AMNA NAWAZ: For more on the ongoing challenge to constitutional guardrails and the United States' position the global stage, we turn 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: Hey, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, kick us off here, and let's start overseas.

We saw the first major international summit since Mr. Trump returned to office in which the secretary of defense reversed U.S. policy on Ukraine before walking it back.

We saw Vice President Vance scolding our European allies.

And this is the same week that President Trump announced potential reciprocal tariffs on both our adversaries and our allies.

When you put all of this together, what does this say to you about America's place in the world right now?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It says to me that America's place is shaky.

I think, from the eyes of allies, America can no longer be dependent on, that America -- they saw what America was like under Trump the first term.

Trump in the second term is Trump one, but on steroids, in the way he is operating around the world.

And so I think, for Europeans especially, at the Munich Security Conference, the global order that we have lived under for more than 70 years, the United States was an architect of it.

And the United States has been a guarantor of it.

And it has led to, generally speaking, peace and prosperity to the world that we live in now.

The Europeans look to the United States for leadership, but also for protection and as an ally.

And that, as we have seen with the speeches from the vice president, from the defense secretary, that's not the America that they're seeing in Munich.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, do you agree with that?

If you're a NATO ally, do you still see the U.S. as a reliable partner right now?

DAVID BROOKS: Pseudo-reliable.

While we are -- when you have Pete Hegseth negotiating and giving away the American and Western position or the Ukrainian position before you even sit down with Vladimir Putin, that's not even ideology.

That's just incompetence.

And so if you're a European, you would be alarmed at that.

But then you look back.

We have friends.

It's like any human being.

Countries have friends.

America was there for Europe in World War I, Woodrow Wilson.

Winston Churchill leaned on Franklin Roosevelt.

We leaned on the Europeans during the Cold War by basing missiles there, by basing bases there.

We have friendships.

When 9/11 happens, the Europeans are there for us.

And you rely on these friendships just as you would in life.

And the Trump administration does not have friendships.

They have bullying relationships.

And for J.D.

Vance to meet with the head of the AfD and not the prime minister of Germany is kind of appalling.

As one German said today, we Americans denazified Europe and Germany and now we're renazifying it.

So they have the right to be upset.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, back here, we also saw this week a remarkable scene, Jonathan, in Washington, D.C., in the Oval Office, in which a private citizen, an unelected billionaire in Elon Musk, essentially just held court in the Oval Office with a number of reporters while President Trump sat silently by.

We're now seeing Mr. Musk and the DOGE teams kind of slashing and burning their way through the federal government work force.

We have seen lawsuits challenging his actions and the executive actions of the president as well.

And we have seen Vice President Vance say that he's not sure that the administration needs to comply with some of the court orders.

Senator Andy Kim said earlier to me that he believes we're very close to a constitutional crisis.

Do you agree with that?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes,simply because, when the vice president put that social media post out last Sunday, it was breathtaking in what he was saying.

I feel like that we should go back to "Schoolhouse Rock!"

and have that little bill come back out and tell us how government works.

The judiciary is not a subsidiary of the executive.

It is not beholden.

It is one of the three branches of government.

And if the judges come out and say, what you're doing is illegal or unconstitutional, there are other ways to get around that.

But what the president is doing and what Elon Musk is doing is -- I'm sorry -- what the vice president is doing in challenging the authority of the judiciary, that is what makes this the borderline Constitution.

Right now, we're going to the process thing.

Judges are putting injunctions and holds on things.

But what happens if there's a definitive ruling and Trump just decides, I don't care?

Then we will be in a crisis.

But, right now, we are edging there very quickly, I think.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, what do you make of that?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I think edging there.

I think the Supreme Court will rule pretty heavily against a lot of these Trump things.

If Trump defies the court, then we're in a crisis.

Now, I wouldn't call it a crisis.

I'd call it an institution of state failure.

I have lived in Washington a long time.

