During the regular "Shields and Brooks" segment on Friday's PBS NewsHour, David Brooks again hit Republicans from the left as the alleged right-leaning New York Times columnist predicted that, if Republicans side with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and push to cut immigration, it would be "ruinous for the party." His analysis came after liberal columnist Mark Shields fretted that Democratic Senators running for reelection in red states would be hurt by Democrats shutting down the government over DACA. Brooks agreed that it would hurt Democrats in the short-run, but Republicans would suffer in the long-run.
After host Judy Woodruff recalled that Shields was taking a position that Democratic Senators would be hurt, Brooks responded: "I agree with Mark, if you're a red state Senator trying to hold on to your seat, this is a bad posture for you."
He then went left as he added: "In the longer term, of course, if the Republicans maintain the party not only of Donald Trump, but they turn into the party of Tom Cotton who wants to cut legal immigration by 50 percent, then that to me is ruinous for the party."
Brooks then pined for the days of more moderate Republicans dominating the party:
And one of the things that's fascinating, in fact, I think one of the reasons there's so much confusion here is this is a party that had a very strong Lindsey Graham, John McCain, George W. Bush wing, and suddenly that shifted. And how far has it shifted? All the way over to Tom Cotton? A lot further than a lot of us thought. And so people are trying to catch up to where the party has shifted.
