AMNA NAWAZ: Well, it came down to the wire, but the U.S. Senate has officially passed a bill to avert a government shutdown.

There was a heated debate among Democrats about how to proceed, and in the end just a handful joined most Republicans to pass the stopgap bill.

On that and on other headlines, we turn now 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: So, Jonathan, let's talk about the Democrats right now.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Gee, let's talk about them.

AMNA NAWAZ: Listen, there was a real chasm revealed in this fight over how to proceed on this funding bill.

You had Nancy Pelosi openly calling for Senate Democrats to defy Chuck Schumer and vote against this bill, people accusing Chuck Schumer of selling out his own party for backing it.

Democrats who previously said shutdowns are dangerous and they are harmful now saying they'd rather have a shutdown than vote for this bill.

What's going on in the party?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Here's what's going on, and it's not so much what's happening in the Democratic Party.It's what's happening in the Republican Party.

The Republicans took control of -- maintained the control of the House.

Republicans took control and gained seats in the Senate.

The Republicans took control of the White House.

They crowed for months after the election that the American people gave them a mandate to govern.

They then kicked Democrats out of the negotiations away from the table over this continuing resolution.

And then, when they discover that they don't have the votes to get this through, suddenly, the narrative, it's the Democrats want to shut down the government?

If you have a mandate, then use the mandate and pass your Republican-only negotiated bill.

And I think one of the things I learned in 2016, the reason why people liked Donald Trump, the people who support him and voted for him, they loved him because he fights.

I kept hearing that.

He fights for them for what they believe in, and they know he won't win every fight.

This was an opportunity for Democrats, elected Democrats, to show the base and people who voted for them and people who are upset with Donald Trump that they are willing to fight.

If you're not going to fight over this, then what are you going to do when the fight becomes even more terrible, the Trump tax cuts, or even the full faith and credit of the United States by raising the debt ceiling?

I think that's why people are so upset.

AMNA NAWAZ: So should Senate Democrats not have voted for this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: They -- I think that voting no on the continuing resolution was the right thing to do because it's two terrible choices, but at some point Democrats are going to have to show that they have a spine, they have a backbone to push back against what's happening.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, what do you take away from how this all unfolds?

DAVID BROOKS: I'm on team Schumer.

DAVID BROOKS: So, never thought I'd say those words.

AMNA NAWAZ: Spoken by David Brooks.

DAVID BROOKS: So you got Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who sort of made a similar point that we need to fight, we need to say no, we can't pass this thing, we can't assent to the Republican bill.

And Chuck Schumer -- but the problem with the AOC side is they never answered Chuck Schumer's core argument, is that if we shut down the government, Donald Trump will have expanded power to furlough all these nonessential workers, and he will never bring them back.

And so, by shutting the government, you're expanding Trump's power to decimate the government.

And so that was Chuck Schumer's argument, and he was like, this is a terrible choice, and it is a terrible choice.

Everybody wants to stand up against Donald Trump, the Democratic Party.

You're offended by the way you're being steamrolled.

The country's being decimated on every front.

Of course you want to fight back.

But what AOC is offering is a really nice TikTok video.

And what Chuck is offering, Chuck Schumer is offering, is, like, saving some jobs.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Donald Trump is -- President Trump is going to do what President Trump and Elon Musk are going to do, one.

Two, this isn't just AOC wanting to do something for TikTok.

You know this is a very serious situation when an institutionalist like Senator Chris Coons of Delaware adamantly said, no, I am not voting for the continuing resolution, or Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon who said, hell no, I'm not voting for this continuing resolution.

That tells you how serious this is.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I guess I would say a couple things.

First, one of the crucial things holding down from back is that he -- the president does not have the power to get rid of an agency that Congress has passed into law.

And I think that's going to be upheld in the courts.

But if the government is closed, suddenly, you're giving him a way out.

He could say, I'm not shutting it down, I'm just furloughing, and I'm furloughing forever.

And so it's a loophole around that.

And that's the best defense against what Donald Trump is doing.

On the Democratic Party, they're going to have a chance to fight.

Donald Trump will -- is in the process now of making himself majorly unpopular.

