David Brooks
It's rare in an administration for a secretary of state and a secretary of defense to get along really well.Collection: Defense
If you go in a confirmation process, you're going to be asked about the embarrassing or stupid things you said. You should have a view.Collection: Stupid
I certainly hear a lot of people say that Donald Trump not only incited some bad things. He also exposed some things. He exposed pain in America that a lot of us didn't have the full extent of, some of the divisions and chasms in the country.Collection: Country
Our system is not only based on rules, but a series of self-restraints that we won't be as barbaric as we could be in competing for power because we know if we're all barbaric as we could be, the whole country and the whole society falls apart.Collection: Country
Parties that are majority parties are incoherent parties.Collection: Party
The party cannot be competitive nationally unless it's competitive in California, Oregon, Washington, New England, Pennsylvania, along the coasts. And the problem for the party is, you can't get there from here. You can't start out where the current Republicans are and win back those places. To me, what you have to do is create a different Republican Party that can win in those places.Collection: Party
There will just always be a distance between you and the people around you. Now, [Hillary Clinton] can clearly emotionally connect with her intimates within the zone of trust. It's just the wall outside the zone of trust is so impermeable.Collection: Wall
The idea that a big country is going to go out and send troops into some country to take their resources, and then the rest of the world is going to somehow trust us is just a ridiculous notion.Collection: Country
Those cultural wars, Sexual Revolution issues are fading from the scene, and the coming generation has basically settled them.Collection: War
Hillary Clinton is still - she's such a private person.Collection: Clinton
It's very hard to find an evangelical person under 45, let alone on some of the Christian college campuses, who has any tolerance for Donald Trump.Collection: Christian
Labor-rich manufacturing doesn't exist anymore. Manufacturing jobs are white-collar, Silicon Valley programmers or highly-skilled technicians. They are not going to employ lots of people.Collection: Jobs
Donald Trump tried to set up this debate where it was going to be globalists vs. nationalists, and the Republicans were going to be the nationalists. But, if anything, the Democrats looked more patriotic and more nationalist at the end of these two.Collection: Patriotic
For the Republican Convention, I think of Trump's speech and sort of the darkness, the fear of crime, the need for a strong arm really, and so that one core theme.Collection: Strong
I really think of [Donald] Trump erratic. I think that was the big message that came out. The positive agenda for Hillary [Clinton] was a little less vibrant.Collection: Thinking
Of those two [Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump], I do think that the - right now, at least in my mind, the Democratic theme is eclipsing the Republican one.Collection: Thinking
[Donald Trump] will be the one on offense. He will be the one serving volleys, and it may be some weird stuff about the Russians, but he will be controlling things a little more than he probably did over the last two weeks.Collection: Two
If we're in some sort of Hobbesian state of nature, where you just want a strong man who has no compassion Donald Trump is going to do a little better. So, we will figure out what game we're playing.Collection: Strong
The idea that when you correct a fact, you erase that fact from people's memories is the reverse of the truth. When you correct a fact, what you do is you further lodge that fact into people's minds, and they remember the error.Collection: Memories
Donald Trump's got to do some big changes, because what he was voted on. But when you think about how to do it, it would take massive expertise, which his people, believe me, do not have.Collection: Believe
It's important for presidents to emotionally connect, with the country in times of crisis, but also with people in Washington. If you can't emotionally connect - and [Barack] Obama is not the greatest, but he can at least do it - then people won't be with you when the times are hard.Collection: Country
Basically, less educated or high school-educated whites are going to Donald Trump. It doesn't matter what the guy does. And college-educated going to Hillary Clinton.Collection: School
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen seem to have no respect for the institutions that were created after World War II, and they see a potential alliance of populists around the world who would fight Islam and restore a certain semblance of traditional values.Collection: War
The thing that should most concern us is a shift in American foreign policy. We have had a bipartisan belief in American foreign policy based on the post-World War II institutions that believed in democratic global world, which Russia and the Soviet Union was often seen as hostile to. And most Republicans and Democrats have always basically believed in this world order. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and maybe Marine Le Pen do not agree with this basic structure of the world.Collection: War
The corruption will come back to haunt the Trump administration. But mostly, it'll come back to haunt the American economy, as companies decide they can make money by rent-seeking, by getting money from government rather than earning it the old-fashioned way.Collection: Government
The 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.Collection: Cutting
Jeff Sessions has some problematic spots on his history, but he has been a pretty normal, respectable senator, more conservative than a lot of us, but a respectable senator for a long period of time.Collection: Long
I'm of course nostalgic for Barack Obama all of a sudden.Collection: Nostalgic
My colleague Ross Douthat wrote that any time you give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt, he always lets you down.Collection: Giving
When you get a big crisis, everyone wants somebody with some experience and some credibility.Collection: Credibility
Putin has been - and with a lot of the groups, the conservative groups, the more extreme conservative groups that underlie Trump, he's a bit of a hero because he speaks for traditional values, he's against the global institutions.Collection: Hero
Putin is someone who has been undermining the norms of what we consider the world order since he got into power and in increasing success.Collection: Order
It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.Collection: Simple
Just, as I have traveled around from school to school, whether it's project-based learning or an outward bound curriculum, it's very hard to tell the difference between charters and public anymore. There's no fine line.Collection: School
We're no longer living in Tammany Hall America.Collection: America
Personally, I think Mitt Romney would be a great secretary of state.Collection: Thinking
Mitt Romney knows a lot. He's a very professional - a consummate professional.Collection: Knows
Maybe you're willing to tolerate a lot of bigotry from Donald Trump if you say, just change things, just change things.Collection: Trump
Donald Trump appalls me. I won't be shy about that.Collection: Shy
Donald Trump's being authentic to what he ran on and what got elected.Collection: Trump
Donald Trump's ego is like a comet the size of Jupiter just traveling through the solar system, and we all have to be affected by its gravitational pull.Collection: Ego
Everyone is dividing based on demographic categories.Collection: Dividing
Hillary Clinton continues to say Donald Trump's unacceptable, he doesn't have the character to be president. He is saying - continues saying she needs to be in prison.Collection: Character
People who don't like Trump really don't like Trump. And I guess I'm among them.Collection: People
I do think Hillary Clinton should have pivoted and say, I am change, I am change, because people do want some change.Collection: Thinking
I think globalization has been really good for America.Collection: Thinking
For us going forward, it's to not reverse the dynamism of American society and the diversity. It's to pay attention to the people who are being ruined by it, and so this doesn't happen again.Collection: Diversity
We actually have to have a government. We have to have people confirmed and put into office.Collection: Government
If you thought Donald Trump was going to be swallowed up by the conventional Republican Party or by Washington, you were wrong.Collection: Party