GEOFF BENNETT: From fresh tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine, to town hall backlash, to major cuts to the federal work force, we 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 have you here, as always.

So let's start with Ukraine.

No one expected Donald Trump to handle global affairs like his predecessors, but he has fully adopted Russia's false propaganda on Ukraine, calling Zelenskyy a dictator, falsely stating that it was Ukraine that started the war, rhetorically turning against a democracy that was invaded in favor of the invader.

What are the implications, David?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, it's pretty revolutionary.

I mean, I think, first, you can say goodbye to NATO.

NATO is really built around Article V, the promise we make to each other that we will defend each other, and I don't think Trump is going to defend anybody else.

But I think the bigger story is a shift in values, that American foreign policy and Western foreign policy has been built around democracy promotion, human dignity, human rights.

And so we banded together to sort of promote those causes.

Donald Trump doesn't see that world that way.

He sees the world as a place where ruthless mafiosos get to do what they can.

There's a famous line from the Peloponnesian Wars that strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.

And so I think, in Donald Trump's world there are three ruthless mafioso countries.

Russia will have hegemony over its region, we will have hegemony over our region, and China will have hegemony over their region.

And so anything that gets in the way of ruthless mafioso is being eliminated.

And some of that is international alliances, but some of this is just the idea that you shouldn't interfere into other people's elections, and some of it is the idea that you shouldn't be able to invade neighboring countries.

And so all those rules are being rewritten by a -- somebody who wants to turn all of global affairs into survival of the fittest.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about that?

Are we on the precipice of the end of the alliance as we know it?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't -- there's nothing David said that I disagree with.

The language that we heard from Donald Trump in the first term was already alarming.

I'm thinking specifically of the Helsinki press conference, which -- I think it was in 2017, where he said to Vladimir Putin -- he told me he didn't do anything to our elections.

I don't see any reason not to believe him.

Now he's ratcheted that up with calling Zelenskyy a dictator.

If you are the leader of a Baltic nation, if you are the leader of Poland if you're the leader of Germany, France, you must be scared out of your mind about what this means, the rhetoric about Ukraine means for Europe.

And if you are in Taiwan, you better be prepared for what China could do.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about this idea -- and I have heard this from some Trump allies -- that it's high time we had an American leader who acted in such a way that effectively forces Europe to take control of their own security, that you could point to Dwight Eisenhower back in the 1950s, who raised concerns about Europe's sort of lackadaisical approach to their own security?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, that's a valid point.

I mean, they haven't been paying any -- as long as the Cold War was going on, they didn't have to pay their dues.

And so now they have to because the Cold War is over, so that was -- that arrangement was bound to end.

But they have upped their spending.

The amount of spending that Donald Trump wants Europe to pay as a percentage GDP, we don't even do that.

So it's an act of hypocrisy to say they're totally at the wrong.

They're somewhat at the wrong.

But that's not really what the core is here.

Look, look at what Donald Trump has been doing to Ukraine over the last week.

He sends the Treasury secretary in there, and he hands him a piece of paper said, basically, hand us over 50 percent of your mineral rights.

That is, I'm making you an author you can't refuse.

That is what -- in ancient Rome, they would go into a little country and say, give us all your money or we will kill your women.

Like, that was like an imperial power saying, tribute.

Give us tribute.

That's essentially what Donald Trump just did to Vladimir Putin (sic).

And, initially, Putin (sic) said, hell no.

But now it could be an offer he can't refuse because he needs the Americans.

And so now they're, I guess, coming close to a deal because we're taking a country that was invaded, that bravely resisted on the behalf of the Western alliance.

We're saying, pay up.

And it's -- I don't have words to describe.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And just want to jump in on something David was saying about defense expenditures.

The way Donald Trump talks about it, he says, these countries are ripping us off, as if they're paying the United States money in a protection racket.

And that's not what's happening at all.

To amplify David's point, it's just spend more of your GDP on your own defense, rise up to the level of where the United States is, relatively speaking, so that it's - - the burden is more fairly shared.

And so the way the president talks about it, it's not the real world.

And yet, to your point where people say, well, maybe we should start caring about America, those folks, I don't think, fully understand what a peaceful world with the NATO alliance, what American leadership on the global stage has meant for their own peace and prosperity here at home.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, meantime, President Trump's poll numbers appear to be falling.

New polls from CNN and The Washington Post show a majority of Americans say he's overstepped his presidential authority and hasn't done enough to address high prices.

