I think the Republican budget priorities are messed up. I salute for the way they're attacking some of the entitlement programs, but they are taking huge cuts, by pretending they're just block-granting it to the states, out of Medicaid, from the least fortunate.
David BrooksThe government is supposed to provide a level playing field where people can compete fairly. It's not supposed to cut deals with one company or another to do so.
David BrooksThe fact that there could be an ISIS West Bank, the fact that the Palestinian government in Gaza doesn't even acknowledge Israel's right to exist, the fact of constant terror, delegitimization campaigns in the Palestinian schools, these are all much bigger facts. And for the Barack Obama administration to focus on this one fact, almost, not to the expense, but to diminish some of the others which are much more important, is to cast all the blame on Israel and to take the U.N. policy toward Israel, which has been longstanding, and sort of surrender to it.
David BrooksThe things that make them similar - their machismo, their expansionary braggadocio - is going to turn them I think into bitter and dangerous enemies. We will look back on this moment where we thought Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were sort of close as a moment of bitter irony, when they get into a schoolyard display against each other, amping up each other's worst tendencies and putting the two countries in some sort of scary position.
David BrooksFor the Democrats, they're trying to avoid having the Sanders-Clinton debate over and over again. But, to some degree, they're sentenced to that debate. Clinton is much more embracing of the global economy and the international world order. Sanders and Warren are much less so. And they have got to figure out which side the party is on, if they're going to have a clear message. I think this is probably one you probably can't straddle.
David Brooks