GEOFF BENNETT: The clash between President Trump and Elon Musk is the latest twist in a whirlwind week of political drama and global headlines.

Here to discuss it are Brooks and Capehart.

That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of The Washington Post.

Welcome, gentlemen.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, this public falling out between the president and the world's richest man upended one of the most powerful dynamics shaping Donald Trump's second term.

David, I remember on this program right after inauguration you said that this rupture was inevitable.

What are the implications now that it's happened?

DAVID BROOKS: It's so rare that every pundit makes a prediction and it comes true.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: But it did happen.

I, of course, thought they're having a philosophical discussion about debt-to-GDP ratios, and Elon Musk thinks they're too high and Trump doesn't -- isn't bothered.

But they do have substantive disagreements.

Elon Musk thinks the spending bill is too big and he thinks the future is in renewable energy, not fossil fuels.

And that is the core.

There actually is a substantive core.

But these are the two Super Bowl beefers of the online world.

And so, as you saw it unfold on Twitter on Thursday, you realize they're super self-conscious about what they're doing.

They know how the beefing game is played.

They're good at it.

They love the attention.

And you almost got the sense that they were cooperating.

I don't think they were.

But it's so practiced.

It's now such a routine to have these online beefs that it seems almost like meta.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, as you see it, what's at stake here for both men?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, I just want to say the fight between them, to pick up on what David was saying, it's so petty.

I mean, I would look at the traffic back and forth and just be like, girl, really?

This is what you're doing.

But, look, what we have here is a battle between two epic characters.

One is the world's most powerful leader just by virtue of being elected president of the United States.

The other one is the world's richest person, who has his own media company, i.e.

X, formerly known as Twitter.

And so, yes, they can beef with each other and smack each other around.

But, again, this was so predictable, right?

I think we both said right afterwards that this is doomed to failure.

And the other thing I will point out is that these are two men who, especially with President Trump, loyalty is a thing.

But with President Trump, loyalty is a one-way street.

And what we have seen with Elon Musk, well, for him, loyalty is a one-way street as well.

And so you have in Elon Musk what you haven't had in anyone else President Trump has gone toe -- has battled or criticized, and that is someone who is willing to fight back with him in the same way that he fights.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Well, more to come on that front, for sure.

Let's shift our focus to foreign policy.

We had that astonishing attack this week by Ukraine on Russian bombers deep inside Russia, by some accounts wiping out more than a third of their long-range bomber fleet.

And then you had President Trump in the Oval Office with this response: DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Sometimes, you see two young children fighting like crazy.

They hate each other and they're fighting in a park.

And you try and pull them apart.

They don't want to be pulled.

Sometimes, you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.

And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday.

GEOFF BENNETT: Comparing the war in Ukraine to two children fighting in a park, what does that tell you about the way the president sees this conflict?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, he is an amoralist.

He just doesn't get moral sensibility.

And so these were not two children fighting in the park.

This was one dictatorship invading a democracy.

So there's just a moral difference, but he's obtusely unaware of it.

Second, it turns out winning a Nobel Peace Prize is harder than it looks.

And you actually have to do stuff.

And the one thing he has to do to Vladimir Putin is to raise the cost of continuing this war.

And so, if he wants peace, it's not two children.

You raise the cost for Vladimir Putin.

You have more sanctions.

You give Ukraine more aid.

You welcome Ukraine into NATO.

You do the things that Vladimir Putin doesn't want you to do.

But Donald Trump will never do that because he doesn't actually do that kind of diplomacy, where you impose costs on people to get them to do what you want to do.

And that leads to the thing which may be the theme of our two first subjects.

Narcissists cannot understand what's going on in other people's minds.

And whether it's Musk or Trump or Musk v. Putin, none of these three guys can understand how another person is thinking.

And you can't do a negotiation, broker a deal between two warring parties if you can't put yourself in other people's shoes.

So, on multiple levels, Trump is just whiffing on his Russia policy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, how do you see it?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And I would add to that that the interesting thing here is that the United States' influence around the world seems to be diminishing.

And I think it's diminishing, one, because of who's sitting in the Oval Office.

He doesn't want alliances.

He doesn't want partnerships.

We look at what's happening with the Iran nuclear talks now.

And it was brought back to when President Obama was negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.

And the thing that jumped out was that it wasn't just the United States and Iran having the conversation.

It was the United States and other nations as a united front putting pressure on Iran and having these negotiations.

We don't have any of that.

It's not happening.

Is President Trump working with the Europeans to help come up and put the pressure on Putin that David is talking about?

No.

He's on the phone for two hours with President Putin.

For what?

What came out of it?

Nothing.

So, as long as the president decides to go it alone, his dreams of having some foreign policy success and certainly a Nobel Peace Prize will never -- it's never going to happen.

GEOFF BENNETT: As we wind up our conversation, I want to talk, David, about your column this week, because you write about the Democrats' big problem, as you see it, you say they don't understand that the Trump revolution has upended the whole political order and that Democrats need to rethink their entire world view.

How existential an issue is this for the Democrats as you see it?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I have just - - all my Democratic friends are mad at the party leadership.

We need a message.

We need a policy.

But, to me, that's too small.

Sometimes, historical epochs change.

And parties have to change to deal with it.

In 1932, when FDR started the New Deal, that changed the historical epoch.

And the Republican Party spent 20 years ignoring that fact and losing, until Dwight Eisenhower came along and said, I accept the New Deal, we're going to move on.

And, to me, we're in that kind of historical pivot.

It started sometime in the 2010s.

Global populism was on the rise.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say, we're in decline.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say, elites don't get us.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say, experts don't care about people like me.

This is a populist epoch.

And there's a left-wing version and a right-wing version.

But if the Democrats continue along the Clinton-Obama-Biden road, that's just not up to the moment.

And so I think it takes a big rethinking, a new identity, a new grand narrative, a new definition of what the biggest problem in the world right now is.

And those are all beyond the scope of working politicians who are trying to fund-raise.

GEOFF BENNETT: A big rethinking.

I mean, meantime, Democrats have launched a $20 million initiative to figure out -- as you put your head down lamenting -- $20 million to figure out how to talk to young men, the kinds of young men who broke for Donald Trump in the last election.

Is that money well spent?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: No, it is not money well spent.

(LAUGHTER) JONATHAN CAPEHART: You don't need a think tank to figure out how to talk to young men.

Just go talk to young men.

I look at -- before I get into that, one, I stand by what I have said on the show many times.

The Democrats don't have a message problem.

The Democrats don't have a narrative problem.

The Democrats don't have a policy problem.

I think what the problem that they have is what David pointed out in your column.

They haven't quite figured out how to turn all of that and have it meet the moment that we're in.

Democrats are still looking for a savior.

They're looking for that one person to bring them back to the promised land, instead of focusing on where we are right now and making sure that these constituencies understand that Democrats get what they want to do.

And I keep thinking about the candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Iowa.

His name is Nathan Sage.

When you look at his launch video, you would swear, you look at the guy, he must be MAGA.

You listen to his tone, it's aggressive, it's focused, it's clear.

He must be MAGA, but he's not.

He is a Democrat with a capital D and he's talking like a real person.

If -- the people who are putting that $20 million into this dumb think tank, how about taking a look at people like Nathan Sage and other Democrats around the country who have gotten the message that they need to talk like real people about real issues and talk about what they're going to do about it?

That's already in the Democratic playbook.

That's what they need to be doing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lots of Democrats are going to be Googling Nathan Sage tonight.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, my thanks to you both.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Geoff, thanks.