On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks reacted to this week’s news about Donald Trump Jr. by stating that not only was Trump Jr. stupid, but engaged in completely amoral behavior.
Brooks agreed with fellow NYT columnist Ross Douthat’s assessment that people who give Trump the benefit of the doubt come to regret it.
Brooks added, “That’s true for his business clients and it’s true for those of us who thought, they couldn’t have been this stupid, to walk right into collusion with the Russian meetings. And yet they were not only that stupid, but I think what’s striking to me is the complete amorality of it, that Donald Trump Jr. gets an email saying the Russian government is offering you this, and he says, ‘I love it.’ And it reminded me so much of some of the emails that came out of the Jack Abramoff scandal, that came out of the financial crisis scandal, where they’re just — they’re like frat boys who are gleefully going against the law and are going against all morality. And they’re not even overcoming any scruples to do this. They’re just having fun with it.”
He continued, “And then, in the days since, we have had on — Donald Jr. on Sean Hannity’s show, again, I did nothing wrong. He’s just incapable of seeing that there might have been something wrong about colluding with a foreign power who’s hostile with you. And then Donald Trump himself, saying, he’s a wonderful guy, again, not seeing anything wrong. And then, even in the last day lying about how many people were in the meeting, a completely inconsequential lie. And so we’re trapped in the zone just beyond any ethical scruple, where it’s all about winning.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett