Brooks: Trump’s Khashoggi Statement ‘a Gigantic Demotivator’ for Military

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks criticized President Trump’s statement on Saudi Arabia and Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi as “a gigantic demotivator for anybody who’s going to serve in the military, anybody who’s going to serve our government overseas.”

Brooks said people serve in government and the military “because they basically believe in the values of the country and they want to spread those values. And if you have a nakedly realistic politic — obviously, every president makes some calculations, but this is naked. This is naked. We don’t care about values. We care about money. That’s a gigantic demotivator for anybody who’s going to serve in the military, anybody who’s going to serve our government overseas. And that, to me, is why the realpolitik never actually works as a foreign policy. Because you can’t mobilize people behind anything.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett