GEOFF BENNETT: The Supreme Court is in the spotlight again, as controversy surrounds its latest ruling and some of the justices themselves.

On that and the other political stories shaping the week, we turn to the analysis tonight of Brooks and Dionne.

That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and E.J.

Dionne, a columnist for The Washington Post.

Jonathan Capehart is away this evening.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

E.J.

DIONNE, Columnist, The Washington Post: Great to be with you.

GEOFF BENNETT: So, the Supreme Court, as we reported earlier, this morning struck down this Trump era rule that sought to ban bump stocks.

These are devices that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire like fully automatic machine guns.

David, this was not a case about the Second Amendment or gun rights, but this ruling is a rejection of the government's few steps, one of the government's few steps, to really regulate and address gun violence in this country.

What are the implications?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I mean, first, I should say I'm against gun stock.

I would get rid of these things in a heartbeat, and I think we should -- the Congress should just eliminate them and pass a zillion other gun control legislations.

But this is about who gets to decide these things.

And so the machine guns are banned, and they're banned with the definition of machine gun that a machine gun is something a single function of the trigger.

Hold your hand and a bunch of bullets come out.

And so bump stocks are not quite that, technically.

And so the Obama administration - - under the Obama administration, ATF, and the Justice Department looked at the law and they said, can we ban bump stocks?

And they said, the law's sitting right there.

We can't just ignore the language.

Then Vegas happens and everybody's mind-set changes.

Trump gets rid of them.

And then it works up through the courts.

And so what we have is, who gets to decide what's a machine gun?

Now, the ideal thing would be Congress would say, this is clearly a machine gun, and they would pass a law.

But they're not going to do that because they're Congress.

And so it's -- is it the agencies who gets to decide this or is it the courts?

And, in my view, the courts should decide a big thing.

When it's spending billions of dollars like Biden's debt -- student debt thing, that seemed to be too much use of executive power.

But interpreting something minor, or relatively minor, what is a machine gun, it seems to me the experts in the agencies are the best people to make those decisions.

And so I understand where the conservative majority is coming from, because the Obama administration was right there with them.

But I still think, in general, the agencies should be making these kind of calls.

GEOFF BENNETT: E.J., you wrote about this in your column today, part of which reads this way: "Liberals are regularly accused of being too ideological and too technocratic.

This is a ruling of right-wing ideological technocrats, utterly indifferent to the consequences of an approach that blithely floats above reality."

No one can accuse you of being subtle.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: But build on that.

Expand on that viewpoint.

E.J.

DIONNE: When you read -- first of all, I urge everyone watching to go to YouTube or somewhere and just watch a gun with bump stock -- with a bump stock on it shoot and ask yourself, how is this different from a machine gun?

It's not.

And that's what Justice Sotomayor said so powerfully in her dissent.

And when I read Justice Thomas' decision, it was the decision of somebody in a drawing room arguing about the word function.

He went to three different dictionaries to look up the word function, and then all of this technical language, as if he is an engineer.

As David said, people at the ATF, I think, can be trusted on guns.

But, also, to overlook the real life impact of this decision - - and that's why I talked about technocrats and ideologues.

Why did the ATF change its mind?

Because of the experience of what's happened, Las Vegas being the final straw, 58 dead and five -- more than 500 injured.

And people said, no, these bump stocks are machine guns, and they fit pretty well into the language of the ban on machine guns.

And so I think it's appalling that a conservative court would seek to override an agency on something like this in the most narrow, technical way, at such a high potential cost of -- in human lives.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, before we move on, let's talk about that, because Justice Alito in his concurrence said Congress should amend the law.

I think we all know that that is unlikely.

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I'm not sure.

I mean, this was a Trump thing, and the NRA was supporting Trump in this thing, in banning the bump stocks.

So it strikes me as... E.J.

DIONNE: I'm not sure that's true.

DAVID BROOKS: I think they were less NRA-ish than they typically are.

E.J.

DIONNE: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: And so I could conceivably see.

But, in any case, it is the job of Congress,it is the job of elected officials, in my view, to take these decisions.

And I sort of liken -- and, believe me, I understand that people are ideologically opportunists in saying, oh, I'm just following the law.

But I do think that's the judges' jobs.

We have people whose job it is to say, this is horrible.

Let's get rid of this.

Let's make this change, and we call them elected officials.

And just judges, in the ideal, that's not their job.

Their job is this, where does the law say, how should it be applied?

It's not what's good or bad for society.

E.J.

DIONNE: I think two things are true.

Of course, Congress should pass a ban on bump stocks and a whole lot of other stuff, including a ban on assault weapons.

But I think judges have an obligation not to engage in the most hair-splitting language when you're dealing with something that has worked, that has an effect, and that was decided upon by reading the language of law quite clearly.

I thought Sotomayor won that argument hands down when you just put those two decisions back to back about, what does a machine gun look like?

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, speaking of Justice Alito, who I mentioned earlier, he was in the news again this week after a liberal activist secretly recorded him.

She posed as a Catholic conservative while in conversation with him.

And she captures the justice apparently saying, one side or the other is going to win the nation's polarized politics, and he's heard endorsing her view that the country needs to return to godliness.

We should say the "NewsHour" has not heard the full version of this audio or we have not been able to independently verify it.

But, David, what do you make of this coming on top of all the controversies about the flags, the controversial flags seen flying outside of his homes?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, well, listen, I'm a journalist.

We're journalists.

There are certain things we do.

When we interview somebody, we make it clear that I work for The New York Times, the "NewsHour," The Washington Post.

Like, we make it clear who we are.

We don't lie.

We don't misrepresent ourselves.

We don't hide a tape recorder somewhere, and we don't lead people on with a bunch of ideological rants.

And this person did all that.

It's a complete breach of any -- the basic form of journalistic ethics.

And I was, frankly, stunned that all of us in our business just reported on it, just like straight up.

And, to me, this information is so doctored by her attitudes, the way she's leading on Alito and his wife.

It's just -- it's unfair to them, frankly, to treat this as some major news story.

We should be treating it as somebody, a prankster.

And there's a right-wing version of this called Project Veritas, where they lie too -- as some prankster who's creating distorted information.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, E.J., there's this argument that there's nothing about Alito's world view that was revealed in this surreptitious recording by this activist that wasn't already evident based on his very public on-the-record rulings and opinions.

E.J.

DIONNE: Well, you know, am I a big fan of surreptitious reporting?

No, I'm not a big fan of somebody pretending not to be -- to be someone other than who they are.

But, gosh, I reserve far more outrage over the setting of this.

What was it about?

This is where people can give big contributions to this perfectly fine historical society around the Supreme Court.

GEOFF BENNETT: Because this was a Supreme Court Historical gala, dinner.

E.J.

DIONNE: Yes.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

E.J.

DIONNE: But they get privileged access to these justices.

And we don't know anything about what happens, or very much, unless reporters go at it, which I think is what motivated this reporter to try to get some information.

I also reserve far more outrage for the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States, nine people on the court, are the only people who work for the federal government who are not subject to any enforceable ethics rules.

If you work at DOD, at the Defense Department, or Social Security or EPA, you're going to live by certain ethics rules all the way up and down the government, including lower court judges.

And here you have people who have powerful - - enormous power over our lives without having any ethical -- having to live up to any ethical standards.

And so I think these events are symptoms of a real problem the Supreme Court has right now.

Put aside that, yes, I disagree with the direction of this court, but the ethical issues that have come up over the last six months or so, if they came up in any other agency, there'd be an outcry -- and now there is -- for ethics rules.

And there should be ethics rules.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's shift our focus to the Hunter Biden guilty conviction.

A federal jury found him guilty on all three federal felony gun charges he faced earlier this week.

David, has the GOP's argument that Joe Biden is ordering prosecutors to target his political opponents, has that been undercut by the fact that Joe Biden's Justice Department successfully prosecuted his son?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I guess so, yes.

No -- well, a couple of things.

I do not think Hunter Biden would be having these trials if his dad wasn't president.

I think he was in a terrible mess.

He was addicted to drugs.

He signed some false documents.

Yes, that's bad.

But the guy was leading a very sad and pathetic life, which he's trying to climb his way out of.

And so, as I said on the "NewsHour" last week, I just felt so much sadness reading all that he went through and all that he did.

And I don't think, if he had a -- didn't have a high-profile father, he would be suffering this increased conviction of a felony.

I think they would have said, OK, you did this.

Let's wrap it up.

And so I think he's -- in some sense, he's a troubled guy who's the victim of his father -- of politics, frankly.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it, E.J.?

E.J.

DIONNE: Yes, I see -- in terms of the tragedy here, I see it very much as David did.

It was a little dispiriting to see Republicans, on the one hand, say, we have got to sort of live by this case, respect the jury, they found him guilty, these were legitimate charges, and then, when asked about a certain jury in New York with a certain other person, oh, well, that is totally different.

And, yes, I suppose they could argue if they want about the case that was brought, but the case was very clear and involved some real crimes that were committed linked to a cover-up.

And yet it's OK to prosecute Hunter Biden, not to prosecute Donald Trump?

There's something wrong with that.

And Merrick Garland's Justice Department went after Hunter Biden with a prosecutor appointed by Donald Trump.

That sure doesn't look like politicization to me.

GEOFF BENNETT: E.J.

Dionne and David Brooks, thanks so much.

Have a good weekend.

E.J.

DIONNE: Great to be with you.