlemen, Mark, lets just talk about this right now.

What do you see this energy or this emotion and anger, what does it mean coming at these Republican town halls?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, first of all, a shout-out for Congressman Lance for doing it, and for a thoughtful interview with Lisa, for having another town meeting, because several of his colleagues have tucked tail and run and ducked it.

And so the energy, Judy, is real. Theres no doubt about it. But I think Ross Baker put the point well, the political philosopher and teacher, when he said, it isnt as focused. Its quite diffuse. There are those who want to impeach Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, I hate to tell people who are concerned about it, is not going to be impeached. The American people believe in giving somebody a fair chance. Hes a new president. There have been troubles, there have been problems.

And the stock market just set 10 days in a row of new records, whether because of him or in spite of him. So thats but the energy is real. And the question is, can it be focused, can it be disciplined, can it be sustained?

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you answer all those questions?

DAVID BROOKS: First, I think Donald Trump is not going to be impeached this month. Lets not close out possibilities.

I would say a couple of things. I do think that whats happening is great and that people are active and people are just involved in the democratic process.

The Tea Party thing is only apt in some ways. The activism in the town halls, that looks superficially like it. But what the Tea Party did was, they went after the party, the Republican Party, as their vehicle. And parties is how you change history.

So, its fine to be an activist, but youre not if youre not putting up candidates, if youre not getting political, if youre not in your party, then youre probably not going to have long-term change. You will probably dissipate.

And then its tempting to remember that the Tea Party had a peak and then the Republican Party establishment sort of beat it back down. And so these things are won in a day.

And then the final thing the Tea Party had was, they fed into the philosophy that Donald Trump now embodies. So they had a different view of how the world should be governed. And so they had a lot of things that we didnt appreciate going for them as time went by.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, it did lead to something, Mark.

MARK SHIELDS: Oh, it certainly did. It led to the Republican takeover in 2010.

And Kevin McCarthy, who is now the House majority leader, was pretty open. He went out and recruited candidates who had emerged from that movement. And the Republicans in the House have paid a price for it ever since, because they cannot pass anything comprehensive or real because of the Freedom Caucus, which is the child, the product, the progeny of the Tea Party.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But to both of you just quickly, youre hearing some Republicans, youre hearing the White House saying, well, a lot of this is orchestrated, its been somebody sitting there sort of pulling the strings.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How genuine is this?

MARK SHIELDS: Its genuine.

Judy, the argument of those who are being criticized at any time, the civil rights movement forward, the anti-war movement forward, is, its always outside agitators doing it.

The Wall Street Journal had a pretty good piece yesterday that this is organic. Its not organized. Its real.

These are are there people nationally working on it? Sure. But people who are emerging are from those districts. When Tom Cotton hears a woman stand up in Arkansas and said three members of my family would be dead but for ACA, including me, and where do you get your insurance, Senator, theyre all going to be asked that. So, its genuine.

DAVID BROOKS: And theres nothing wrong with being organized.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: Things that change history tend to be organized.

And so I do think what the Tea Party also had was Obamacare and the unpopularity of that, at least at the time. And so whether there is something that is equally unpopular and equally galvanizing that is almost self-destructive from the administration, thats another factor that we will wait and see.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we will wait and see about that.

But, meantime, right now and we talked about it a few minutes ago on the show, Mark the Democrats are about to choose a new party chair. We were talking about the message of the party.

Do you hear a clear message coming from the Democrats? Do you think it matters whether they come together around any message right now?

MARK SHIELDS: Sure. It will, Judy.

But, no, I dont hear any clear, coherent message. I mean, when youre a party out of power, its the time to be a national party chair. When the party holds the White House, all the political decisions are made in the White House. And being a party chair, youre just an artifact.

But, being a party chair, you really have a chance to make a difference. but what the Democrats have to do is recognize and accept the fact that theyre at their lowest point since 1928 in the United States House of Representatives and their lowest point since 1925 in states.

So, they have got to start winning elections. That involves not some great idea, but it also involves recruiting candidates. And Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, who has given obnoxiousness a new definition in his personal behavior, oftentimes in his dealings with the press, had a very good point.

And that is, the Democrats have to do what he did when he was chairman of the Democratic House Campaign Committee, recruit veterans, recruit football players, recruit businesspeople. And I think thats what the job of the new party chair has to be.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

I guess, to me, the fundamental thing well, I guess I see a lot of people debating this in the wrong way. A lot of the debate is, should we go to the coasts, should we go to the center, should we go to the left, should we go to the right?

But Trump is instructive here, actually. You figure out, what is the crucial issue facing the country right now? And for Trump, it was that the global economy and the international world order were failing regular people.

And so he said, thats the crucial issue. Im going to take a clear stand on that issue.

And he did. And its very internally consistent. And he won with it.

