AMNA NAWAZ: Now to discuss Republican defiance of President Trump, fresh scandals in a key Senate race, and much more, we turn to Brooks and Capehart.

That's "The Atlantic"'s David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW.

Good to see you both.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Hey, Amna.

DAVID BROOKS: Good to see you.

AMNA NAWAZ: We saw something this week from Republicans we haven't really seen much of yet, it's fair to say.

It's a willingness to break with and defy President Trump.

We saw it with the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

Several lawmakers opposed it.

The acting attorney general said it's not moving forward.

We saw it with opposition to the billion for the White House ballroom that was pulled from a spending package.

And we saw it with the war powers resolution for Iran.

Four Republicans joined Democrats to pass that in the House.

Jonathan, is this a trend?

Is it a shift?

Is it just a series of events that aren't related at all?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: They're a series of events, but what I'm wondering is, will there be more events that allows what's being called the YOLO caucus to flex its muscles?

It's amazing what happens to the spine when you lose your primary race because the president of your own party supported someone against you.

And I'm thinking of Senator Cassidy.

I'm thinking of Senator Cornyn, who were both defeated in the primaries.

And you see Republicans, congressional Republicans, finally deciding, you know what, I have got to push back simply because what he's doing is wrong, but also I want to get a little bit of revenge.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, how are you looking at it?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I once had a vacation in Belize and there was an earthquake off the coast.

And I'm running around saying, there's going to be a tsunami.

There's going to be a tsunami.

And when the tsunami came, it was two inches.

DAVID BROOKS: So that's the kind of tsunami we're seeing on among Republicans.

DAVID BROOKS: A two-inch tsunami from Republicans, only four of them.

But it's a good sign.

It's a good sign for a couple of reasons.

One, people who work in the Capitol Building should be -- not wanting to give $1.8 billion to people who stormed the Capitol.

Like, that seems like basic self-interest.

But, mostly, it's them standing up for their branch of government in each of these cases, the spending of the money, the war powers resolution, the ballroom.

Congress does stand for something, and it's been dormant for most of the Trump term.

And so at least there's a sign that we are a co-equal branch and we will stand up for our rights.

And that's got to be -- it's not going to be left-right.

It's just like stand up for your form of democracy.

AMNA NAWAZ: To be fair, they could have done this at any point earlier, right?

So is this now a shift into general election mode or into this next phase of this lame-duck session of President Trump's presidency?

DAVID BROOKS: The magic number is 37 or whatever Trump's approval is right now.

It gets a lot easier as the numbers go down.

Then courage and integrity somehow rise.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, it also helps that, again, you saw some Republicans lose their primaries to Trump-backed candidates, so that strengthens the resolve.

But then you have the primary calendar.

Pretty soon, folks worrying about what Donald Trump might do to them in their primary races goes away and then self-preservation really kicks in.

So the tsunami that you mentioned could go from two inches to maybe -- who knows?

But we will see.

That's what -- the point I was trying to make.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that's why you're saying some of that from Republicans in swing districts in particular, right?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, you set this up perfectly to move to the next topic, when you talk about primaries.

We saw several states hold their primaries this week, but I want to talk about Maine, which is gearing up for their primary next week.

And there's new allegations now against the Democratic Senate candidate.

That is Graham Platner.

We saw a New York Times report that cites several women who dated him saying he was demeaning to women, he drank heavily.

In the case of one woman, Lyndsey Fifield -- I hope I'm saying her name correctly -- she claims that he was violent, says he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a room, and held the door to confine her.

Platner denies any violence.

He repeatedly references dark periods that he went through after his military service, and he mentioned that in an interview on MS NOW last night.

GRAHAM PLATNER (D), Maine Senatorial Candidate: I firmly believe that, if you believe in the transformational politics, you got to believe in the ability for people to transform.

And my journey is one of transformation.

These are things that I talk about in my past, things that I'm not proud of, but it is a past that I had to go through to get where I am today.

And I'm very proud of who I am today, and I'm very proud of the movement that we have built up here in Maine.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, this is a candidate who has now had to explain away a Nazi tattoo, sexting other women early in his marriage, and now this.

He's not dropping out of the race, should he?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: You know, I think there's some Democrats in the Senate in particular who would love for him to step aside.

There's a story in The Washington Post today about how he'd been telling folks, Democrats, don't worry -- when the Nazi tattoo thing came out, don't worry, there are no other skeletons in the closet.

And yet this past week, we have seen two big skeletons come out.

The fact that Governor Mills only suspended her campaign, did not drop out, and telling people at least twice now, hey, I'm still on the ballot, signaling maybe could more things be coming, and also signaling to Democrats, hey, if something does happen with Platner and he has to get out, I'm still here.

But the issue here is, it's not going to be congressional -- it's not going to be congressional Democrats, national Democrats who are going to tell Platner to get out of the race.

Folks in Maine are still behind him.

Some of the interviews that we have had on MS NOW, you have had folk -- Mainers saying, he's not perfect, he's not this, he's not that, but we need a change.

And so that's the one thing he has going for him.

And, again, I look at Platner through the prism of where we are in terms of the Trump administration and the Trump world, given who Trump is, given the allegations against the president, given the way that lots and lots of people in the Republican Party just turned a blind eye and decided, we still want to vote for this guy.

And so I think there might be -- there are a lot of Mainers who are thinking the same thing, that he is their guy.

But the one last thing that everyone in Maine has to worry about is Senator Susan Collins.

I mean, Democrats really want that seat, but Senator Collins has shown over multiple campaigns that, one, she runs like she's losing, and then, on Election Day, she outperforms the polls.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, I should also note here, because the woman Lyndsey Fifield we mentioned has worked for Republican and conservative campaigns and issues in the past, some people are dismissing this as politically motivated.

