And for more on the question of whether Donald Trump should be barred from the 2024 ballot, as well as some reflections on the past year in politics,

we turn to Brooks and Kapart, that's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan K

Part, Associate Editor for the Washington Post.

Good to see you both.

Good to see you both.

So as we've just reported, Maine has joined Colorado

as the second state to ban Donald Trump

from its presidential primary ballot under a

constitutional provision that prevents insurrectionists from holding office.

David, what's your assessment of this decision by Maine's Secretary of State?

Yeah, I thought Colorado was pretty terrible and I think this is a even worse threat to democracy.

Some random Democratic politician throwing the Republican front runner off the ballot for a crime, as you said in one of your questions

was he's not even convicted of he hasn't even charged with the process

should always be voters decide voters decide it should be that douby when we have an entire democratic system is

under a crisis of authority and people don't trust it. They think the game is rigged.

If suddenly you have random people throwing people off the ballot, they're going to

think, oh the game really is rigged.

And then if you have one Democrat throwing a candidate off the ballot in Maine, do you really

think some Republicans aren't going to start throwing people off the ballot somewhere else?

It's just, I just thought it was a terrible decision and one

that confirms every story that Donald Trump tells which is those liberal

elites are out to get you and suddenly I don't know if she's a liberal elite but

...