For the Democrats, theyre trying to avoid having the Sanders-Clinton debate over and over again. But, to some degree, theyre sentenced to that debate. Clinton is much more embracing of the global economy and the international world order. Sanders and Warren are much less so.

And they have got to figure out which side the party is on, if theyre going to have a clear message. I think this is probably one you probably cant straddle.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, when you hear, as we heard earlier, when they say, well, opportunity for all, youre saying its got to be more specific?

DAVID BROOKS: You have got to have Franklin Roosevelt had a pretty clear line. Ronald Reagan had a pretty clear line, people who rescue parties.

And it doesnt have to be the same line that we have had for the last 40 years, because that clearly isnt working on any level. But you have got to have a pretty clear line on this crucial issue.

Basically, global capitalism, basically to support it, or is it to be opposed? Is international order to be supported, or is it to be opposed? Republicans have taken a very clear line. Democrats can have a different version of the line, or they can just say, no, we are the party of international peace and activism, and were the party thats going to have a civilized capitalism.

MARK SHIELDS: Two points.

First of all, thats way above the job description and job definition of a party chair. That is. That will be fought out in the primaries in 1920 in 2020.

(LAUGHTER)

MARK SHIELDS: Before that, in 2018 as well.

But Franklin Roosevelt also ran on a balanced budget in 1932, and the greatest president, certainly, of the 20th century. And, you know, so the idea that you lay out a predicate right now, Donald Trump has recreated the Republican Party in his image.

We saw that at the CPAC convention, Judy. That was a total surrender of the Reagan era. Ronald Reagan is gone.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Wow.

MARK SHIELDS: He is nothing but a distant memory.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gone?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, seeing that party today, I mean, he stood up and he said, you finally have a president, you finally have a president. I am the future.

And what did he get? Hosannas and huzzahs and genuflection. It was a total takeover of the conservative movement. Like, thats what the conservative movement has become, is basically an annex of the Trump campaign.

DAVID BROOKS: I wish I could disagree.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think the two are now one, that its the Trump and the conservative

DAVID BROOKS: I dont know if it will be forever, but, for this moment, yes, for sure.

Steve Bannon went to the CPAC this week and he said that there was a very important historical turning point, getting rid of the TPP. And the Republican Party has stood for that for as long as I have been alive.

And then Trump today, he you know, buy American, buy American, anti-free trade, and got big cheers. Theyre waving Russian flags, probably partly as a joke. But, still, the party has become an ethnic nationalist party.

And I dont think its just because they, oh, that we agree with Trump on some things and not on others. I do think, over the last 10 years, a lot of Republicans have decided its not working, what the party believed in, free trade, global capitalism, open borders.

They looked at basically the failed wars and they said, oh, this, us being the policeman of the world, that is not working.

And so something really serious has shifted in the minds of Republicans and certainly others.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But arent there still Republicans who say, CPAC doesnt represent me, that Im not part of the conservative movement, Im a Republican, but Im not there?

MARK SHIELDS: Sure. Absolutely.

I mean, this is a group, dont forget, that gave its presidential straw ballot to Ron Paul, Ron Paul, and Rand Paul and Rand Paul. So, they have abandoned what their libertarian values and instincts to embrace Trump.

Judy, gone is any mention of American exceptionalism. I happen to believe that twice, three times in the 20th century, the United States saved Western democracy, both World War both World Wars and the Cold War.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, youre hearing about America first.

MARK SHIELDS: But Americas exceptionalism, American leadership, the American model, the American values are not theyre something that end at the border. Theyre something that are just for us. And American responsibility is there is no mention of it.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

We had the clip earlier in the program of Trump saying: Im not president of the globe. Im president of the United States.

Reagan would have never said that. Eisenhower would have never said that, because he would have said, yes, Im president of the United States, but its in our interests to be securing a world order.

MARK SHIELDS: A citizen of the world.

DAVID BROOKS: And that is the two are so intricately linked. But Trump sees an opposition between the two. Its a very different mind-set.

The other thing that has changed and this is more detailed to CPAC than the general Republican Party is they have always been an outsider, Ann Coulter, sort of protest style, a little ruder than most Republicans. And this goes back all the way to Reagan.

Lee Atwater, Reagans strategist, had no patience for CPAC, because he thought they were sort of wild and immature, basically. And so thats always been a strain. So, its interesting how identity politics and Ann Coulter-style tactics have now blossomed. But they were always there in CPAC.

JUDY WOODRUFF: OK, just about a minute, a minute-and-a-half left.

I want to quickly ask you. We are careful about how we talk about President Trump and the news media, because we think you can quickly get into a situation, Mark, where you are looking at yourself and being a little too self-referential, any of us in the news media.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But what I want to ask both of you, quickly, is, is this something that the press thats going to begin to define the press, the presidents constant, daily saying fake news, the press is dishonest, the press makes things up?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, hes moved from the enemy being Barack Obama, now gone, fading is Hillary Clinton, and there is no question hes chosen the enemy.