How are you looking at all this?

DAVID BROOKS: The guy is a moral degenerate.

The abuse of women, the sexting, the Nazi tattoo, I don't even need to say anything beyond his Reddit posts, which are not in the past, by the way.

He did that for a long time, abusing rape -- people who might have been raped, diminishing rape in the military, insulting fellow military officers, calling himself a communist.

It's just -- it's a pathetic empty guy who postures in a way that's kind of repulsive.

There are 330 million Americans, and there are 100 senators.

We can't have a decent human being in those 100?

Like, we have got to settle for this?

I just think the people -- the Democrats are supporting Platner for the same reason the Trump people are supporting Trump.

It's because 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, we sort of privatized morality.

We told people we're not going to teach morality in schools.

We're going to -- you -- it's up to you to come up with your own values.

And the problem when you do that is that unless your name is Aristotle you probably can't come up with your own moral philosophy.

And so what happens, you have a lot of people in this country, Republicans and Democrats, who are good people, but they're morally inarticulate.

They're morally undeveloped.

They haven't developed the criteria to even think about, what is my role here?

What is his role?

How -- what is excellence to find in this role?

What is moral excellence as a journalist, as a teacher, as a senator?

And we're going to make decisions on a two-stage basis?

First, is the person we're electing to a public office a person of basic integrity?

And, second, do I agree with them?

But if you haven't -- if you have gotten rid of the first criteria, then you have weakened your democracy.

And Republicans clearly did that with Trump.

And now Democrats really -- if they side with Platner, I don't want to hear too much about Trump in the future and his moral degeneracy.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, to that point, I guess, it is absolutely, ultimately up to the people of Maine, right?

They will vote and they will decide and have their voice.

We're old enough to remember congressional Democrats pushing Al Franken out of office.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right?

So have the standards changed over time, but also based on how close they are to the election process?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes, I think standards have changed a little bit.

And David's moral indignation over Platner is something that I share.

But I'm also looking at the fact that, well, we do have Donald Trump in the White House and that, yes, moral degeneracy is coming right from the top.

And I'm looking at this, again, through the prism of Democrats, pay Mainers.

I want to put all Democrats saying that they're supporting Platner, but the folks in Maine have clearly decided, if you look at the latest polling, that they right now don't care about his past, they just want to win the seat.

And, to David's point, there is a cost to that if he does win.

If he doesn't win, it's going to be very painful for Democrats and, in the end, painful for the country, from the Democratic perspective, because they're hoping that seat puts them -- helps to put them in the majority.

AMNA NAWAZ: As you mentioned, Janet Mills is still on the ballot, so we will wait to see how people in Maine look at this.

Before I let you go, I have to ask you about something that's going to allow me to talk about Vanilla Ice... AMNA NAWAZ: ... which is something I don't always get to do on the "News Hour," but we're less than a month away from the U.S.'

258th anniversary celebrations.

Last week, you saw most of the artists, including people like Martina McBride, Young M.C., The Commodores, and Bret Michaels, dropped out of a related concert series on the National Mall.

They said they were misled by what the event was supposed to be.

And the president has said they're making it political, right?

Jonathan, we have had this conversation before around inauguration performers and the like.

Can you no longer separate performing for the person or performing for the nation?

I mean, how do you look at all of this?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, I look at it like this.

I love The Commodores, right?

If the nation, say, if it was America 250, which is the bipartisan outfit, came to me, I'm a member of The Commodores, comes and says, we want you to perform, you know what?

Great.

It's America's 250th birthday.

Let's do it.

It's a nice bipartisan thing.

But, instead, it was Freedom 250.

And that is all about the president.

And so, through the confusion, I could see how The Commodores and other folks were like, wait, this is not the same thing?

No, I don't want to be a part of that, because, even though we're musicians and music is universal, what this person, what his administration is doing is just not what we are about.

We don't want to be associated with it.

We don't want to be connected to it in any way.

So I don't blame them for dropping out.

What is interesting is, the question is, why can't the president find performers who are willing to share the stage with him, who are willing to lend their credibility and their star power to him?

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, this brings me back.

We still have Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and I believe Lee Greenwood is now on the... DAVID BROOKS: I am here all day for Vanilla Ice, for "Ice Ice Baby."

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: I learned out of this whole week that Morris Day and The Time still has a career going.

People who saw the "Purple Rain" movie saw Morris Day and The Time, and he's still going strong.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Morris Day, he was big back in the day, back in the day.

DAVID BROOKS: But -- so these are not -- it's not like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber here.

We're getting low-level people, but -- or at least grade C celebrity.

AMNA NAWAZ: How dare you?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: They're good human beings.

I don't mean to comment on their -- they're wonderful people.

I guess I see it as, A, the overpoliticization of everything that we can't even do a concert without politics.

But, B, and on a slightly deeper level, one of the problems we're facing in America 250 is, what's our national narrative?

If we can't agree on that then, that's a sub-political problem that's real.

And I think at the heart of all these America 250 fights are this.

What is our national narrative?

We used to have a sort of consensus about that.

We were an exodus story.

Americans left oppression, they crossed the wilderness, and came to the promised land.

The founders wanted to put, at least some of them, Moses on the great seal of the United States.

Every immigrant group said, yes, I'm an exodus story.

Martin Luther King talked about Exodus more than the New Testament almost, a slight exaggeration.

But it's the idea that we are that country.

And people no longer believe in that narrative, a lot of people.

AMNA NAWAZ: David Brooks, Jonathan Capehart, we will pick up again another time soon.

Good to see you both.

Thank you so much.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you.