Gail Collins: Bret, we should talk a little bit about the passing of Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana. Any first thoughts?
Bret Stephens: A sad moment. She represents the immigrant struggle, something her ex-husband should have learned to appreciate – but hasn’t. Do you know her?
Gail: No, my interactions with The Donald, as Ivana called him, only began around the time of their divorce, when I was defending the city government and he was trying to withdraw some agreements. agree to leave the Council.
However, I was working for the New York tabloids at the time, and I have very vivid memories of the big front page headlines – we call it “wood” – when he broke the news. ruined their marriage by having an affair with Marla Maples.
Bret: Ah, yes: “‘The best sex I’ve ever had'” if I recall New York Post headlines are accurate. If Edith Wharton were alive today, she would write a novel about the period known as the “Age of Relative Innocence”.
Gail: I know I don’t have to tell you this, but no one encouraged all the over-reported coverage of his erotic adventures more than the man himself. Legend has it that when he finally got Ivana to leave, he asked his press people if he could get the wood back if he also dumped Marla.
Bret: Do you think John Bolton ever said to himself, “I’m Marla Maples among Donald Trump’s national security advisers”? No wonder the coups Bolton suggested he has a plan did not come out.
But speaking of going back to the wood, do some of you Machiavellians hope Trump runs for president again?
Gail: Well, the completely self-relevant part is definitely rooted in it. If anyone else is nominated, maybe we’ll have a modestly casual campaign, which would be good for the country but bad for my cause of mocking politicians.
Bret: If anyone other than Trump wins the GOP nomination, that person will likely be the next president.
Gail: That is certainly a fundamental Democratic concern but we must rise above it. Otherwise, it’s like idiots trying to help their candidate by running the most horrible, hateful campaigns on the other side just to improve their chances.
Can’t think of a Republican candidate that could actually be worse, but that’s really your part. Is there a way we can look back with nostalgia to the Trump era?
Bret: Imagine how nostalgic we will be under President Josh Hawley. Even now, there are plenty of mid-way voters looking back on Trump’s years and saying to themselves, “Sure, it’s a crazy town in the White House, but inflation is low, the stock market is low. still rising, gas is affordable, and Russia doesn’t invade its neighbors.” If Joe Biden does not turn the tide of the administration, Democrats will face a tsunami of voter anger.
My advice to the president is to triangle, triangle, triangle. What is your?
Gail: I don’t know – kidnap Joe Manchin, lock him up in a tower, and make it clear he’ll be forced to watch reruns of “My Mother the Car” until he gets back to his priorities. Biden?
Bret: I think we need an alternative plan, Gail….
Gail: Manchin is really sitting on the Democratic agenda, especially when it comes to global warming. I know he’s in a very tense political situation in West Virginia, but he will go down in history as the man who helped make the planet a much worse place for future generations. .
Bret: As the great Tip O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” That sentence pretty much sums up everything Democrats have gone wrong in Congress over the past 18 months.
Gail: As it stands, it seems Biden’s best hope is to get through what some are now calling the Build Back Manchin – which so far seems to be some modest reform of drug prices.
Broke my heart, but am I right to doubt it makes you dance a happy dance?
Bret: I’m glad Manchin has stood firm on his spending stance, because inflation would have been worse than it is today if he hadn’t. Now it’s time for Biden to address policy issues like jailbreaking, border security, and crime; tough on Republicans on guns and abortion; then devised a plan to help Ukraine defeat the Russians quickly, before Moscow could use its strength to blackmail Western Europe during the deadly winter.
Perhaps Biden could start by having Bill Clinton stop by the White House to offer some hints on regaining the dovish center’s trust. Or is there someone else he should talk to?
Gail: Well, um, he should talk to someone who disagrees with you about breaking up.
An important problem for the economy is the shortage of workers, and in part because many mothers cannot find a safe or affordable place to leave their children while they are at work. If Biden wants to change the subject, he should return to affordable, high-quality early childhood education.
I know that’s not the direction you want to go, but it’s irresistible.
Bret: If Biden proposes something modest but achievable in that circuit, he could win legislatively, just as he did with the bipartisan gun bill that Senators Chris Murphy and John Cornyn launched last month. We also need more immigrants to fill the labor shortage. How about increasing the annual refugee limit to 750,000 from the current 125,000 while doing more to curb illegal immigration? That would combine people and good economic sense with political understanding.
Gail: That sounds fine in theory, but I’d like to know more about how curbing illegal immigration will work. There is no doubt that we need an effective border operation, a goal that has eluded all recent presidents. But there’s nothing better than sowing terror in immigrant communities across the country.
Bret: Agree. And by opening more doors to legal migration, we also reduce the incentives for people to cross the border illegally and sometimes fatally, thereby easing the pressure on border security.
Gail: Speaking of immigration… there’s a Senate Republican primaries coming up in Arizona, where that seems like a big deal. One of the leading Republican candidates, Blake Masters, once called for “unrestricted immigration” – when he was a young libertarian.
Bret: He should have stopped there.
Gail: And also a young man who mocked America’s entry into World War I.
Bret: Or even there.
Gail: And II.
Bret: Oh my God.
Gail: He’s certainly a reminder of how important it is to remind young people every day that anything you put on the web can come back to haunt you. But here in 2022, he’s the candidate who said the gun violence issue is about “Black people, to put it bluntly.” And I hardly need to mention that he has been endorsed by Donald Trump.
This is for the chair that currently belongs to a Democrat, Mark Kelly. So my two questions are: How do you want Arizona to go if it’s a Masters-Kelly contest, and any other nightmare party primaries you see on the horizon?
Bret: I wish Arizona still produced intelligent and independent Republicans modeled on Barry Goldwater, Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Jeff Flake. Now it’s just a freak show. I’ll start for Kelly, but unfortunately as a senator, the formerly great astronaut is a space cadet.
Gail: I like the reluctant way you think.
Bret: The other race I’m looking at is the one in Wyoming, where Liz Cheney hopes enough Democrats and independents will vote in the Republican primaries to help her defeat her main rival. me. I hope she does. She represents my idea of what political bravery looks like.
Gail: Agree, but would also love to see how her more liberal Democratic voters deal with this: Would you reward an elected official for showing extreme bravery while voting against practically everything you want Congress to do?
Bret: Before we go, Gail, I forgot to mention one government agency whose budget I’m going to double right away: NASA. I spent some time last week learning the images the Webb telescope had returned to earth from its cosmic perch. It is a good reminder that this country is still capable of doing good and mighty.
Gail: An interesting reminder as we often get, we are hardly the center of the universe.
Bret: Correct. And you reminded me of a few lines of poetry from my all-time favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, the only writer who has ever tempted me to truly believe in God:
Look at the stars! look, look up at the sky!
All the folk who are sitting in the air!
The districts are bright, the citadels are there!
Down in the murky forest, the diamond digs deep! goblin’s eyes!
Gray lawn where yellow is cold, where it fades away!
