MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And we turn now to our Friday political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times. Welcome back.
E.J. DIONNE: Good to be here.
(Unintelligible)
BLOCK: Let's look ahead. Congress will be back in session next week, haven't we missed them? And there are some members of Congress pushing for a vote to authorize further strikes against Islamic State militants. One of the strongest of those voices is Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. And let's listen to what he told us about that on the program this week.
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SENATOR TIM KAINE: So, I think the president will find Congress very willing to work with him when we return on Monday to craft a crisp definition of what that mission against ISIL should be.
BLOCK: E.J. let's start with you - a Congress very willing to work with the president on this. What do you think?
DIONNE: I think we are closer to consensus on this than might appear to be the case from some of the potshots. Look, I thought that the first President Bush was right to wait until after the 1990 election to call for congressional debate on the Gulf War. And I thought it was very divisive when the second President Bush wanted to have this debate before the election. I think it really turned it into a much more partisan issue in the long run. But in this case I think Congress does have to take some responsibility sooner rather than later. Especially when you saw the way they reacted to even the possibility of military action in Syria. If they want to begin to debate before the election and vote after, that might be fine because I don't think the president is going to have a full approach ready because he's building this coalition or he's trying to build this coalition. But I do think we need members of the House and Senate to give a sense of where they stand and what they think should be done and not just take potshots.
BLOCK: David Brooks are you hearing much appetite for a vote on this?
: Not from people who are up for a reelection this year.
(Laughter)
DIONNE: That's right.
: The people who are running are facing this weird circumstance where both parties are kind of split. The Republicans especially, because of Rand Paul and such - there's a much stronger skeptical wing that we should be doing anything over there. There's also the John McCain wing, so they would rather not face that, but I'm with E.J. I think we have to do it. There's just right now a gigantic chasm between the president's rhetoric and his policies. His rhetoric is ISIS is a cancer. We have to destroy them - that Putin is running roughshod over international norms. We have to totally stop him and yet the policies are so small. Eventually - and it's happening with glacial pace, the policies are going to catch up with the rhetoric. The policies are going to big and pretty intrusive and we just have to have a national debate about that.
DIONNE: I just want to say I think - so, we agree on the need for that debate. Ron Paul - Rand Paul actually seems to be moving to toughen his position because partly I think because polls have shown more Republicans getting more hawkish in the last few months. But I think the president is signaling a big deal here. He's not doing it quickly but the first President Bush didn't go into Kuwait quickly. I think he's trying to build a very broad support particularly amongst Sunni countries to get this done.
BLOCK: Well, another question for the White House is whether to announce executive actions on immigration before the midterm elections. In June President Obama said he would take action before the end of the summer. But now he's getting a lot of pushback from Democrats on this, E.J. - Democrats nervous about prospects in November, who want him to slow down and wait. What's the fear here?
DIONNE: You know what's ironic here and this is what some people in the administration would say is last spring Democrats were kind of pushing them to act. Partly because they were getting so much pressure from Latino groups and pro-immigration groups. Now there are a lot of Democrats on the Hill who are pushing them to wait because guess what? So many of the key Senate races are in states where executive action to open immigration might not be welcomed. I mean, in truth I don't think it matters a great deal substantively whether he asked before or after the election. But the president's kind of stuck because he said he would act before the end of the summer which the calendar tells us is a few weeks from now. So, if he doesn't act by then he'll have some explaining to do.
BLOCK: David Brooks.
: I thought the end of summer had already happened.
BLOCK: (Laughter) The unofficial end of summer.
: We'll have to have a debate about that when summer actually ends. You know, I - it's just a killer in red states for Democrats, every candidate there does not want this to happen and I suspect that he will bow to that pressure, just doesn't want to lose the Senate. I just have to say he has - there's absolutely no constitutional grounds for him to do this, to really short-circuit a legitimate legislative debate and give really permanent or temporary status to people who've so far been illegal. I support the policy. I just don't think you can do it without actual legislation. It seems to me an extreme broach of congressional power.
DIONNE: I think it's going to be - the test is going to be what he actually does. They are - as David knows, the administration is really trying to figure out what they think can pass muster and what they think will be an overreach and maybe people will disagree on what that is.
BLOCK: I want to save time to talk about some interesting pre-midterm realignment that we're seeing in two states. One is in Kansas, in the race for Senate. The Democratic nominee wants to remove his name from the ballot to boost the chances of the independent candidate to defeat the incumbent Republican Pat Roberts. The Secretary of State has denied that request, but the Democrat is challenging that. And then in Alaska, in the race for governor we've seen the Democrat and the independent teaming up, joining on one unity ticket in hopes that they can beat the Republican incumbent in that state, Sean Parnell. So, E.J. you have a theory on this. What's your theory?
DIONNE: Well, my theory on this is that moderate Republicans have lost so much ground in their own party that they're way too toward revenge in some of these red states will be to have these coalitions. And Democrats know that they're weak enough in these states that they'd probably be much better forming coalitions with independence and so Kansas is a real battleground because you not only have what's happening in the Senate race, but you have a lot of Republicans supporting a moderate Democrat running against Governor Brownback. So, I think it's a revenge of the moderates.
BLOCK: David Brooks counter theory. Quickly.
: Quick theory. First, a great day for self-knowledge. People actually know that they're going to lose. It's rare. Second, you know, politics are so polarized if you're going to lose you might as well reach out and try to make some alliance with the Senate and that's what's happening in both these states.
BLOCK: OK, David Brooks of The New York Times. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution. Thanks have a great weekend.
DIONNE: Thank you.
: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.