Gail Collins and Bret Stephens are columnists for The New York Times and every week they have a dialogue in the opinion section of the American vehicle. This time, the two discuss the Joe Biden administration’s problems, such as falling popularity and rising inflation, the US House hearings on the US Capitol invasion and the White House’s role in the Ukraine War, among other topics.
Bret Stephens: Hi Gail. Joe Biden’s presidency is having serious political problems. His approval rating is plummeting to sub-Trumpian depths. Things are still going to get worse. The president needs to hear some unpleasant truths. What do you think?
Gail Collins: Hell, Bret, wouldn’t you rather start by talking about the hearings about January 6th? Or the NBA Finals? Or even the weather?
Bret: It amazes me how many Golden State Warriors fans [time de basquete de San Francisco] there is in the New York Times. They know who they are. The January 6th conspirators know too. Let’s talk about them now.
Gail: Inflation is obviously a terrible problem, but I don’t know if there’s much Biden can do about it. Wiping down your spending plans won’t help if Congress won’t pass them in the first place. Is it now that I should say “everything depends on the Fed”? I love blaming the Fed for all our problems.
Bret: The first piece of advice I would give Biden would be to replace Janet Yellen as Secretary of the Treasury with Larry Summers, who held the position during the Clinton administration.
Summers was already warning about inflationary risks early last year, while Yellen was downplaying them, as she acknowledged. He is the only Democratic heavyweight who would lend immediate credence to the challenge — in the Oval Office, in the markets and among centrist Republicans. Progressives hate him. Central banks listen to what he says. It would convey the impression of Biden taking the reins and taking responsibility for the problem, rather than acting as a hostage to events.
Gail: Well, Yellen admitted that she was wrong about the danger of inflation. So if Biden wants to demonstrate that he’s taking concrete action, I don’t think there’s any reason not to throw it to the wolves, since Washington is what it is.
But if what we want is to beat inflation, I like Biden’s bigger idea: raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit.
Bret: If you want to make speculators pay dearly, control inflation, and help middle-class savers, raising interest rates seems to me a much better solution than raising taxes. It would likely trigger a sharp but short-lived recession, but I think it would also restore a lot of domestic confidence in the Federal Reserve and international confidence in the US.
Gail: Well, you and I disagree. What else do you have on your to-do list for the president?
Bret: The second thing I think is that the president needs to do even more to help Ukraine win a decisive victory in the main battles it is fighting. The way the US has managed the war has been a positive for the administration, but Biden needs to do more than just ensure that Ukraine survives as a remnant state after Russia uprooted its resource-rich regions. If at the end of the day Vladimir Putin appears to have gotten most of what he wanted, it will cement the public perception of an American president who has gotten the worst of it.
Gail: When we started having our conversations years ago, you generously agreed to my request that we not talk about international affairs—so I won’t get into an argument about that. I’ll just grumble that we’re already doing a lot to help Ukraine.
Bret: You are right. The advice I give to Biden’s team is a bit like the instruction Bill Murray’s character receives from the Japanese director in “Ups and Downs”: “More intensity!”
Gail: Do you have any third points to comment?
Bret: My last piece of advice or tip for Biden is that he find his voice on issues of law and order again and take advantage of the recall – by a very liberal electorate – of San Francisco city attorney Chesa Boudin.
It is not enough for the president to say that he is against defunding the police. He needs to visibly cooperate with Republicans like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democrats like New York Mayor Eric Adams to highlight the fact that neighborhood safety is a fundamental civic right and that no one needs it anymore. than minority communities. Combine that with the inadequate but better than nothing legislation on firearms safety that is looking like it might actually pass the Senate, and we have the ingredients for a bipartisan bill.
Gail: I knew you’d end up talking about San Francisco.
Bret: As Tony Bennett sang, “I Heart my Left in San Francisco” [o título original da canção é “I Left my Heart in San Francisco”, deixei meu coração em San Francisco; a tradução do trocadilho poderia ser “eu amo minha esquerda de San Francisco”].
Gail: You’ve been anticipating this kind of uprising of law and order for centuries. This time I will not react by noting that the crime situation has been much worse now than many other times in the past. This is no consolation to someone who has just been robbed after parking their car.
Bret: Truth.
Gail: I just want to mention that fighting crime is expensive. If you don’t like our current bail system, you’re going to have to spend a lot more judges and court clerks. If you want more police patrols, cops are expensive. Hiring social workers to take care of things like domestic disputes, easing the police workload, still means hiring more civil servants.
Bret: Yes, yes and yes. To me, it’s okay for Congress and the states to spend heavily on all of this.
Gail: You and I are totally on the same page on the issue of common sense gun control. Glad that Congress is apparently ready to pass a gun bill after so many years, and applause for Senator Chris Murphy and the others who fought for a deal. But the agreement is too sparse on far-reaching reforms. Assault rifles can still be sold to 18 year olds. There are days that make me desperate. Is that you?
Bret: Whenever I think about the Democrats and I lose hope, I think about the Republicans and I throw up. The same conservatives who tell us we have a mental health crisis, especially among boys and boys, have no problem giving these same boys almost unrestricted access to guns. It’s like sending a loved one to the Betty Ford Clinic while demanding that the clinic serve free drinks in your lobby every Tuesday.
Speaking of vomiting, the Republican criticism of the January 6 committee is appalling. What do you think about this?
Gail: You can say I’m crazy, but I think that when a political party basically refuses to sit on a committee about one of the most important events in recent American history, the country should take its criticisms with a little skepticism. Or maybe with a lot.
Bret: Or perhaps with outright skepticism. Continues.
Gail: The initial hearing, which took place in prime time, was important to get the basics down, but I’m really looking forward to hearing more about how the insurrection was planned, Trump’s role and commands, etc.
Bret: Me too. And thank God for Liz Cheney, who is like the sabre-toothed tiger of the Republican Party: magnificent, fierce, but tragically on the way to extinction. She summed up very well what can be said about those who are now carrying forward the former president’s message: “I say this to my fellow Republicans who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump will be gone, but the dishonor will of you will remain”.
Gail: Amen.
Bret: On the other hand, I fear that the Democrats’ political strategy is now overly based on figuring out the minutiae of the coup attempt. All people who could be persuaded already know this, and those who do not know cannot be persuaded. My point is that Democrats should be careful not to rely too heavily on these hearings to bring them political victories.
Another question for you, Gail. We talked a few weeks ago about whether it is advisable to allow public protests outside the residences of Supreme Court justices. Now there has been a very serious attempt on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Does that change your opinion on the matter?
Gail: Well, the summary of the story is that we have a mentally ill man who travels by plane from California with the intention of killing Kavanaugh, but sees the security team near the judge’s house and immediately confesses his intention over the phone.
Of course, this sort of thing should be taken very, very seriously. But the moral of the story, for me, is not that well-contained and supervised protests shouldn’t be allowed near the judges’ homes. It’s just that the security worked, thank God.
Bret: I understand. But I would like political leaders on both sides to advise people protesting Supreme Court justices and other government figures to do so in the judges’ workplaces, not in front of their homes, where their children live. In the same way that we don’t want to see the Proud Boys in front of future Supreme Court judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s house, we don’t want to see Antifa in front of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s house.
Gail: Speaking of the Supreme Court, that abortion decision is going to come out very soon. If, as predicted, the judges vote to oust Roe, we will have a majority that includes one judge, Clarence Thomas, whose wife has been out there plotting to overturn Joe Biden’s election. And a majority of judges that was created in part by Mitch McConnell’s refusal to let Barack Obama’s nominee be voted on in the Senate.
Not to mention, of course, several people who swore standing together that they would follow precedent, but then seem to have forgotten what they swore. What consequences will this have for the Supreme Court and the country?
Bret: Conservatives on the Supreme Court may think that by taking down Roe they will put 50 years of judicial activism behind them. But perhaps they will soon regret having their authority diminished by a country that will learn to ignore their decisions.
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