AMNA NAWAZ: It was a historic week in Washington that's reshaping the Republican Party.

To discuss the fallout of Speaker Kevin McCarthy's ouster, we turn now to the analysis of Brooks and Marcus.

That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and Ruth Marcus, associate editor for The Washington Post.

Jonathan Capehart is away.

Welcome to you both.

Good to see you.

I say the word unprecedented so much, I feel it's losing some of its power, but this week was unprecedented to see the ousting of the sitting House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

David, let's just start with that and how you're reflecting on what unfolded this week.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well, there was a precedent, which was Caligula and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: It's actually, I would say that -- obviously joking.

But, in some sense, Donald Trump introduced a note of narcissistic hucksterism into the American body politic, and it's been interesting to watch it spread throughout his party.

So I would say Vivek Ramaswamy falls into that camp and certainly Matt Gaetz and his crew.

This was not about any substantive thing.

This was just pure show business, pure nihilism.

And so you have a group of people for whom this is all nihilistic fun.

But then you see how it spreads.

And so, in the middle of all the fight over the speaker, there was a meeting with the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus, and they were trying to get the Democrats to save McCarthy.

And, in the past, there had been talk that -- or had been reported that Nancy Pelosi had told John Boehner when he was speaker she wouldn't destroy the institution.

She would stand behind him.

But there's so much distrust even among the moderates, they couldn't come close to a deal that would have saved McCarthy and would have prevented the meltdown we have seen.

So the rot is here, but it's just spread throughout the institution.

It's just fascinating, morbidly, to watch an institution be torn apart by show business, distrust and hucksterism.

AMNA NAWAZ: How are you looking at it, Ruth?

RUTH MARCUS, Columnist, The Washington Post: Well, you used the word unprecedented.

I will give you two more adjectives, cataclysmic and alarming.

Last week, David, when you were sitting here, you said it's hard to see a way out.

Last week looks like unicorns and butterflies compared to where we are this week.

It is truly hard to see a way out, and it is a truly scary circumstance.

We don't have a speaker of the House, and that's just not a ministerial function.

It means that one house of Congress literally cannot function.

We actually don't really know if it can function or not.

We do not know that there is a prospect of filling the speakership.

Maybe the Republicans will somehow magically get their act together, unicorns and butterflies.

But I talked to people today who were imagining a world in which we limped through November on this.

The word I heard most talking to folks today was chaos.

And the underlying issues, the things that brought us to the brink of the shutdown, still remain, the challenges on funding and the challenges on aid to Ukraine and, most fundamentally, the kind of absolute distrust and, what was your fantastic word, nihilism, that we're experiencing, those persist.

And all of the imperatives are to keep that going.

AMNA NAWAZ: Before we look at where we could go next, I do want to talk a little bit about how we got here.

So I want you to travel back into ancient political history with me, back to 2010, when three young Republicans sort of presented themselves as the new generation of conservative leaders, the so-called young guns, some familiar faces here.

Take a look at how they rolled out.

NARRATOR: Young guns, a new generation of conservative leaders.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan, the latter two of whom are no longer in office.

McCarthy was just ousted.

David, how did we get from that to this?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: Well, so those were innocent days, when we were young and naive.

They were sort of the next generation of Reaganism.

And so Paul Ryan was a very serious policy guy.

Eric Cantor was a pretty serious policy guy.

Kevin McCarthy was always more of a politician.

But they never updated their philosophies from the 1980s.

And even though they were office in 2010, when you said, they -- they never caught up to where the Republican Party was headed.

And Eric Cantor, who was a representative from Virginia, he was shockingly ousted, even though he was in leadership, very on -- that was one of the very first early signs that this party was shifting.

Paul Ryan didn't get the news.

And even when he was speaker, he couldn't survive.

And now McCarthy is out.

And so I'm reminded of a Republican senator who told me this about six years ago, that he would go to his rallies and he'd look out in the crowd and he said: "I don't know any of those people."

So, a new Republican constituency had come in, and they wanted a completely different party.

And those three didn't adjust.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, Ruth, take a quick look at the three individuals who are the likely new speakers of the House, two of whom have declared their candidacy already.

That is Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan.

Mr. Hern also, we believe, will put his name forward.

Can anyone at this point lead this conference?

RUTH MARCUS: That is an unknown question.

You could get a vote of a majority of the conference, but, under the current rules, which are this enormous self-inflicted wound -- they could be changed -- but, under the current rules, you need to get to 218.

You're going to need to get to 218 under the existing situation with Democrats with only Republican votes.

You have this rump group and you have this constant threat of the motion to vacate on the whim of one or maybe even a dozen -- it was half-a-dozen people.

