Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Joe Biden’s presidency is in deep political trouble. His approval ratings are plumbing sub-Trumpian depths. If inflation keeps rising and the economy tanks, it’s going to get worse.
The president needs to hear some tough love. Your thoughts …
Gail Collins: Gee Bret, wouldn’t you rather begin with the Jan. 6 hearings? Or the NBA finals? Or even the weather …
Bret: I can’t believe how many Golden State Warriors fans there are at The Times. They know who they are. So do the Jan. 6 conspirators, and we’ll get to them in a minute.
Gail: Inflation is obviously a terrible problem, but I’m not sure Biden can do all that much himself. Cutting back on his spending plans certainly won’t do any good when Congress won’t approve them to begin with.
Is this the point where I’m supposed to say “It’s all up to the Fed”? Really do like tossing all our problems at them …
Bret: My first piece of advice to Biden is to replace Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen with Larry Summers, who had the job under Bill Clinton.
Summers was warning about inflationary risks early last year while Yellen, by her own admission, was downplaying them. He’s the only Democratic heavyweight who would bring instant credibility to the challenge — in the Oval Office, with the markets, and with centrist Democrats and Republicans alike. Progressives hate him. Central bankers listen to him. And it would make it seem like Biden is finally taking charge of events and ownership of the problem, rather than acting like a hostage to fortune.
Gail: Well, Yellen has admitted she was wrong about the inflation peril, so if Biden wants to make a doing-something show, I guess there’s no reason not to throw her to the wolves, Washington being Washington.
But if we’re going to whip inflation, I like Biden’s larger idea: cut the deficit by raising taxes on the rich.
Bret: If you want to soak the speculators, whip inflation and help middle-class savers, then raising interest rates seems to me like a much better way of doing it than raising taxes. It would probably cause a sharp but short recession, but I also think it would restore a lot of domestic confidence in the Federal Reserve and foreign confidence in the United States.
Gail: Hey, we disagree! What else do you have on your presidential to-do list?
Bret: My second thought is that the president has to work even harder to help Ukraine gain a decisive victory in the key battles it is now waging. The U.S. handling of the war has been one bright spot for the administration, but Biden has to do more than ensure that Ukraine survives as a rump state after Russia has carved off the resource-rich regions. If Vladimir Putin winds up looking like he got most of what he wanted, it will consolidate the public perception of an overmatched American president.
Gail: When we started conversing years ago, you generously agreed to my request that we stay out of foreign affairs, so I’m not going to get into a debate. Other than to mutter under my breath that when it comes to helping Ukraine, we’re already doing a heck of a lot.
Bret: You’re right. My advice to the Biden team is a bit like the instruction the Bill Murray character gets from the Japanese director in “Lost in Translation”: “More intensity!”
Gail: Got a third thought?
Bret: My final two cents of advice to Biden is to find his voice again on law-and-order issues and take advantage of the recall — by a very liberal electorate — of District Attorney Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. It’s just not enough for the president to say he opposes defunding the cops. He needs to work visibly with Republicans like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democrats like New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, to underscore the fact that neighborhood security is a basic civil right and that nobody needs it more urgently than minority communities. Pair that with the inadequate but better-than-nothing gun-safety legislation that now seems like it might actually pass the Senate, and you have the makings of a bipartisan bill.
Gail: I knew you were going to get to San Francisco!
Bret: Like Tony Bennett sang, “I Heart My Left in San Francisco.”
Gail: You’ve been predicting that kind of public law-and-order revolt for ages. This time, I’m not going to respond by pointing out that the crime situation has been way worse many times before. That’s no comfort to somebody who’s just been held up on the way back from parking the car.
Bret: Very true.
Gail: Just want to point out that combating crime is expensive. If you don’t like our current bail system, it’s time to pony up for a whole lot more judges and court personnel. If you want more cops on the beat, well, cops are expensive. Hiring social service workers to take cases like domestic disputes off their hands still means more public employees.
Bret: Yes, yes and yes. I’d be happy for Congress and the states to spend liberally — pun intended — on all of this. This has been my brother’s life’s work out in Washington state, by the way, so I’m advocating from family interest.
Gail: You and I are totally in accord on that “common-sense gun control” matter. I’m glad Congress seems to be ready to pass a gun bill after so many years, and kudos to Senator Chris Murphy and the others who wrestled out an agreement. But it’s so very short of a major-league reform. Assault rifles are still on sale to 18-year-olds. Some days I’m kind of in despair. You?
Bret: Every time I think of Democrats and lose my hope, I think of Republicans and lose my lunch. The same conservatives telling us that we have a mental-health crisis, particularly among boys and young men, see nothing amiss with giving them almost unlimited access to weapons. It’s like sending a loved one to a Betty Ford Clinic while insisting that there should be an open bar out front in the lobby on Tuesdays.
Speaking of losing lunch, Republican criticism of the Jan. 6 committee is something to behold. Your thoughts?
Gail: Call me crazy, but I sorta think that when one party basically refuses to take part in a committee on one of the most important events in recent American history, the country has to take its criticism with a grain of salt. Or maybe a shaker full.
Bret: Or a salt mine. Go on.
Gail: The opening prime-time hearing was important for a kind of laying-down-the-basics, but I’m very, very eager to hear more about the way that riot came together, the role of Trump and his commandos, etc.
Bret: Agree. And thank God for Liz Cheney, who is like the saber-tooth tiger of the G.O.P.: magnificent, fierce — yet tragically on her way to extinction. She summed it up best about those who are now carrying the former president’s water: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Gail: Amen.
Bret: On the other hand, I fear the Democrats’ political strategy now rests too heavily on uncovering the minutiae of the attempted coup. Every persuadable person knows this already — and those who don’t aren’t persuadable. My point is that Democrats should be careful not to lean too heavily on these hearings as a political winner.
Another question for you, Gail. We were talking a few weeks ago about the advisability of allowing protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. Now there’s been a deadly serious attempt against Justice Kavanaugh. Does this change your thinking on the subject?
Gail: Well, the upshot of the story is that you’ve got a mentally ill man who flies from California intending to kill Kavanaugh, then sees the security detail near his home and instantly confesses his intention by phone.
This sort of thing absolutely has to be taken very, very, very seriously. But the moral to me seems not that very well-contained and supervised protests shouldn’t be permitted near the justices’ homes. It’s that the security, thank God, worked.
Bret: I take your point. But I would hope political leaders on both sides would urge people to protest justices and other government figures in their official capacities at their regular places of work, not in front of their homes, where their children live. We no more want the Proud Boys in front of soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s house than we want antifa outside of Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s.
Gail: Speaking of the Supreme Court, that abortion ruling is coming very soon. If, as expected, they vote to overturn Roe, you’re going to have a majority that includes one justice — Clarence Thomas — whose wife has been running around plotting to overturn Joe Biden’s election. Also a majority that was created, in part, by Mitch McConnell’s refusal to let Barack Obama’s nominee come up for a Senate vote.
And, of course, several people who fervently promised to follow precedent, then apparently forgot.
What’s this going to do to the court, the country?
Bret: The Court’s conservatives may think that by overturning Roe they will turn a corner on 50 years of judicial activism. They may soon come to regret having their authority cut down to size by a country that learns to ignore its rulings.
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