I have a lot of friends who serve in government in various locations, and some of them serve in national security, and they think about nuclear codes.

Some of them serve fighting sex trafficking.

Some of them try to boost democracy in Africa.

Some of them do biomedical research.

And I can't tell you how many conversations I have over the last three weeks of people who are traumatized, who describe a reign of terror in their agencies, but not only that, a reign of incompetence.

If you're around the nuclear codes, you take this stuff so seriously, and then you have got a bunch of 23-year-old kids from Harvard coming in there.

Nobody knows what information they have access to.

Nobody knows what their background checks is.

And so basically you see the sacred values of trying to be a good civil servant, you see that trampled.

And you see that trampled.

And so, to me, what's going on is not so much -- it's an institutional failure if you care about the future of government, you want a government that will get you food stamps and renew your passport, but mostly it's a form of psychological intimidation that is sweeping through agency after agency and making a government that is semi-functional.

AMNA NAWAZ: Can I just get both of you to briefly weigh in on this?

Because we're nearing one month into the Trump presidency.

Is it clear to you where the guardrails are, Jonathan?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: No.

No.

In a perfect world, Republicans on the Hill would be the guardrails, the rails.

They would do things like, I don't know, maybe not approve some of these unqualified people to the Cabinet.

But they haven't done it.

And in the case of Speaker Johnson, he's not a guardrail.

He's an enabler.

He's a true believer.

And so without that resistance from one of the branches of government, the executive is, I think, running roughshod.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, do you agree with that?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I think the courts will stand up.

Even the Trump appointees, they have very firm opinions about executive power.

They believe in the independent judiciary.

They believe in the - - that we have three branches of government.

I think that those guardrails will be there.

What I object to is, Donald Trump was elected mostly by working-class people who have real problems.

They have health disparities with the rest of us.

They have educational disparities.

They have workplace -- they live in communities that have -- where social capital is low.

Donald Trump was elected by those people.

You would think he'd care enough about them to do something on behalf of the people who elected him.

Instead, he's going after USAID.

He's going after any place he thinks there might be liberal people with college degrees.

And so what we're seeing is not populism.

What we're seeing is a sort of Ivy League right-wing nihilism.

And, to me, that is so disorienting and so shocking and so appalling that you can't even serve the legitimate needs of the people who put you in power.

They're totally off the board this last month.

AMNA NAWAZ: I need to point out also this week that we saw the Associated Press, which is one of the largest and oldest, most trusted sources of independent news gathering in the country, being barred from the Oval Office and from Air Force One, where the president often speaks at length at both of those places, for continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico, not the Gulf of America, as President Trump unilaterally declared it after coming into office.

And I just want to get your take on this, Jonathan, because this is maybe not the first such attack we will see.

But what do you make of what journalists should be doing right now?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, the president is bullying the press corps.

And I think that the press corps needs to stand up to the president and remember there's only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and that is the press.

And the press is vitally important for a democracy, because an informed citizenry is what is the foundation of our system of government, democracy.

And if the press doesn't stand up to the president, who will?

AMNA NAWAZ: David, got about 30 seconds left.

What's your take?

DAVID BROOKS: I'm a little less harsh on the Trump administration.

Listen, I lived through the end of the Biden administration, where there was almost no press access to the guy.

And so administrations manipulate the press.

That's part of the job.

And if they don't want to talk to the AP, fine.

The AP can do its own reporting.

And so I have lived through all these administrations.

And I think the deeper problem here -- and this is our business.

I hate to comment on the media, because I have spent my life in it.

But we have not represented enough Trump voices over the last 40 years, enough working-class voices over the last 40 years.

And so, if we had done that, maybe some of the hostility that's come our way wouldn't be there.

And so I'm appalled by what Trump is doing, but I understand sort of why he's doing it.

AMNA NAWAZ: Bigger conversation we will have for another time, I'm sure.

David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you to you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.