David, when you look at these numbers more closely, what do you see?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, hey, people don't like chaos.

I mean, we saw that when Biden withdrew from Afghanistan.

People just don't like chaos.

And, second, people do rely on government, like, Postal Service, SNAP benefits, go to the National Park Service, try to get a passport renewed.

Like, if there's nobody in the office, you're going to be upset.

Finally, I think the big thing is the inflation, that inflation was -- has begun to tick up again.

If we have tariffs, it'll tick up more.

If we pass a $4 trillion unpaid-for tax cut, we will overstimulate the economy.

Inflation will tick up more.

And so the very thing that took down the Biden administration could, in turn, take down the Trump administration if inflation kicks up after his explicit promise, I'm going to bring it down.

He swore to us that interest rates would go down immediately when he was elected, and the reverse has happened.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, this seems to have come to a head last night.

Georgia Republican Congressman Rich McCormick held a town hall, and he faced an angry crowd.

And the folks there, his constituents, were upset over the steep cuts to the federal work force that had been instituted by Elon Musk and his DOGE aides.

Take a listen.

WOMAN: I would like to know, rather, the people would like to know, what you, Congressman, and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House.

(CHEERING) REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): When you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.

(SHOUTING) GEOFF BENNETT: So this is a deep red district.

Donald Trump won this district by more than 20 points.

I mean, what do you see happening here, Jonathan?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: To me, it's -- you have people in a district who voted, as you said, deep Republican district, but they didn't vote for Elon Musk.

They didn't vote for the chaos.

They don't like the fact that someone who is unelected and unaccountable is wreaking havoc on the federal government.

But, more importantly, the congressmen is from a co-equal branch of government.

The woman who was asking the question, like, what are you going to do?

You are Congress.

Why aren't you stepping in to push back against the president?

And what we saw there is that they're not willing.

I mean, you can't have guardrails if the guardrail doesn't want to guard, if Congress doesn't want to step in.

GEOFF BENNETT: And you wrote about this your -- past week in a column, where you said that it's the working-class communities that will continue to languish because Trump ignores their main challenges and focuses instead on culture war distractions, that people who voted for change want to see that change.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, the people who voted for Trump had a good reason to.

Like, high school-educated people die eight years sooner than college-educated people.

High school-educated people, their kids by sixth grade are four grade levels below college-educated people.

They're much more likely to say they're lonely.

They're much more likely to live in devastated communities without social capital.

So, if you had a populist government, they would have policies to address these serious issues.

The Trump administration is not leading with that.

They really don't have plans for any of this.

And when you look at who's in the administration, it's obvious why.

The president and Elon Musk are University of Pennsylvania graduates who are billionaires.

Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Yale.

J.D.

Vance went to Yale.

Stephen Miller went to Duke.

These are the highly educated right-wingers.

And I have been around these -- all these people all my life.

I used to be one.

And there are two types.

There are, one, people who believe in conservative governance.

And then there's the other type.

They're just anti-left.

They don't have a positive vision for conservative governments.

They want to tear down the institutions that they believe the left controls.

And so that's what they're doing.

That's what Bush -- that's what Trump goes after.

He goes after USAID.

He goes after the Forest Service.

He goes after the Department of Education.

And so it's all tearing down institutions that they believe the left controls.

And the problem with that is that the pain is born by the woman in Namibia who's going to die of AIDS, the kid in Ohio who's going to die of cancer because NIH, medical research has been gutted.

And so it's -- F. Scott Fitzgerald put it well.

Rich people are careless.

They break things.

And I think that's what's happening here.

GEOFF BENNETT: The other thing that was clear in that town hall last night is that it's one thing to campaign against a faceless bureaucracy.

It's very different when people's friends and neighbors start to lose their jobs with little to no warning, and veterans too who are losing their jobs.

How do you see it?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: There's that.

But there's also -- let's not forget the funding freeze, that you have got farmers who were depending on funding coming from the federal government.

They took out loans to buy equipment to get their products from the farm that are -- some are sitting in silos rotting.

They were due to go overseas to feed people as part of USAID.

This isn't just faceless bureaucrats being fired here in Washington.

And I think that's - - that is the chaos that people are seeing.

Wait, what?

The federal government just isn't in Washington?

It's my neighbor?

It's the clinic down the street where my child is getting treatment?

That, I don't think -- we are just one month in to this administration, and we have yet to see just how damaging this one month has been.

There's still more time to go.

GEOFF BENNETT: Indeed.

Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, thank you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Geoff.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.