PBS: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including reactions to Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando, whether President Obama should use the term “radical Islam,” the possibility of increased gun control



Brooks said Hillary Clinton had the best response to the shooting because she combined the gun issue, the gay issue, but also the Islamic radicalism issue."



"I support all this legislation, but I’m not sure it would be super effective," the conservative NYT writer said of recent gun control talk. "This guy was actually looked into by the FBI. He actually had checks. And it’s just very tough to predict human behavior."



Brooks said there is some "sort of ideology attached to Islam," like there used to be with Christianity or Judaism, "which is a secular political ideology that cloaks itself in religious garb."



"We can all distinguish between the few terrorists who are radical Islamists between — and the tens and hundreds of millions of Muslims who are peaceful, law-abiding, normal human beings," Brooks commented.



Brooks also talked about the impact of the Orlando terror attack on Trump's campaign. He said polling shows people are not rallying around Trump's "xenophobic" message.



"To me, the significance of this week politically was, would the country sort of rally around him on sort of xenophobic or anti-terror mood? And the answer so far from the polling is, no, he didn’t get any help from this week politically.



Transcript, via PBS:





DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I actually take of a cheerier view, I think.



I thought there was an amazing amount of simple, unadorned grief and sympathy for the victims and the victims’ families. And the fact a large percent of them were gay wasn’t as big an issue.



That was my perception, that people of all sides said, these were human beings, God’s creatures, who were killed. And there was an outpouring of simple grief for the people.



On the political stuff, obviously, the gun thing is divisive. But I thought most people said, well, this is both an act of terrorism and a hate crime at the same time. And it can be both. And I think that’s what really just struck me about the week is, sometimes, the divisions we have between psychology and politics and religion, those divisions don’t really make sense in practice.



And we have seen this so many times with so many different shooters. They’re the same personality type. You begin with a sense of humiliation, personal failure, personal disappointment, personal injury. That turns into a sense of grievance, that the problem is not me, the problem is the world.



Then that turns into sort of moral outrage at the evil people who are doing this. Then that gets weaponized by sort of some radical ideology that allows me to justify the violence. And then you walk down the line.



And they walk down these same series of steps, and it’s just the social isolation of young, angry men...



BROOKS: If I had to rank them, if one ranks these things, I thought Hillary Clinton’s reaction was the best. It combined both the gun issue, the gay issue, but also the Islamic radicalism issue, if we want to use that word. And I give her credit for mentioning that.



And I do think, in acts like this, it’s not driven by religious faith, but it’s driven and shaped by a bin Ladenist, jihadist ideology. And I think the president is wrong not to say that.



I have a quote in my column today by Peter Bergen, who is a friend of — and he said, saying Islamic terror is not related to Islam is like saying the Crusades are not related to Christianity and their view of Jerusalem.



It is sort of a radical politicized version of a faith ideology. And for the president to say that, A, is not the truth, but, B, it reeks of a political correctness which ends up driving people to Donald Trump.



And so I think he should use the term. Every other world leader uses the term. We can all distinguish between the few terrorists who are radical Islamists between — and the tens and hundreds of millions of Muslims who are peaceful, law-abiding, normal human beings...



BROOKS: But there is sort of ideology sort of attached to Islam, as there used to be to Christianity, or as there sometimes still is to Christianity or Judaism, which is a secular political ideology that cloaks itself in religious garb.



And we could call it bin Ladenism. You can call it jihadism. But it is the shaping ideology that magnetizes people like this and sets them off on the killing sprees...



BROOKS: I see mild to mass panic in the Republican Party, because he really is sliding. We have talked about it before in the last few weeks.



He was even with Hillary Clinton, and in the last three weeks, it’s just been zoom. He’s collapsing. And he’s picking fights with the Republicans. Any sense of buy-in is now just fraying. I don’t know if they are going to do anything against him.



But to me, the significance of this week politically was, would the country sort of rally around him on sort of xenophobic or anti-terror mood? And the answer so far from the polling is, no, he didn’t get any help from this week politically.



And, therefore, I think there is a real hardening against him among an awful lot of Americans, and his political prospects, at least this week, seem extremely dire.