That means that the party that was once the party of orderly succession, and you pay your dues, and you go up in the hierarchy is just the party of chaos.

If you think about the number of Republican speakers that we have shuttled through the system there, it's really scary.

And then there's this element of chaos that was introduced today with the helpful, not, intervention of the former president of the United States on the part of Jim Jordan.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right.

Do you think that makes a difference?

RUTH MARCUS: Well, yes, but I'm not really sure which way.

If you are -- imagine you're one of the Republicans in one of the 18 districts that Joe Biden won.

What do you do in this circumstance?

Does this make it more likely for you to vote for Jim Jordan or does it mean that you can't do that because your constituents are just going to say, you're doing the former guy's, maybe the future guy's, bidding?

And so he's just interjected himself, as he's wont to do, into this in a way that I think probably, because this party is so beholden to him, makes a Speaker Jordan -- I even hesitate to say those words -- more likely, but also really puts a lot of people in a very bad position.

AMNA NAWAZ: David, this is not just about politics and the party.

There are real-world impacts, as Ruth mentioned.

The bills are not passing through the House at this moment.

What does this mean for Ukraine funding?

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

So, Steve Scalise supports Ukraine funding and Speaker -- our former -- future Speaker Jordan does not.

And so, to me, that's the big issue here.

If Scalise doesn't get it, it's hard to see how Ukraine funding goes through.

The big anomaly... AMNA NAWAZ: Which is a remarkable thing to say, by the way.

DAVID BROOKS: Compared to where we were a year ago, and compared to some of the atrocities that happened this week in Ukraine, it's just.. AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

RUTH MARCUS: And compared to where the Republican Party has historically been.

DAVID BROOKS: Has historically been.

But the most amazing thing to me, this is so far not hurting the Republican Party in the polls.

What they call the generic ballot, the Republicans are leading.

Republicans have a 21-point lead on, who do you trust to handle the economy?

The Republicans have a strong lead still on national security.

Joe Biden is not doing well in the polls.

By 9 percentage points, voters think the Democratic Party is more extreme than the Republican Party.

So the Republican Party, weirdly, is in politically good shape, judging by today's polls, despite a year or two or six or seven of chaos.

AMNA NAWAZ: I need to ask you both as well about something else we have been reporting on.

You may have seen Laura Barron-Lopez report earlier this week, as she's been tracking some of the ramping up of violent rhetoric by former President Trump.

In fact, she included this graphic in her report, just recent remarks that she's been reporting on.

Earlier last month, Mr. Trump suggested that General Mark Milley should be executed.

He then went on to mock the assault on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's husband.

He called for shoplifters to be shot on sight late last month.

And just a few days ago, he said that migrants are -- quote -- "poisoning the blood of our country," which is echoing the language of white supremacists and of Adolf Hitler, who often invoked those words.

Ruth, it's remarkable to me that I'm even -- I'm repeating some of these words right now, but are we at risk of becoming numb to some of this language?

RUTH MARCUS: I think we have been at risk of that for the last seven years.

And I think all of us around this table have struggled with the conflict between giving this man and his odious comments oxygen, which is what he wants, which is what fuels him, and failing to expose them, failing to -- if you are an opinion columnist like we are, failing to denounce them and therefore allowing them to just percolate.

I think we see this now with his persistence in the polls.

And he has clearly ramped up the rhetoric.

I can't remember whether you mentioned the Mark Milley as well.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

Yes.

RUTH MARCUS: The poison the blood is the part that really sickens me.

And we see right now the justice system trying to grapple with how to keep him under control as it tries to hold him to account.

I think we need to be really careful not to ignore him, but we need to be really careful not to feed what he wants, either by overreacting or underreacting.

And I don't have the solution to that.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's a careful balance.

David, how do you view it?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well, this is the platform for a second term.

I mean, he's talking the way authoritarians talk, like the real hardcore authoritarians talk.

And so he's got to ramp up the rhetoric continually to keep the crowd pleased.

And then he's got to -- I think he's growing increasingly -- as he's threatened, increasingly, I don't know if deranged is too strong a word, but off... RUTH MARCUS: It's a good word.

DAVID BROOKS: OK, I will stick with deranged.

And so I'm -- I don't know how to stop - - how people like us can stop this.

RUTH MARCUS: And there's one other element in there, which is, he's doing his punching.

He's deranged.

He loves to do it.

He is -- but he is also trying to force these judges into overreacting and making a mistake.

AMNA NAWAZ: We expect to see more of that, I think, in the months ahead.

Ruth Marcus, David Brooks, thank you so much.

Always good to see you both.

RUTH MARCUS: Thank you.