Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

Bret Stephens: I trust you’ve been enjoying this mild summer weather, Gail! We have some catching up to do, so let me ask: Do you think Donald Trump knew what he was doing when he tweeted that four congresswomen — Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all minorities, should “go back” to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”? And do you think it will work for or against him?

Gail Collins: Bret, I spent last weekend alternating between worrying about the rathole into which the president is plunging our country and worrying about whether the lights in New York City would go out again. Do you think the national power grid could be hacked, or just explode from the stress of … being a national power grid? If so, can we blame it on the president?

Bret: These days I blame everything on the president, Gail. So do my kids, by the way. Whenever I tell them to clean up their rooms, they reply that the state of the nation is far worse.

On the power-grid front, I did just buy a wearable, rechargeable head fan … .

Gail: Back to the topic of whether our president is a super-evil plotter of villainy or just a raving imbecile who screws everything up: When Trump told four, young, Democratic, female, minority members of Congress to go back where they came from, was it a calculated plan to rally his base or just acting on impulse because that’s the way he thinks?

Bret: Honestly, the former.

Gail: I kinda wish I believed it was a preorganized plot. That would mean there was somebody rational, albeit evil, at the top. But I basically think he’s just impulsively spewing from his awful soul.

Bret: If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Trump since he won the presidency it’s that he’s ignorant and vile, but not stupid. The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats were in the midst of a civil war between Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and the four congresswomen, the so-called squad, and that the smartest thing Trump could do was let it play out to the benefit of Republicans.

Gail: You know I get depressed when I think you’re going to tell me Trump did the smartest possible thing …

Bret: The civil war would have resolved itself, probably in Pelosi’s favor, if Trump hadn’t intervened with his racist tweets. And it was the very awfulness of the tweets that forced Democrats to rally around the four congresswomen, defend them and put them at the emotional and even moral heart of the party. Which is exactly where Trump wants them, because they are his ideal foil, and he plans to run against them next year no matter who the Democrats nominate.

Of course, whether it works out in his favor is another question. Has he harmed himself, politically speaking?

Gail: It does seem as if our president is bent on proving that he won the last race on racism. Do you watch his rallies? They usually start off with a recounting of how surprised the world was when he won Wisconsin — or some other 2016 triumph — then he brags about the size of the crowd. He moves on, sometimes rather briefly, to the greatness of the Trump economy. And then it’s off to the immigration rant-a-thon.

Bret: The immigrant bashing is dearest to his heart and central to his demagogic appeal. It’s what keeps his base faithful. Politically, his calculation is that a maximally polarized electorate works in his favor. And as our colleague Nate Cohn noted last week, he might be right: Trump can win the Electoral College vote again, even if he loses by as many as 5 million votes.

The question for me is whether the Democrats will play into his hands, as I fear they might, by moving too far to the left. George McGovern’s Democrats got tagged as the party of “Amnesty, Acid, and Abortion.” Today’s Democrats risk being seen as the party of open borders, socialism and all-around wokeness.

Gail: Many of the Democratic candidates seem ready to swing to the middle once the primaries are over. They often started out with minimal experience, but I think everybody’s figured out that it’s not a good idea to have debates where the moderator says something like: “All those who think illegal immigrants have a right to free health care, raise your hands.”

But right now they’re a little bit trapped between the agenda of the primary election base and their need to appeal to the vast populace who’ll vote in the fall of 2020. Actually, not the vast populace. Just that tiny special populace residing in a handful of swing states.

Bret: They’re the ones who’ll decide the election. Please go on.

Gail: All this reminds me of a funk I fall into every presidential season. Our system is a mess. Thanks to the Electoral College, it’s very possible the person with the most votes won’t win. And Americans sure aren’t guaranteed equality of attention. In the fall of 2020, getting black turnout in Milwaukee is going to be critical. But nobody cares how many black voters will turn out in New York or Massachusetts. It’s already a done deal that the Democrats will capture both states.

The Electoral College drives me nuts. It wipes out the votes of people who live in states where one party is dominant. It gives small-population states disproportionate power. And gives the Republican Party a big, totally unfair advantage. If we elected a president by popular vote, Democrats would have won six of the last seven elections.

And of course even if a Democrat gets elected, he or she will have to deal with a Senate in which the 578,000 people in Wyoming have the same voting power as the 40 million people in California.

Bret: As a guy who, until recently, always voted the straight Republican ticket in New York, I know what it’s like to have my vote count for almost nothing. And the idea of abolishing the Electoral College tempts me because I think we’re living in a moment when the country could really use a viable major third-party with a centrist orientation, something the Electoral College does a lot to hinder.

But the inveterate conservative in me worries about rejiggering a system that has mostly served us well. The Electoral College tends to amplify the margin of victory for presidents who win by only a tiny sliver of the popular vote. In 1960, for instance, John F. Kennedy won by barely 100,000 votes out of more than 68 million cast but still beat Richard Nixon 303-219.

Gail: Yeah, and it sure does help the presidents who win while losing the popular vote completely, like a certain party I could mention.

Bret: Knowing your love of history, Gail, I know you’re not talking about the party that won the election yet lost the popular vote in 2016, 2000, 1888 or 1876.

Where I feel more strongly is that every state should get two Senate seats for the sake of regional representation and national cohesion. Sure, Republican Wyoming has just as much representation as Democratic California. But you might say the same about Vermont having as much representation in the Senate as Texas or Florida. Ditto for small blue states like Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Oregon and New Mexico.

Gail: OK, you can keep the Senate if we can ditch the Electoral College.

Bret: Tempting. The bottom line for me is that I worry about the unintended consequences of broad constitutional fixes that can be hard to undo once they’re implemented. My main goal is to throw the bum out.

But let’s end on a more uplifting note. I’ve been really moved by all of the tributes to Apollo 11. I seem to remember you writing a very good column several years ago about your own experiences of July 1969. Could you refresh my memory?

Gail: Well the summer of 1969 was certainly eventful for those of us who were old enough to go to Woodstock. That left a much stronger impression on me than the moon landing. It wasn’t the music or the counterculture so much as the fact that you had hundreds of thousands of people totally cut off from the outside world — traffic was jammed for miles and miles, there was no such thing as a cellphone and not much evidence of any pay phones in the humongous stretch of fields and forests where everybody was camped.

But things worked out. People shared stuff. They just had faith this was a gathering that was meant to be and everybody would take care of everybody else.

Bret: Boy was I ever born too late.

Gail: The moon landing, on the other hand, was not that big a deal where I was — a small town full of anti-war, alienated students. It wasn’t that people were against exploring space; they just didn’t want to applaud anything that involved Richard Nixon.

I’m sorry I didn’t really get to share the thrill of what was legitimately a great leap for mankind. Although, you know, for us average citizens there wasn’t much long-term payback. Those brave guys went up to the moon, got back safely and … life went on. All the dreams of interspace travel and colonies on Mars just dwindled away.

Bret: I wasn’t alive to see them, but watching old footage and new documentaries about the Apollo program has done a lot to restore my sense of wonder, of possibility, of unity and national purpose. Something we really could use these days, don’t you think?

Gail: Ah, we end on agreement. If it takes a walk on Mars, I’m all for it. Do you think they could do a musical version of the landing? Then the whole country could all get together outdoors and watch and sing and share their picnic dinners.

Bret: Sure, provided Lin-Manuel Miranda writes the lyrics and music.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/opinion/trump-immigration-racism.html" id="5313c5d1-12c9-36e6-ae7a-74ec684fa70f">The New York Times</a>.

(The Conversation)

Everyone's an Idiot, Except Donald Trump

Bret: I haven’t, though I’ve very belatedly started watching “Game of Thrones” and binge-watched Season 2 last week. It feels very … contemporary. As for William Barr, I think he’s baiting the Democrats, and I think the Democrats are falling for it. What’s your view?

Gail: People are in Trump overload. We’ve gone through so many Bad President moments that the people who support him are hardened against fresh scandals and the people who hate him couldn’t be any more outraged if he was — who’s the guy in “Game of Thrones” who slept with his sister and then pushed a kid out a tower window?

Bret: Jaime Lannister, aka the Kingslayer.

Gail: Well, at least Jaime felt remorse. I don’t have similar hopes for Trump.

But I don’t see why the Democrats shouldn’t keep pushing on about the president’s attempts to obstruct justice. It’s a matter of principle.

Bret: Maybe, but I have my doubts: If you repeatedly bash your head against a rock, it isn’t the rock that’s going to get hurt. And if you yell loudly enough, people stop listening (and your voice gets hoarse).

Look, I don’t like the precedent of an attorney general skipping a House hearing, and I like even less an AG who, even if he didn’t quite perjure himself, aggressively shades the facts to suit the president’s political purposes. All of this is corrosive to the normal functioning of government and to the ethical foundations on which it rests — something the Department of Justice is supposed to advance, not undermine.

Gail: So when Americans of the future look back on this period in horror, they’ll at least give the Democrats credit for trying.

Bret: But right now the main thing congressional Democrats should be doing is talking up an agenda for governance, not reminding Americans for the zillionth time that the president is a very bad hombre. And that’s barely happening, because outrage over this or that transgression by Barr or tweet by Trump dominates the news cycle and is the only thing that left-wing Twitter can talk about. Which is why, for now, my money is on Trump being re-elected.

Gail: I admit it would be great if the Democrats presented a thoughtful, progressive agenda for the future. But it’s not easy for Nancy Pelosi to come up with one, given the fractured ideology of her members.

We’re past the point in history when congressional leaders are going to take the lead and set the party course. While I made fun of the rank-and-file sheep back then, that setup looks pretty attractive now.

This isn’t just Democrats. It looks as if the Republicans can’t even come together to do an infrastructure bill. I thought everybody loved road repair.

These days a party’s voice comes from its president or presidential candidate. We’re not going to get that one message from the Democrats for a while yet — you may have noticed there’s more than one person running for the nomination.

Bret: Gail, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone ought to run for president at least once in their lives. It should be like running a marathon, or going on an extended juice fast, or visiting the Galápagos. There’s no real barrier to entry: Any first-term senator or young member of Congress or mayor of a small city can do it.

Gail: Or even the mayor of New York, heaven help us.

Bret: There’s no particular downside: The worst thing that can happen is increased name recognition. If you get in a good line or two in a debate, you can wind up with a lucrative cable TV show (like Mike Huckabee) or a Cabinet job, like secretary of housing and urban development.

Gail: Great job, HUD secretary — high visibility and no apparent duties except inspecting the occasional public housing elevator. I’m thinking Ben Carson is a perfect contender for Trump’s next Fed nominee.

But go on about the grand opportunities of running for president. I guess it does look good on a résumé.

Bret: And if you really exceed expectations in an early caucus you can earn the VP spot and then run for president when your time comes. That’s how George H.W. Bush made it to the White House. And, who knows, you might just win. Did you hear the one about the failed real estate tycoon with two past marriages and six past bankruptcies who catapulted to the White House mainly because he was known for firing people on TV?

Gail: Yeah, and except for a few really irritating entries — I am thinking again of our mayor — it’s pleasant for the voters. You get all these new names. You can have party conversations where nobody gets hysterical over political differences. With occasional exceptions for Bernie-philes.

Bret: The good news about Bill de Blasio’s candidacy is that it gets him out of New York.

Gail: But at the same time, we do have a Congress allegedly at work in Washington. It looks as if the Senate Republicans are going to reject the Trump-Pelosi-Schumer plan for infrastructure funding. What do you think about that?

Bret: I’m always torn when it comes to these big infrastructure bills. On the one hand, heaven knows the U.S. could use some major upgrades for roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, the works (starting with a subway train that actually reaches La Guardia Airport, of course).

Gail: Sorry, but as much as our president likes construction, he really hates anything that goes in a tunnel. Because, you know, nobody can see it. It’s the opposite of a gold-plated hotel tower.

Bret: On the other hand: $2 trillion? That’s a lot of money, even in today’s Washington. I’ve never been a big budget hawk, but if a future Democratic president is going to massively expand Medicare, or advance some kind of free college-tuition scheme, or spend big on some version of a Green New Deal, then it begins to add up in ways that are unsustainable and crowd out other core functions of government. I’m also worried about whether the funds would be put to efficient use. When you have a huge pot of money, you wind up with a lot of extras on the road crews and too many bridges to nowhere.

Gail: Given the deep, deep, deep inefficiency of the current administration, I’d say that’s a fair worry.

Bret: Meanwhile, there’s the news that unemployment is at 3.6%, a 50-year low, wage growth is solid, inflation is low, and growth is robust. Presidents who preside over these sorts of economic numbers usually win re-election. What’s a wise Democratic candidate to do?

Gail: If the economy is this good in 2020 that’s definitely going to be a challenge. But you’ve still got a society in which some very rich people and very rich corporations pay no taxes whatsoever, while the bottom half struggles.

And the Trump administration is not on the same side as most Americans when it comes to health care. That’s going to be a huge issue.

By the way, did you watch the Kentucky Derby? I think there were almost as many horses as Democratic presidential candidates. And everything wound up in a muddy mess. Hope that’s not a harbinger of things to come.

Bret: I always like a horse race, but right now I’m not seeing a winner. Democrats will win if they can find a candidate who will appeal to the center and is willing sometimes to push back against the progressive fringe; who won’t talk down to Trump voters; who believes capitalism should be improved, not replaced; who can give Americans a reason to feel proud of their president rather than embarrassed by him.

Make America Proud Again? There could be worse slogans.

This article originally appeared in <a id="5844519a-3b3d-467f-b8f8-077d364be9de" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/barr-trump-infrastructure.html">The New York Times</a>.

Is this the audition for 'Game of Thrones'?

(The Conversation): Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we ought to start off with the attorney general’s performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But I think I’m suffering from Mueller fatigue. Seen any good movies lately?

Gail Collins: Bret, I am actually taking a conservative approach, which is that we can wait to reject this appalling worst-president-ever in the next election.

Impeachment would drive the whole country even further apart. The Republicans in the Senate would never go for it anyway. And by the time we staggered to the inevitable stalemate, it’d be well into 2020. Let’s just vote the sucker out.

Bret: Agree on both points. But I’m afraid the president is helped by the report, even if he, as usual, isn’t acting like it. Much as we might want to dwell on all the unsavory things the report tells us about the way Trump conducted his business and now runs his presidency, it’s not anything the American people, including most of his supporters, didn’t already know.

But the report lays to rest the central and most damning charge against him, conspiracy (or collusion), much like the 2004 Duelfer Report on Iraq laid to rest the charge that Saddam Hussein had been developing weapons of mass destruction on the eve of the Iraq War: You still knew Saddam was a scheming, horrible person bent on destruction, but the casus belli that had caused the United States and its allies to invade proved to be false.

A lot of the president’s critics will now go through the motions of acting like this is still the biggest scandal in American politics since Watergate, but the more they do that the more I suspect it will help Trump. My own view is that the biggest scandal in American politics happened on Nov. 8, 2016, the day Trump got elected. It’s the president in plain sight that should worry us, not the guy behind closed doors.

Gail: I’ve always nurtured the theory that Trump doesn’t have the mental capacity to collude. You do need a certain amount of organized thinking to conspire.

Bret: The Inspector Clouseau theory of the Trump presidency. Go on.

Gail: But the report, lily-livered though it may be, does make it pretty damn clear he was engaged in an attempt to obstruct justice. Don’t you think Congress should at least try to censure him for that?

Bret: I would support it, though I’m afraid it would wind up being a mostly partisan affair with a few possible surprises. (How, for instance, would Mitt Romney vote?)

Gail: If it got down to waiting to see if Mitt Romney would become a profile in courage, we’d have been doomed anyway.

Bret: Speaking of obstruction, the thing I found most interesting about the Mueller report is how often Trump’s advisers wound up obstructing him. Don McGahn, the former White House counsel, refused the president’s demand that he fire Mueller. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refused a White House request to put out a statement that firing Jim Comey had been his idea. Ditto for a number of other officials who, if they weren’t directly disobeying Trump, seemed to have taken a “Bartleby the Scrivener” approach to his order: They would prefer not to.

Gail: Maybe the best thing about this episode will be the lesson it gives Trump’s team: when in doubt, ignore him completely.

Bret: In the meantime, the main task for Democrats right now is to get behind a candidate who can win. Word is that Joe Biden is planning to declare sometime this week. Is he the Trump-slayer or the second coming of Jeb Bush?

Gail: Actually, he’s just the third or fourth coming of Joe Biden. Lovely guy but fate keeps trying to tell him there’s no Oval Office in his future.

I’m looking forward to watching the new faces in this race. But a little worried there are going to be so many people in these primaries that one of the very old faces will win just on superior name recognition.

Any of the Democrats appeal to you right now?

Bret: In many ways, the Democratic field reminds me to some extent of the Republican one in the last election cycle. The presumptive front-runners — Jeb Bush then, Joe Biden now — have loads of name recognition but are weak or weary campaigners. You have, in Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, two quasi-outsiders whose political views fall outside the mainstream of their respective parties and who are considered unelectable in the general election, and yet command almost cult-like loyalty among their core supporters. And then you have a large field of secondary contenders who are either too young, too obscure, too joyless, or too doctrinaire. In 2016, those lesser contenders carved each other to bits while leaving Trump to claim the field.

All of which is to say: I like Pete Buttigieg.

Gail: Is it just because he can speak eight languages?

Seriously, I’m sort of in awe of the way he’s sweeping the field. We haven’t heard his detailed positions on the big issues the Democrats will be arguing about, but I believe you’ve pointed out in the past that the main thing is just to nominate somebody who can win. Either one of Pete Buttigieg’s dogs would be better than the man we’ve got in the Oval Office now.

But what would you do if the primaries went a different way and the winner was, say, Bernie Sanders. Would you vote for him?

Bret: I’ll get to Sanders in a second, but let’s say this about Buttigieg: It helps that he is incredibly bright — the contrast between the guy who learned Norwegian just for fun and the incumbent who hasn’t yet mastered English would be a useful one in a general election. But what really impresses me about Buttigieg is that he’s campaigning as a moderate Midwest problem-solver in a field full of coastal ideologues. I think it’s a no-lose strategy, setting himself up either as a credible candidate if he wins or a highly plausible VP pick if he doesn’t.

As for Bernie: I would never vote for him under any circumstances. I want Trump gone as much as anyone, but Sanders is a bridge too far as far as I’m concerned. I guess it would mean a Bill Weld vote for me, or whoever is the least feckless third-party candidate.

Gail: Bernie Sanders would not bring shame on the White House. He’d never defame a religious or ethnic group. He’s got a position on health care you hate, but if he couldn’t get a bill through Congress he wouldn’t try to declare a national emergency to force his will on the country. He’d bring America back to its position as a global leader, not a global delinquent.

And you know that voting for a third-party candidate is a cop-out. Also, it can screw things up if enough people do it and throw the election to the worst of two evils. I don’t think the people who self-righteously voted for Jill Stein really intended to give Donald Trump the presidency. But here we are.

Bret: Well, this is why I hope and pray that Sanders isn’t the nominee. We already have one major political party in the United States that has jumped off the cliff, morally and ideologically speaking. Why should I participate in helping the second one go over it also?

There are many Democrats I’d gladly vote for just to get rid of Trump, even if I disagree with many or even most of their policies. But I find Bernie not much better, morally speaking, than Trump, and that’s to say nothing about his extreme domestic and foreign policy views.

Gail: Morally speaking?

Bret: Anyone who said there’s a virtue to bread lines, as he did, or who praised the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, as he did, or who went to the USSR only so that he could admire the chandeliers in the Moscow subways, as he did, isn’t going to get my vote. Period. You have to have been utterly blind to what the Soviet Union and communism were all about to have taken those positions, and by the time Sanders came of age there was no excuse for ignorance or naive idealism. And I’m not talking about Stalinist Russia, which Sanders did and does condemn. I mean the kind of regime apparatus whose East German version was accurately portrayed in “The Lives of Others.”

It would be one thing if Sanders had publicly recanted these positions, as many people on the left did when they finally figured out what the Soviet Union was all about. As far as I know, he never did. That makes him a non-starter for me, and I suspect for any non-millennial who recalls the ideological divides of the Cold War and doesn’t find the word “socialism” cute.

Gail: The bread lines thing was a stupid joke from — what, 30 or 40 years ago? — when he basically said, “Well, bread lines are better than not getting bread.” I don’t think we’ve got time to go through every careless thing Bernie Sanders has said over the last six decades, and I will instantly concede that while bopping around as the senator from Vermont, Sanders was not a guy who carefully parsed every word.

But just two things: First, there is nothing you can say about Sanders’ attitude toward Russia that I can’t top with something from Donald Trump that’s intellectually slipshod and also based on personal greed. Second, I can see we’re going to be having some “socialism” discussions this season. Just want to put one marker down: they’re thinking about free health care and a guaranteed income for the poor, not Stalinism.

Understand, I’m not arguing that Bernie Sanders would be a great choice for president. But to keep Donald Trump from a second term, I’d vote for him any day of the year.