I thought what Steve Bannon said yesterday was probably more chilling or more threatening than anything the president says, I mean, because he said, its a constant day. We have to defeat the press.

And President Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs, said to Turner Catledge of The New York Times: I wish you had written more, I wish you had investigated more, because it might have saved the country of the cataclysm of the Bay of Pigs.

And, you know, thats the job of a free press is to hold the lamp up, to investigate, to hold accountable. And denying access, as Sean Spicer did today, is the first step toward a dictatorship.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes.

Its both strategic, to get peoples minds off other things, and to pick an internal enemy. Its part of his psychodynamics to always care about his press coverage intensely. Hes more interested in that than anything else.

Will it to stick? Of course, I tend to think not, the fake media. But Im sure little Marco didnt think it would stick. Im sure crooked Hillary didnt think it would stick. These labels do have a certain power to them. And so we will see how it plays out.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We will see.

David Brooks, Mark Shields, thank you both.

MARK SHIELDS: Thank you, Judy.

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Shields and Brooks on tea party lessons for Democrats, remaking ... - PBS NewsHour

LEFT-OF-CENTER pundits and activists across the nation are upset about Novembers election results. As they continue grasping for answers, they are mistakenly trying to draw parallels between todays anti-Trump protests and the Tea Party movement in the false hope that political salvation is just around the corner.

When people think of the Tea Party, they often remember the national protests. However, the movements legacy was not cemented by rallies. Instead, it is being realized through continuous waves of victories at the ballot box.

Most importantly for the conservative activists, those election victories are likely to continue because there is a strong Tea Party presence in the very essence of the conservative, Republican political infrastructure.

The Tea Partys coming-of-age can be traced back to January 2010 in a special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in dark blue Massachusetts.

It was no surprise that the media reported we had no chance, as the state had not elected a Republican senator to that seat in more than 50 yearsnot to mention the fact that 62 percent of the states voters had just cast ballots in support of Barack Obama. However, the Tea Party shocked both the media and the world by winning handily and sending Scott Brown to Washington.

Through this victory, in which the Tea Party Express played the most significant role in helping to nationalize the election, we were able to prove that support for the Tea Party message was as broad as it was deep.

That victory in Massachusetts proved that conservatives could win anywhere, and that electoral message was carried on to purple states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin, where each of those senate candidates who won in November of 2010 won again in 2016.

At the gubernatorial level, weve seen the number of conservative chief executives swell to 33, complemented by conservative majorities in 69 of the 99 state legislative bodies. And, except for Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, every governor elected through the 2010 Tea Party wave was re-elected in 2014.

The key to the Tea Party support was the inclusiveness of the movement. The only litmus test was a commitment to opposing the increasing size, cost and intrusive of the federal government and supporting fewer taxes and regulatory burdens so the economy could grow and expand opportunities for all Americans.

But unlike the Tea Party, that broad support is not evident in todays anti-Trump protests. Many of these rallies were busy excluding people they disagreed with instead of trying to broaden their base.

An honest look at whats happening today also reveals a significant lack of geographic diversity, which is exactly what propelled the Tea Party.

Statistician Nate Silver, editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight and a special correspondent for ABC News, published an in-depth analysis of the anti-Trump Womans March. In his report, Silver finds that 80 percent of march attendance came in states that Clinton won. By comparison, 58 percent of the Tea Party protests were in states that Obama won in 2008.

RealClearPolitics analyst Sean Trende also explored the Democrats base problems in a series of articles titled How Trump Won, by pointing to the partys heavy, yet limited representation in mega-cities, like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Moreover, Trendes piece explored the Democrats inability to succeed in small towns. Trump won big victories throughout rural and small town America.

The result of those two realities is that even though states like California, New York and Illinois may turn out a lot of anti-Trump protests, those protesters voices are already being heard and represented by their democratically elected presidential electors, senators and congress-people.

So, unlike the Tea Party, which proved able to win competitive races, where can this anti-Trump movement go?

Five members of Congress have been chosen to serve in Trumps cabinet, and their offices will have to be filled in upcoming elections. There will be openings in Montana, Alabama, Kansas, Georgia and South Carolina. Does anyone think an anti-Trump candidate will be viable, like Scott Brown was in blue Massachusetts?

Will these protesters dare test just how populist their message is by seriously supporting candidates in any of these races? Or will they take a page from Occupy Wall Street and the recent University of California protests and allow their movement to be pre-empted by those seeking violence and destruction instead of rational debate?

My bet is these anti-Trump protesters will go the way of Bernie Sanders and seek political purity rather than political victory. Thus, the Tea Party will continue serving as the most consequential political movement in modern American politics.

Taylor Budowich is the executive director of the Tea Party Express political action committee.

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Column: Anti-Trump movement is nothing like Tea Party - Fredericksburg.com