David Brooks: belief

Transcript context

…Occupation — you’re like a neocon minus the occupation status. I’m a pacifist neocon. I do think they were right about not totally trusting capitalism. Irving Kristol wrote a book, Two Cheers for Capitalism. I think if you go back and read some of the writings from that generation, it’s worth remembering they were not Republicans. They were a break-off from liberalism. I think they were skeptical and realist and a sophisticated break-off from what was conventional 1960s liberals. I promised you only one question about Trump. Trump has made a mess of our relations with our European allies, but in fact, it’s led them to spend more money on defense. In my view, that’s a good thing. I’ve spoken to a lot of European elites who say they think it’s a great thing. These are mostly people who hate Trump, but they say, “We are secretly thankful to Trump that he’s now letting us do this.” Now, in my opinion, it’s still not worth it, but my question for you is this: Let’s say the Israel-Iran thing also goes well. I’m not sure it will, but let’s say it does. What’s the minimum number of different things you would have to add up on your ledger before you, David Brooks, the reform neocon, would say the Trump thing worked out okay or even better? What does that menu have to look like? I’m not saying —…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.