Bret: We agree on Trump’s awfulness. And I realize Bernie isn’t the second coming of Hugo Chavez (though I’m not sure the same can be said of some of his closest policy advisers). But I find even his brand of “socialism” a nonstarter, and I suspect millions of middle-of-the-road Americans who would otherwise love to see Trump go will feel the same way when they realize how much Scandinavian-style welfare statism is going to cost them and weaken the long-term economic health of the United States. So I can only hope Democrats won’t succumb to the same temptation to nominate their most extreme candidate the way Republicans did in 2016.

We’re a weird country. I think the overwhelming majority of Americans would be perfectly happy with a center-left or center-right president who was sane, steady, even a bit boring. But our politics are increasingly anything but that, because partisan activists, talking heads and the Twitter furies won’t allow it. How do we change that? How does boring triumph over bad?

Gail: Well, that’s one heck of an agenda for future conversations. Here’s to a scrappy spring and summer. I look forward to arguing with you in good weather.

This article originally appeared in <a id="4c97df69-bd74-482d-acfc-b184cdcfebc3" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/opinion/trump-sanders-impeachment.html">The New York Times</a>.

The president in plain sight is bad enough

(The Conversation): Bret Stephens: Hi Gail. I know neither of us can wait to debate the best name for Meghan Markle’s and Prince Harry’s royal baby, but can we first discuss the small matter of the Mueller report? How do you see it playing out, politically speaking, for President Donald Trump?

Where are you on the Mueller report? Ready to consign it to the dustbin of history? Demanding to see the full document? I have to admit I’m sort of ready to give up and move on. Although you could definitely talk me back into the fold.

Bret Stephens: Four thoughts, Gail.

First: Thank God the president of the United States, whatever else we may think of him, did not collude with Russia to get himself elected. I’d rather have a scoundrel in the White House than a traitor.

Gail: You’re setting the bar pretty low there, but you’re still right.

Bret: Second: Thank God we have a report at all — which, considering the vindication it brings Trump (and the vindictiveness it brings out of him) — would not have happened if the Trumpists had gotten their way and Mueller had been fired. All of those conservatives who impugned Mueller’s integrity and his team’s impartiality owe them a giant apology.

Gail: Not holding my breath waiting. Go on.

Bret: Third: Thank God for Mueller himself. He didn’t pontificate on the Sunday talk shows the way Jim Comey or Adam Schiff did. He didn’t pull any punches when it came to prosecuting the likes of Paul Manafort. He ran a tight ship. He demonstrated that even in Washington there is no substitute for character, professionalism and reputation. That’s why I suspect that when the full document is released, we’ll be able to treat it as the last word on the subject.

Finally: The news media, especially cable news, needs to do some major soul-searching. Too many reporters and pundits got way out ahead of their skis, creating a collusion narrative out of a series of unconnected dots. When historians examine why public confidence in journalism fell to such lows in our era, episodes like Russiagate will be a major part of the story.

Gail: You didn’t have to believe Trump was actively engaged in a conspiracy to point out a whole lot of unnerving stuff going on. For instance, there’s still a terrible potential for Russian sabotage via internet that this administration isn’t taking seriously.

Bret: For sure. There was a lot of smoke. There were plenty of dots. The investigation was warranted. The president repeatedly behaved in ways that suggested guilt, from lying about his business ties to Russia to seizing his translator’s notes after a conversation with Vladimir Putin to his cavalier attitude about Russia’s intentions.

The media was right to report all this and raise questions. But there was also a lack of skepticism about some of the evidence and a tone of certitude about where that evidence was bound to lead.

Gail: I’ll give you the whole impeachment thing. That was perhaps over the top. But we’re still waiting to hear the results of investigations into Trump — mainly his business practices — that are still going on here in New York.

Bret: I agree in the sense that I think his behavior as “Individual No. 1” in the payoffs to former paramours are felony violations of campaign-finance laws. But I’m also becoming increasingly convinced that the endless investigations into Trump’s past business practices are going to wind up doing more harm to Trump’s opponents than they do to him. It makes him look like the victim of an endless inquest into his pre-presidential behavior. And it distracts Democrats from talking about the things that Americans actually want from politicians, like better schools and a growing economy.

Gail: Glad you brought that up! I’m way more interested in the attack on Obamacare than his unappetizing history in real estate.

What’s your opinion on where to go with health care? I will start by acknowledging Obamacare is sort of a mess. It began as a mess because certain senators (cough, mutter, Joe Lieberman) were too deeply in the thrall of the insurance companies to let a sane restructuring occur.

Bret: Music to my ears, Gail. Obamacare is a mess, even if most Americans have learned to live with it (as we do with other messes). If it weren’t a mess, Democrats wouldn’t keep talking about “Medicare for all” as the next evolution in health care policy.

I think that’s a huge mistake, both as a matter of policy and politics. It requires another major reorganization of a huge part of the U.S. economy. Take Bernie Sanders’ plan, for example: It’s going to cost a bundle — an estimated $32.6 trillion over 10 years — and the taxes to fund it will have to come from middle-class Americans. It will mean a declining quality of health care. And it will lead to a two-tier system in which wealthy Americans go “off grid” to get high-quality medical attention while the rest of the country is stuck in a system that will resemble the VA.

Trump will also be merciless about this, politically, claiming that this is just the sort of socialism he warned about in his State of the Union speech. And it will frighten a great many voters, including those all-important suburban women, who might despise the president for all kinds of reasons but fear the Democrats are veering toward the Bernie Sanders left.

