GEOFF BENNETT: While Israel plans to exert more control of Gaza, those plans have been criticized by global leaders.

The Trump administration response has been notably more muted.

For that and more, we turn to the analysis tonight of Brooks and Capehart.

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

It's great to see you both, as always.

So, David, we will start with you.

Your reaction to Israel's Security Cabinet now approving this plan to occupy Gaza City, potentially extending control over the entire Strip.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well there's a third on the right of Bibi Netanyahu's governing coalition who are basically settler parties who really want manifest destiny to take over Gaza.

They think it's written in the Bible.

And Bibi needs them to stay in power.

And so he's trying to have it both ways.

Well, we will take over Gaza City.

That leaves it open.

I could take over all of Gaza maybe, but maybe I won't.

And he's been prevaricating on what he actually wants.

It's -- and it should be said this is opposed by large majorities of Israelis.

This is opposed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

The last thing they want is policing settlers in occupied territory.

It's also just complete make-believe.

It's like people who aren't willing to deal with reality.

There are a million -- there set -- there are Palestinians in Gaza, lots of them.

They're not just going to somewhere vanish.

They're not going to self-deport.

And so it's just make-believe to think you could create a new place there without the people who are there, without some massive ethnic cleansing campaign.

And then it's even more make-believe that Bibi Netanyahu thinks he's going to rule out Hamas rule, which is the right policy, but also rule out Palestinian Authority rule, the people who control the West Bank.

And he's going to pick the Palestinian leader?

Any Palestinian leader that Israel selects is not legitimate.

And so they imagine they can have it all.

And they are hatching plans where they imagine they can have it all.

And that's just not possible.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, what about the U.S. influence?

How much sway does President Trump have right now?

And is his influence helpful or harmful to ending the war?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: It doesn't seem like President Trump has any sway.

Actually, you could say that pretty much no president of the United States that Prime Minister Netanyahu has dealt with during his time as leader of Israel has had any sway over him.

Maybe President Trump comes a little closer.

But, as we have seen, Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't listening to the president.

And the big problem here - - and this is where it would be great for American leadership to be a part of the process -- Prime Minister Netanyahu has not articulated a day-after strategy since the justified reaction to October 7.

We don't know -- I mean, I think David ticked through a lot of things that -- a lot of questions that sort of hang out there and that there aren't real answers to.

And, last week, I interviewed former prime minister Ehud Olmert about, well, who would the Israelis negotiate with in order to bring about some sort of resolution to Gaza?

And he said basically in an ideal world that would be the Palestinian Authority.

But, in a tweet today, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that, no, it's not -- we're not going to be talking to Hamas.

We're not going to be talking to the Palestinian Authority.

So, to amplify David's point, who -- what's going to happen to the Palestinians?

What is Prime Minister Netanyahu's plan for the day after?

What is going to really happen in Gaza?

I don't know if he even knows.

GEOFF BENNETT: Want to shift our focus now to domestic politics and the redistricting fight.

You have got more than 50 Texas Democratic legislators who left that state to block a GOP effort to redraw congressional maps.

Governor Abbott said that they won't be able to wait out this redistricting push.

And this is escalated to the FBI agreeing to help chase down the quorum-breaking Democrats.

David, at the center of this, as you well know, is this effort to stall this mid-decade redistricting plan aimed at giving Republicans five additional seats in Congress.

Democrats say this amounts to cheating.

What do you make of this effort by Democrats to flee the state?

Is this a bold defense of democratic rights or is this a just a real provocative escalation?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, the fleeing is just a shtick they have done before and hasn't actually worked too well in the past.

The thing here is the corrosion of democracy.

And this is how slow it is.

And maybe this is why the streets aren't erupting in America, because there's always been gerrymandering, but usually there were some sense of shame.

Like, we're not going to totally ring the game completely.

And so even in Texas there were Democratic seats.

Even in California there were Republican seats.

And -- but now the shame is gone.

And so what we're seeing is people just becoming nakedly partisan.

And it's people deciding - - not even pretending we're going to put democracy about party.

We're going to put party above everything.

And that is what's happening and I guess about to happen in California as well.

