Bibi Netanyahu, froze the settlements and offered to go toward a two-state solution. The Palestinians didn't take him up on it. Historically, we have had a series of these offers. And the settlements themselves are not the keystone here. It seems to me myopic and bizarre that at the last moment, the Barack Obama administration would surrender the whole balanced array of policies that are obstacles to peace and focus on the one that is most detrimental to Israel.
David BrooksCertainly, the country can't have two presidents at once, so the tradition has been to hang back if you're the president-elect and wait for your time in office. [Donald] Trump is not a hang-back kind of guy.
David BrooksI do not believe that anything like what Donald Trump just proposed is going to get through Congress. Those deductions have a lot of defenders. The idea that they're going to completely explode the deficit is just a party killer for the Republican parties.
David BrooksThe zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it's not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It's not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It's not nearly as big a problem as the nation's stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent.
David Brooks