Gail: All the Democratic presidential candidates are not talking about Medicare for all. Some of the ones who did are trying to backpedal, not really having thought about what it meant before they went there. Three-fifths of the adult population from 19 to 64 get their health insurance from employers, and a lot of them like it. They’re going to get very nervous if they think they might have to give it up.

But we need sweeping change. Our current health care system is wildly expensive because it’s structured in a crazy way that creates piles and piles of stupendously expensive paperwork. We could create a government-run public policy option that would give people the security of Obamacare without the crazy structure. And gradually, if the option was attractive enough, employers might want to get in on it, too.

Bret: I definitely agree about the paperwork problem. My own views about health care are pretty libertarian. We need radical price transparency so that people are aware of the huge disparities in price between say, a blood test from Clinic A versus Clinic B. We need tort reform so that doctors don’t live in mortal fear of being sued by patients. We need more than just gold, silver and bronze insurance options: Healthy young people should also be able to buy cut-rate plans that cover only catastrophes.

As for Medicare, the long-term goal should be to get rid of it. That’s obviously distinct from Medicaid: Even crazy right-wingers like me believe that government has a moral duty to ensure that poor people have good access to quality medical care from womb to tomb.

Gail: Doctors do have to pay heavy insurance premiums to protect themselves from lawsuits. But patients also have to be protected from careless or inept physicians. It’s tough to find a perfect solution — people have been trying for years. But fine by me if you want to work on it, Bret. I’ll be cheering from the galleries.

Bret: The deeper problem with all of these health care debates is that we’re discussing something that inevitably generates bad outcomes even under the best of circumstances. But can we switch subjects from tragedy to farce? I’m curious to know your take on the Jussie Smollett story, which is what everyone I know was talking about last week (when they weren’t talking about Mueller).

Gail: You do have to thank the guy for taking Donald Trump off our minds. Not every day do you have a TV star making up a story of being attacked by MAGA hat-wearing racist thugs. Everybody was stunned when the prosecutor dropped all the charges. She basically said, well, this is what we always do with first offenders who don’t pose a threat to the community.

Not sure that would be true of first offenders whose self-promoting lies and evasions cost the city six figures in overtime. But it’s a good reminder that we have different criminal justice systems for the poor and the nonpoor.

Bret: I would not have minded if Smollett had gotten off relatively lightly — provided, that is, that he had admitted the charges, shown contrition and begged forgiveness. It’s the arrogance and gall that bothers me. Kim Foxx, the Chicago prosecutor, says her office would have had a hard time securing a conviction. Was Smollett’s check to the perpetrators and their confession of the crime not enough? The whole thing reeks of a corrupt bargain, and I hope the Department of Justice gets involved. Even Chicago can’t afford Chicago-style politics.

By the way, I don’t want us to wrap up the conversation without complimenting you on your marvelous column about statues, specifically their scandalous dearth when it comes to honoring women. I’m thrilled Billie Holiday will be getting one soon, in Queens. There are many more worthy would-be honorees that I can think of. Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel in science. Zora Neale Hurston ought to have one, too, if she doesn’t already. And Dorothy Parker, provided the statue itself had a ribald sense of humor.

Gail: Thanks, Bret. Right now, only five of the 150 public statues in New York are of women — we’ve got dozens of ethically compromised politicians and run-of-the-mill generals, but we’re only now working on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Once we’ve gotten the public figures taken care of, it’d be nice to celebrate some low-profile heroines. I was just reading about Esther Lewis, a widow who had a farm in Pennsylvania in the pre-Civil War era. She ran a stop on the Underground Railroad that sheltered runaway slaves, discovered iron ore on her property and created a serious mining operation, educated her four daughters and churned nearly 300 pounds of butter a year. There’s somebody I’d like to see standing in a town square.

This article originally appeared in <a id="5842a869-6027-4469-a809-b66a40527aee" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/opinion/trump-mueller-obamacare.html">The New York Times</a>.

(The Conversation): Gail Collins: Happy April, Bret! Since we’re past Fools’ Day, I will avoid any wisecracks about Donald Trump.

It's the day after April Fools' Day

Gail Collins: Bret, as always we’ve got a lot to talk about. The mass shooting in New Zealand, of course. But perhaps we can get started with something less painful. Everybody’s been talking about that college admissions scandal. What’s your take?

Bret Stephens: We definitely should get to talking about the terrorism in Christchurch, not only in its own right, as terrible as that is, but because we know it could easily have happened here, even if, in this instance, it took place thousands of miles away.

As for the admissions scandal, where to start? With the kids, I guess, who clearly didn’t deserve the parents to whom they were born and will be socially and emotionally scarred by this fiasco for many years. And even more so with the kids whose names we’ll never know and who were denied admission because beneficiaries of the cheating had taken their place at these schools.

Gail: As a matter of justice, I totally agree. I’m just not sure how much practical difference it makes where you wind up in college. This comes partly from our colleague Frank Bruni’s book on the subject, and partly from the fact that I went to a school that was, at the time, pretty mediocre. It worked out fine, so maybe I’m biased.

But let’s get back to the justice part.

Bret: At the next level there are the scammers themselves, starting with William Singer, who ran the business/fake charity that perpetrated the fraud, and everyone he enlisted to participate in it, including the athletic coaches and fraudulent test-takers and so on. In some ways, they’re the least interesting part of the story, because their motive was money and their method was fraud. Even so, I’m still a little stunned by the thought of the fraudulent test-takers who may be smart enough to ace an SAT for someone else but not smart enough to know that cheating is wrong. It’s another reminder that there is no correlation between a high IQ and a basic moral sense.