And so it's funny how much of our system required some sense of you would feel ashamed of betraying your democracy.

You would have thought they would have rigged all the seats already, so there'd be no seats to get through redistricting.

But there was some sense of shame.

But now it's gone.

And when you destroy the norms, that people feel responsible to something higher than party, when you destroy that norm, it turns out there's still a lot left to destroy.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

And, Jonathan, to David's point, we learned tonight that Governor Newsom is going to put this question on the ballot in November to basically redistrict and redraw those maps in California.

We spoke to a Republican Congressman, Mike Lawler, on this program this past week.

He's a Republican in New York.

He opposes this redistricting.

And he says that it will result in mutually assured destruction of Democrats and Republicans both move forward.

Is he right?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Can we just go back to why we're having this conversation?

Because the president of the United States said to Texas, redistrict so he can get five more seats, five more seats so that Republicans can maintain control of the House of Representatives.

This mutually assured destruction that Congressman Lawler talks about was initiated by the Republican president of the United States.

And so I don't think it's a shtick that Texas -- that state Democrats have left the state in an effort to deny them a quorum.

Sure, this -- the special session, they will call another one.

And eventually this sort of cheating by legal means that the Texas governor is trying to accomplish -- this is not a shtick.

This is Democrats standing up for small-D democratic values.

If this were at the 10-year mark of doing redistricting, this would be a whole different conversation.

This is mid-decade that they're doing.

It's cheating by legal means.

And I think that Governor Newsom from the very beginning when Texas was making noises about this that he was going to do something about it, well, now he's going to do something about it.

And I am all here for it.

Democrats cannot stand by while Republicans pervert the Constitution, pervert the will of the people, prevent the people from choosing their own elected officials.

And I know that both parties are guilty when it comes to gerrymandering, coming up with these crazy ketchup-like districts.

But this -- what is happening in Texas at the behest of the president of the United States is a whole other thing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lastly, interior design is not typically a topic of conversation in Brooks and Capehart, but we have got to talk about these design changes at the White House.

David, President Trump has radically designed the Rose Garden.

You see the before-and-after there.

Those yellow umbrellas are supposed to be evocative of the design at Mar-a-Lago.

He's paved over the historic lawn there, as you can see.

You have got the sweeping gold ornamentation in the Oval Office.

You see it there, the before-and-after.

And that's to say nothing of the huge flagpoles that are now on the -- both lawns of the White House and this $200 million ballroom coming to the East Wing.

Is this purely personal branding, or does this reflect a deeper shift in how he tries to project his authority?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think it's a little too restrained.

There's not enough guilt.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: I want the full baroque, the Versailles, maybe.

And so it's Donald Trump's taste, and he wants to -- he thinks, this is what I'm good at.

I'm good at designing things.

People love my designs.

The more gold, the better.

Personally, a little vulgar for my taste.

My kitchen actually does not look like that, believe it or not.

But I have to say one thing contradictory, which is I actually support the ballroom.

You go to the East Room in the White House, where a lot of the bigger meetings are held, it's a small room.

The White House is a small place.

And so for the -- and when they have state dinners, they have got to have a big tent out back.

And so for a White House, which is now the center of a great global power, which was built hundreds of years ago, obviously, to have a ballroom the size of your random hotel ballroom strikes me as a convenient thing if you want to have good meetings.

And so you put on my interior design hat.

I'm not qualified.

But if you want me to redesign a hotel ballroom, I'm all for what Donald Trump's doing.

GEOFF BENNETT: There you go.

Jonathan.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don't want him doing it.

Donald Trump -- putting a ballroom, great, but not with this guy in the White House.

And what he's done to the lawn in the Rose Garden, when I saw it, the first thought I had is, what in the Holiday Inn Express is this?

Has anyone ever been in Washington in the heat of summer?

Who's going to be sitting out there on that patio at any point during the summer in Washington?

It's just -- it's wasted money, even though it's foundation money.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan Capehart, David Brooks, we covered a lot of ground tonight.

Thank you, gentlemen.

(LAUGHTER) JONATHAN CAPEHART: Thank you.