And when the public turns, the momentum will shift, and the Democrats will have plenty of opportunities to do a lot of fighting.

But at this moment, I think saving those jobs is more important.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to come teach, Jonathan, on that in just a moment.

But, David, just to follow up on that, even in this continuing resolution, there's a lot of power being handed back over to President Trump and to Elon Musk to continue with this campaign of mass firings and slashing the federal budget.

Republican lawmakers seem to want that.

Why are they so willing to hand that power up the purse over to the executive?

DAVID BROOKS: One of the things my college professors lied to me about was the idea that people run for government to have power to do things.

Since I have been in this job, I have seen members of Congress hand over power constantly.

They hand over power to the leadership, so only the speaker or the minority leader really matters.

They hand over power to the agencies.

And right now we're seeing the biggest handover of power I have ever seen, which is the handover of power of the Republican Party in Congress to Donald Trump.

Lisa mentioned in the earlier segment Andrew Jackson.

The same thing happened.

Andrew Jackson was basically one-man rule because his own party, then the Democratic Party, was -- they handed power to one man.

And it's the power of a demagogue to really take control.

But congresspeople, they want to keep their jobs more than they want to amass power.

And they will hand over power if it will keep them out of trouble.

And we're seeing the pinnacle of that right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned where Democrats might be able to come after President Trump.

And obviously the economy could be a vulnerability here.

We saw a brutal week on the markets.

There was a slight bounce-back today.

But, Jonathan, we have seen really worrying economic indicators, consumer sentiment at a two-year low.

The Consumer Price Index is up.

People's 401(k)s are taking a hit.

And this morning, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, I'm paraphrasing here, but in an interview was asked about all of this thing -- and sort of said, it's not that bad.

Now, we saw President Biden and his team get a lot of criticism for being accused of being out of touch, playing down what people were living through.

Is the Trump team vulnerable to doing the same thing here?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes, because they are doing it.

Look, I looked at the Dow Jones just before we went on.

The gains of the last six months have been completely wiped out this week, the gains, the year-to-date gains completely wiped out this week.

If you are a retiree who was looking to retire within the next three months, six months, you have seen a lot of your 401(k) disappear.

And yet you have officials from the Trump administration saying, oh, don't worry about it.

It's not a big deal.

There will be a little discomfort.

No, you're talking about real people's lives.

And if it's OK to knock around President Biden when he seemingly was out of touch with what was happening, then why on earth isn't the same thing happening to Donald Trump?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, David, when you look at the polling, people are already feeling some of this.

CNN's latest poll was asked about Mr. Trump's handling on the economy.

Some 44 percent of people approve; 56 percent now disapprove.

How vulnerable is he?

DAVID BROOKS: Only 26 percent say he's doing enough on inflation.

And inflation's about to get worse.

If you take the median estimate of what the tariffs cost so far, and we're only in the beginning of this trade war, it's about $2,000 per family per year.

So that's serious.

And that's going to hit people.

They're going to see rising avocado prices when Mexico can't send us their avocados.

They're going to see rising prices on all sorts of things, and that's going to come home to roost.

There's just so many layers of insanity to the tariff thing that you just can't get your head around all of them.

One of them is that the North American supply chains for autos, our parts cross the border back and forth all the time.

DAVID BROOKS: And every time they cross the border, more tariff, more -- basically, a tariff is an import tax.

So raising taxes on American firms, while not raising taxes on Chinese and German and other firms, we're disadvantaging our own auto industry.

And that's just like one little microscope of how this -- is that a word?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: That doesn't make sense.

I mean, it's just how this is going to go sideways.

They just have not thought it through.

But Donald Trump throughout his whole career, since the 1980s, has loved tariffs.

And, partly, he thinks foreigners will pay it, which is wrong, but mostly it's an excuse for him to exercise power and gin up opportunities for corruption, because it's -- tariffs are hyperpoliticized, and it gives him all the power, and lots of people have to do lots of favors so we don't tariff them.

AMNA NAWAZ: The economy, the economy, the economy, we will keep coming back to it.

I'm sure we will talk about it again.

Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, thank you so much.

Great to see you.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thanks, Amna.

DAVID BROOKS: Thank you.