Gail: The idea of the students not realizing their parents were gaming the system for them does fall apart when you’ve got somebody else taking your SATs for you.

Bret: Well, I suspect there are ways of gaming that, too, but we’ll have to learn more.

About the parents: I have three kids and I totally get how natural it is to want the best for them — to put opportunities before them, develop their interests and do what you can to help and comfort them when they stumble. But a major part of raising children is setting an example for ethical behavior. And teaching them to accept that disappointment is not just an inevitable part of life but also, if you learn from it, a salutary part of it. And underlining that anything gained through cheating is not gained at all.

Finally, I guess, there’s the meta-lesson here about what this says about the way we live now and our social values. I’m reluctant to draw too large a moral from a scam in which only a tiny fraction of people participated. But there’s no doubt we’ve become a society that increasingly has a hard time distinguishing between the substance of a serious university education and the supposed benefits of a prestigious brand. All I can say is that my mom never went to college and she’s a heck of a lot wiser and savvier than I am.

Gail: And you know, Bret, you never can tell how these things are going to work out. As I said, I went to a Catholic school that was, back in the day, not on a top rung. It was the kind of place where the girls had curfews, everybody had to take theology classes and we were forbidden to invite a poet — Allen Ginsberg, in this particular case — to give a reading because he had an immoral outlook. (I suspect the gay thing was a big factor.)

Bret: Starving, hysterical, naked. Go on.

Gail: Anyhow, the place was so rigid it propelled me into a rebellion — lots of demonstrations for free speech and a boycotting of our ethics of journalism class. I could go on. But the bottom line was I had a wonderful time, made friends for life and developed a sense of confidence I never would have felt if I’d been surrounded by supercool high achievers and a sympathetic administration.

Wouldn’t necessarily recommend that for everybody, but I do think there are a lot of kids who would bloom much faster in a nonelite academic institution.

Bret: Totally agree. One of the problems with elite universities is that they accustom students to a sense of prestige that’s both superficial and inhibits a certain kind of risk-taking and genuine nonconformity. Obviously that’s not universally true but it is hard to move off the beaten path when the one before you seems well-lit and glittering. It’s also a truism that failure is life’s great teacher, and whatever else the beneficiaries of the cheating may get, they are being deprived of something ultimately more valuable.

The larger question is whether this scandal exposes how rotten the entire enterprise of higher education has become. I personally think the four-year college model is crazy — it should be three years, as it is in England. And that’s just for starters. We need to reinvent the model root-to-branch. That’s one of the reasons I’m against making college available to all: You are merely funneling more students into a system of increasingly dubious value.

Gail: Kids who can’t afford to go to college and who would benefit from college should get government funding. But the loan system is a different question. It’s worrisome. I’ve always wondered if high school graduates should have to work a year or two — volunteer programs count — before they can commit to an expensive education.

Bret: Agree completely. Frankly every 18-year-old at any level of income would benefit from a year of service of some sort. I know I would have, and I’d love to see my children take a gap year or two before college.

Gail: Our current government loan program is terrible. It helps schools grow by building up unnecessary programs and of course encourages kids to take out huge debt they’ll be dragging around for half their lives. The for-profit schools are the most egregious offenders. Many of them rake in a ton of money by making promises they can’t deliver on — great high-paying jobs that never materialize. I’m not sure students should even be able to get federal loans for for-profit schools. What do you think?

Bret: I don’t share your profound skepticism regarding for-profit schools, but I think you’re right on this point. The federal government should not be indirectly subsidizing for-profit entities, period, especially when they have a questionable track record of achieving the results they promise. Then again, I’m skeptical of federal student loans in general, because I think they help drive up the cost of tuition, exacerbating the problem they’re intended to solve.

But let’s turn to the appalling attack in New Zealand. One thing that struck me is that, as soon as it was learned that the killer owned his firearms legally, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, “Our gun laws will change.” I only wish we had that kind of common sense here in the U.S.

Gail: The death toll in New Zealand is now up to 50. Less than two years ago we lost 58 people in a mass shooting in Las Vegas. Do you remember what our president said about gun laws then? He said: “We’re not going to talk about that today. We won’t talk about that.”

Our only options are to just moan, “I live in a crazy country,” and let it go, or to soldier on. So let’s give a cheer for the Americans who devote their lives to struggling for better gun regulation.

I know you’re a supporter. Any thoughts about how we could push the cause forward?

Bret: You know I have my doubts about piecemeal, state-by-state gun regulation because strong gun laws in, say, Illinois won’t matter much if someone can easily purchase a weapon in nearby Indiana. That’s why I’ve been banging a drum to repeal the Second Amendment. That amendment was written when a competent soldier could fire his weapon perhaps once or twice a minute. Today’s mass killers are using weapons that allow them to kill dozens of people in the same amount of time, and that’s not even with a fully automatic weapon.

Gail: This is where I express full agreement without any hope whatsoever. This is a country that hasn’t been able to pass a constitutional amendment saying women are equal to men.

Bret: It is staggering that we’ve come to accept as normal the mass murder of scores of people in places like Squirrel Hill, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Sutherland Springs, Aurora and Parkland simply because unhinged men, acting from whatever motive, have access to these weapons. We should have an annual day of national mourning for victims of gun violence. Perhaps on the anniversary of Columbine.

Gail: I like that idea.

