PBS NEWSHOUR: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MSNBC join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including President Trump celebrating the Gaza peace deal while targeting political enemies at home and the government shutdown entering its second weekend.

GEOFF BENNETT, PBS NEWSHOUR: So both Israel and Hamas have agreed to phase one of the peace plan. We see the negotiations there on the screen. And that was followed by today celebrations in Israel and also along the Gaza Strip. I want to start with your reaction to this real breakthrough, Jonathan. JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC: Look, I’m going to say something that I have never said before and that this audience has never heard me say before. Kudos to the president. I think we are at this point because the president was single – he was focused, single-mindedly focused, on getting something, getting a deal done, getting the hostages out. The hard part comes after he leaves the region, after we get past phase one, assuming we get the 20 – that the Israeli hostages released, the 20 who are presumed alive, after the 2,000 Palestinians are released by Israel. Once we get past that, there are so many questions that are still out there that leaves me skeptical that my kudos to the president will maintain. One, will they be able to get Hamas disarmed? Two, will there be a legitimate negotiating partner among the Palestinians for Israel and everyone to negotiate with, an international stabilization force for the area? And also the big thing, sort of Palestinian self-governance, or, in other words, a two-state solution, something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made clear he’s not interested in. And if we’re going to get through all these phases of this peace plan, the single-minded focus of the president that got us to this crucial point will be needed for the next 19 phases. And I just don’t see how he does that. BENNETT: And given the history of dashed hopes in the region, what gives you hope that this agreement can endure? DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES: I got hope when Jonathan praised the president. So I have my fingers crossed he deserves the Nobel Prize. I thought you were going to go there. [LAUGHTER] BROOKS: But it’s impressive, what Trump has – did. First, he got together with the Saudis and the Qataris in New York during U.N. week and came up with this 20-point plan. And then he understood how to deal with Netanyahu. And I should say, in fairness, the Trump administration, both the first term and the second term, has been better on the Middle East than the Obama and Biden administration. There’s something about that region he sort of gets. And so the way to deal with Biden – the way you deal with Netanyahu is, you show total support for Israel at the same time you’re leaning on them. And so I think that the Biden people, when they were always withdrawing and threatening and saying, don’t do that, that made Israel feel insecure. And they had to negotiate from a position of security and then they could bend. And so he got Bibi to go against his far right colleagues who wanted to basically annex the Gaza. And there is, like, now a separate Gaza territory, and that’s an important achievement. The Qataris are an important role. Why is this little country in the center of all this? Partly because they are part of those Gulf states who wanted to make the Middle East a modern place. And so I think they play just tremendously a constructive role because they seem to talk to everybody. Will it work? I don’t know, but there’s no choice. There’s no solution. Martin Indyk, who died about a year ago, had a piece in “Foreign Affairs” called the strange revival, I’m summarizing, of the two-state solution. Everybody wants to give up on the two-state solution. There is no alternative to the two-state solution. And so they’re just going to have to stumble their way forward. Are they going to get there? Who knows? We have been covering the Middle East for a long time. They don’t get there. But it looks a lot better than I thought it would look six months ago, a year ago, five years ago.

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