GEOFF BENNETT: This week saw a fatal shooting of a U.S.

citizen by an ICE agent and fresh signals of the Trump administration's emerging vision of U.S.

leadership.

Time now for the analysis of Brooks and Capehart.

That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW.

It has been a week, gentlemen.

It's good to see you both.

So, Jonathan, this week marked a grim turning point, as an ICE agent, as you both well know, shot and killed a U.S.

citizen during an enforcement operation as part of President Trump's expanded immigration raids.

Your reaction to all that's unfolded?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It's a tragedy.

Excuse me.

It's a tragedy that's been unfolding in other communities around the country.

I think Governor Walz, Minnesota Governor Walz was correct when he said to the president, these federal agents, these ICE agents, they're not making us safer.

You are making the community, our citizens, more afraid.

And why shouldn't they be afraid?

Not just because of what happened to Renee Good, but the way they have been operating, not just in Minneapolis, but in other cities across the country, unmarked cars, unidentifiable, masked.

People don't know who these people are who are lunging at them on streets, lunging at them in their cars.

And so I think that the indignation, or, as I say, the righteous indignation that we have heard from state and local officials, from the governor, most definitely from the mayor, I think is warranted.

And anyone giving Mayor Frey, Minneapolis Mayor Frey the blues for being very explicit in what he wants ICE officers to do, how he feels about this, which is more unconscionable, him dropping the F-bomb or having a person who lives in his city killed by federal agents no one asked for?

The mayor didn't ask for them.

The governor didn't ask for them.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, David, video of the shooting spread almost instantly.

And just as quickly, the White House and DHS moved to label it an act of domestic terrorism, that the ICE agent, they said, was acting in self-defense.

What does this whole thing reveal about how narratives are being set before investigations are even complete?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, let me talk first about the public debate, and then about the event, which Jonathan was talking about.

In 1951, there was a brutal football game between Princeton and Dartmouth.

And after the game, researchers sent the Princeton kids and the Dartmouth kids film, the exact same film video of the game.

And the Princeton kids said, look, this film proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Dartmouth kids did twice as many penalties.

And the Dartmouth kids said, this film proves without a shadow of a doubt that the Princeton kids did all the penalties.

And so they were looking at the same video.

And it's a very famous social science experiment.

And I watched it play out in real time this week, because every single Trump person on my feed, my social media feeds was saying, this proves he shot her with just cause.

And every single anti-Trump person on my feed said it was murder.

I did not see one exception.

And so I think what this tells us is the norm, which is essential to democracy, of putting the truth above your party and your team, that norm is eviscerated, at least on social media, hopefully not in real life.

As to the events of what actually happened, I'm not going to render a judgment on what happened, because we're going to have an investigation.

I will leave it to them.

And I hope Minnesota has full information to do the investigation.

But what Jonathan said is absolutely correct., that the atmosphere that ICE has created is incendiary, that people who have power and have guns are supposed to exercise restraint, and they are doing the opposite.

And the crust of civilization is thin.

And once people with guns and with power began acting like thugs, well, then things are going to spiral.

And that's what we have seen.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, to David's point about the public debate, it does feel like we live in this moment where this idea of seeing is believing has been replaced by what you believe now determines what you see.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I mean, sure, but, I mean, maybe I come at this from the vantage point of being an African American man who, for decades, people talked about racial profiling by police officers, and there was no video to prove it.

And so we were deemed reactionary.

We were deemed taking things too seriously, being hyperbolic, until the person videoed Rodney King getting beaten up in Los Angeles.

And even with that, people came at it with their various perspectives.

Five years ago in Minneapolis, we saw Derek Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd for 9.5 minutes.

Imagine if the young woman who videoed -- who recorded that with her phone, if that video had not been there what the narrative would have been, the narrative that they tried to spin, even in the face of that video.

We now have a new video out of Minneapolis, out of Minnesota where -- I mean, I take your point, David, depending on your political perspective, you see what you want to see, but you're seeing.

And I think that the idea that the secretary of homeland security, the vice president of the United States, and the president of the United States are out there saying things that, whether -- you have got eyes.

You just match the video up against what they're saying.

Put aside your politics.

There is -- they are not trying to push that car out of the snow.

It's a lie.

And so I say all of that to say, I applaud people who are going out into their communities, seeing what's happening, and pulling out their phones and recording it.

As we have seen, multiple people were recording what happened to Renee Good.

And good for them, good for Minneapolis, good for Minnesota, but also good for America, because, as long as people are bearing witness to this with their phones and putting out a record, then the administration from the president on down cannot lie, baldly lie, to the American people without there being video evidence that they are lying.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's shift our focus to foreign policy because President Trump is making clear that he won't be constrained by the law as he teases a takeover or a reimagining of the Western Hemisphere.

Here's what he told your paper, The New York Times, when asked if there are any limits on his global powers.

Mr.

Trump said: "Yes, there is one thing, my own morality, my own mind.

It's the only thing that can stop me.

I don't need international law.

I'm not looking to hurt people."

David?

DAVID BROOKS: We're doomed.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: Relying on Donald Trump's morality, we're doomed.

Sometimes, I think he's just trying to keep the reality show going, and every week has to show some sign of force.

But I tried to put my mind in, like, what -- if I want to make the best case for this Venezuela operation, obviously, Maduro was one of the worst people in the world.

The best case, I think, is that Trump happens to be in an office when a lot of really terrible regimes are crumbling, and he is a destructive force, and he is having some effect on causing terrible regimes to crumble.

And that's true in Iran.

The story is amazing what we're seeing in Iran.

It's true with Hamas.

It's true with Hezbollah.

It's true in Venezuela, Cuba.

There are a lot of terrible regimes that are in a very weak position.

And if he can push them off the edge, maybe that will be good for the world.

The problem with this approach is what Stephen Miller now famously said to Jake Tapper on Monday, which is, we don't believe in international law.

We believe in power.

We believe in force.

Strong wins.

Might makes right.

Deal with it.

The problem with that, it's like the ICE thing, frankly.

When there's restraint, when there's rules, when there's order, it does cause people to be less violent.

Between 1990 and 2014, in the world, there were less than an average of 15,000 war deaths per year, 15,000.

Since 2014, there have been over 100,000 war deaths per year around the world.

That is what you get when you erode the postwar international order.

You allow savagery to reign.

And what he's doing with this Stephen Miller might makes right, that's what you get.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it, Jonathan?

If the administration is reviving this 19th century great power view of the world and abandoning the post-World War II order the U.S.

helped build, what's the result?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Chaos?

I mean, I look at what he did in Venezuela and ask, to what end?

If it's regime change, is it really regime change if all you -- if the only thing you have done is remove the leader and leave the regime in place?

And so when you think about it that way, I now wonder, OK, how much will the United - - will the American people be asked to do in Venezuela to hold that country together so that President Trump can go and get the oil?

GEOFF BENNETT: How should the American people judge whether this approach is making the country safer or simply more feared?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, more feared.

I mean, it is making the country more feared.

If there was somehow -- their logic -- and, again, I'm trying to be fair to the Stephen Millers of the world.

Their logic is that it doesn't matter what they believe.

It doesn't matter what the party in Venezuela believes.

As long as we can intimidate them with - - by behaving roughly toward them, then they will do what we want, which is to let us build up the country and we will take the oil.

The amorality of that, people -- my friends on the left, they used to say, you have to see through what George W. Bush is doing.

He's waging war for oil.

Now you don't have to guess.

Donald Trump just says it.

And so that's a world of amorality.

GEOFF BENNETT: David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, thank you both, as always, for your insights.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Geoff.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.