Bret: This seems to me a more fruitful avenue of political action than another long conversation about hate. Of course we need to be on our guard against every manifestation of white nationalism, just as we are when it comes to jihadism and every other form of violent extremism. But the issue now is that one evil person can kill dozens of innocent people on any given day, and we are almost powerless to stop him.

Gail: What we need is so simple — strong background checks on gun purchases, a ban on rapid-fire weapons that make it easy to mow down dozens of people. But I wonder sometimes if we could up the ante. Require that everybody who buys a gun has to be able to demonstrate both an understanding of gun safety and a minimal level of marksmanship. The one thing we don’t talk about is how inept many gun owners are. You need a decent amount of skill to be able to hit a target, particularly if you’re nervous or on the move. Unless, of course, your target is a mass of people at prayer.

Bret: And while we are at it, a psychiatric evaluation. I’d rather allow guns to people who can think straight, even if they don’t shoot straight.

Gail: Before we go, any predictions on what happens next in Washington? It doesn’t seems like there’s much chance they’ll override the president’s veto of that bill aimed at keeping him from declaring a wall emergency.

Bret: None. And it is particularly disappointing to see a Republican like Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a so-called constitutional conservative, vote with the president just weeks after he delivered a statement denouncing the national-emergency declaration. It means that Republicans have no higher principle than their own political self-preservation.

So now it will be up to the Supreme Court to act to defend the separation of powers. Don’t be surprised if Chief Justice John Roberts or another conservative justice delivers the majority opinion against the president, along with the court’s liberal wing. As we both know, the Trump presidency makes for strange bedfellows.

This article originally appeared in <a id="b62fb06d-2d45-4657-bbae-473dafaa8356" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/college-scandal-massacre-guns.html">The New York Times</a>.

The kids aren't all right

Bret Stephens: Gail, the word is that Robert Mueller may soon send his report to Attorney General William Barr. Do you expect a bombshell, a dud — or just a lot more confusion, depending on what Barr makes public and what Congress chooses to do with its conclusions?

Gail Collins: Well, we’ve already got indicted minions. As to Trump himself, I feel very safe voting for “a lot more confusion.” Just on general principles. The Trump presidential campaign was knee-deep in conflicts of interest, many of them involving Russia. But given the man’s general disorganization, I find it hard to imagine the report picking him out as the sinister, canny leader who was orchestrating everything behind the scenes.

Still feeling that the real disaster for Trump is going to come with the investigations into his business practices in New York. How about you?

Bret: That’s my guess, too. Trump’s $100 million inauguration committee looks like a giant pay-to-play scheme. I still think his alleged campaign-finance violations in connection to the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal payoffs are criminal and impeachable. And who knows what else Mueller’s investigation have dredged up about Trump family values.

Gail: The family that stays together preys together …

Bret: And vice versa. That said, if Mueller finds no clear and credible evidence of collusion or cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, it will be a major political victory for the president and a liability for his detractors. Fairly or not, it will call all the other investigations into question, however credible or serious they may be.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve been leery of investing too much political capital in wondering what Trump might have done behind people’s backs. It’s what he does every day in plain sight that is much more concerning.

Gail: Even if the Mueller investigation fails to produce, we’ll still have a bunch of congressional committees digging up dirt. But I know that’s not as satisfying for a conservative Trump-hater. You’re right that there’s plenty to investigate in his normal day-to-day life. Which horrible things the president has done lately seem most appalling to you?

Bret: Well, that list is long. But let me start by praising Trump on a couple of fronts. I think he’s shown moral leadership on Venezuela, by getting much of the world to recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president and drawing attention to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding under the Maduro regime. And I’m also glad he’s partially reversed course and will keep at least some troops in Syria. I hope he winds up withdrawing none of them so long as they can help protect our Kurdish friends and deter our Syrian, Iranian, Russian and Turkish foes.

OK. Now to the rest. His declaration of a national emergency over border-wall funding is a threat to constitutional government and the separation of powers and sets a precedent that both sides will abuse if the Supreme Court doesn’t stop it.

Gail: No disagreement on the national emergency. The fact that you haven’t seen a major uprising of Republicans over that is proof that there’s no real Republican Party anymore, only Trumpism.

And I’m looking forward to the next Democratic president declaring that climate change is a national emergency …

Bret: His unloading on The New York Times as “a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” is an assault on the First Amendment and the safety of journalists, including us. His hankering for a deal — any deal — with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un so that he can win a Nobel Peace Prize is a danger to peace and stability in Asia.

Gail: Our publisher really called Trump out on the danger he is creating for journalists. It’s perilous enough reporting from trouble spots around the globe without having the president of the United States cheerleading for the enemies of a free press.

Bret: His desire to start another trade war with Europe, this time over cars, is a threat to global growth and another nail in the coffin of trans-Atlantic unity. His nonstop lies and exaggerations and demagoguery about the purported evils of illegal immigration are an insult to our intelligence and devastating to the GOP’s chances of ever again being a majority party.

Gail: I love it when you get on a roll like this. Keep going.

Bret: And his overall comportment continues to be a foul stain on the office of the presidency, a moral embarrassment to a majority of Americans, and a blot on the record of liberal democracy. How about you?

Gail: Well, you’ve kind of run the table. But I’d add his attempts to undermine women’s reproductive rights. The assault on Planned Parenthood isn’t just about abortion, it’s about the far right’s hatred of anything that gives women the power to decide if and when they want to get pregnant. Can’t tell you what a deep irony it is to have this guy leading that crusade.

Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

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