On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that his views on President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal are “very mixed” and President Obama’s argument for the deal has been disproven by time. He further stated that based on his handling of North Korea, President Trump possibly understands thuggish rulers “better than people who have higher SAT scores.”

Brooks said the president “comes from a background where basically, in the real estate business, he worked with a lot of thugs, and he cultivated a lot of thugs, and he was a little thuggish himself. But, in my view, that helps him, for all his drawbacks, understand thugs. And so North Korea, he understood that being tough with a thug produces some results. And we’ve had — we’re in a better situation with North Korea than we were otherwise.”

Brooks added that while he has “very mixed views” on whether withdrawing from the Iran deal was the right move, “President Obama, the argument he made for it, which was that Iran would moderate and become a more familiar member of the company of nations, that has turned out to be clearly false. They are the most genocidal nation on the face of the earth. They export violence and terror around the earth. And so Trump standing up to them at least has some legitimacy. It’s possible that he understands people like that better than people who have higher SAT scores.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett