Bret Stephens on What Trump Gets Right, Wrong and Really, Really Wrong

Summary

Summary of "Bret Stephens on What Trump Gets Right, Wrong and Really, Really Wrong"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Opinions
• Host/Author: The New York Times Opinion
• Episode: Bret Stephens on What Trump Gets Right, Wrong and Really, Really Wrong
• Release Date: April 17, 2025

In this engaging episode of The Opinions, Patrick Healey, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion, engages in a deep and nuanced conversation with Bret Stephens, a conservative columnist known for his critical stance on former President Donald Trump. The discussion delves into the complexities of Trump's administration, highlighting both its achievements and significant missteps, while exploring the broader implications for the American political landscape.

1. Bret Stephens’ Overall Critique of Trump’s Administration

Bret Stephens begins by expressing his profound disappointment with Trump's leadership, describing the administration's actions as "reckless, stupid, awful, un-American, hateful, and bad" (02:32). He acknowledges some achievements but emphasizes that the negative aspects overwhelmingly overshadow any positives.

Bret Stephens ([02:39]): "The memory of things that this administration has done of which I approve is drowning in the number of things that are, in my view, reckless, stupid, awful, un-American, hateful, and bad."

2. Specific Policy Areas:

a. Southern Border Management

Stephens concedes that Trump effectively secured the southern border, which he considers a "colossal folly of the Biden administration" for not addressing earlier.

Bret Stephens ([03:03]): "It was a colossal folly of the Biden administration not to get a better grip on that."

b. DEI Policies

He expresses support for Trump's efforts to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, viewing them as having "gotten out of hand."

Bret Stephens ([03:16]): "I thought DEI had gotten out of hand and I was happy to see the administration's orders about it."

c. Support for Israel

Stephens briefly touches upon Trump's support for Israel, though the conversation primarily focuses on other areas.

3. Trump’s Conduct and Leadership Style

a. Humiliation of Allies: Zelenskyy’s Visit

A pivotal moment in the discussion is Trump's handling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the White House, which Stephens describes as a "public humiliation" that damaged diplomatic relations and emboldened adversaries like Vladimir Putin.

Bret Stephens ([05:58]): "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the Oval Office... was publicly humiliated and treated with the most incredible kind of discourtesy by the president and the vice president."

b. Use of Executive Orders

Stephens criticizes Trump's reliance on executive orders, portraying it as an overreach of presidential power that undermines the constitutional balance of government.

Bret Stephens ([09:03]): "He loves signing executive orders... it's him dominating people."

c. Treatment of Opponents as Toadies

He illustrates Trump's tendency to turn former opponents into subservient allies, using examples like Lindsey Graham and J.D. Vance who shifted from opposition to support.

Bret Stephens ([07:32]): "He gets the most satisfaction when he sees that he's managed to turn someone into a dependent on him."

4. Impact on the Conservative Movement

Stephens expresses concern that Trump’s brand of conservatism is damaging the broader conservative movement, making it appear illiberal and distancing it from foundational principles.

Bret Stephens ([21:37]): "The United States needs a healthy conservative movement grounded in its foundational liberal, classically liberal principles."

5. Jews and Trump: Exploitation of Antisemitism

A significant portion of the conversation addresses Trump's manipulation of antisemitism issues, which Stephens finds particularly troubling given its impact on academic freedom and Jewish values.

Bret Stephens ([12:01]): "Trump has turned a legitimate grievance... into a tool to undermine and potentially destroy a value which is, I think, a core Jewish value."

6. Conservatism vs. Trumpism

Stephens distinguishes between traditional conservatism and Trumpism, advocating for a conservatism that respects democratic norms and individual freedoms, rather than one that leans towards authoritarianism.

Bret Stephens ([21:58]): "The United States needs a conservative movement that seeks to have an honorable place in a liberal democratic order."

7. The Future of American Politics: Resilience and Hope

Despite the challenges presented by Trump's administration, Stephens remains cautiously optimistic about America's resilience. He draws parallels to historical periods of turmoil, such as the Nixon era, suggesting that the nation's democratic institutions can withstand and adapt to current pressures.

Bret Stephens ([24:17]): "America has endured other presidents who exceeded by a lot the bounds of the Constitution... the country tended again to find its balance."

8. Conclusion: Hope Amidst Challenges

Stephens concludes on a hopeful note, believing that the current trials can ultimately lead to a stronger and more resilient America. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining intellectual honesty and preserving the core values of liberal democracy.

Bret Stephens ([25:04]): "These four years of Trump... we might come out of the other end of a better country."

Notable Quotes:

• Bret Stephens ([02:39]): "The memory of things that this administration has done of which I approve is drowning in the number of things that are, in my view, reckless, stupid, awful, un-American, hateful, and bad."

• Bret Stephens ([07:32]): "He gets the most satisfaction when he sees that he's managed to turn someone into a dependent on him."

• Bret Stephens ([12:01]): "Trump has turned a legitimate grievance... into a tool to undermine and potentially destroy a value which is, I think, a core Jewish value."

• Bret Stephens ([21:58]): "The United States needs a conservative movement that seeks to have an honorable place in a liberal democratic order."

• Bret Stephens ([25:04]): "These four years of Trump... we might come out of the other end of a better country."

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a comprehensive and balanced exploration of Donald Trump's administration through the lens of Bret Stephens, a conservative thinker critical of Trump. The discussion underscores the complexities of political leadership, the importance of maintaining democratic principles, and the potential for American resilience in the face of political upheaval. For listeners and readers seeking a nuanced perspective on Trump's legacy and its implications for the future of conservatism and American democracy, this conversation provides valuable insights and thoughtful analysis.

Transcript

[Josh Haner]

Hi, I'm Josh Haner and I'm a staff photographer at the New York Times covering climate change. For years, we've sort of imagined this picture of a polar bear floating on a piece of ice. Those have been the images associated with climate change. My challenge is to find stories that show you how climate change is affecting our world right now. If you want to support the kind of journalism that we're working on here on the climate and environment desk at the New York Times, please subscribe on our website or our app.

[Patrick Healey]

This is the Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

I'm Patrick Healey, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion, and this is the First Hundred Days, a weekly series examining President Trump's use of power and his drive to change America. So this week I wanted to talk to my colleague, columnist Bret. Bret is a conservative who occupies this really interesting position. He's a Trump critic who thinks the administration is succeeding on some fronts. And he's an American who wants strong leadership in his country, but finds both political parties really lacking. So what's it like to agree with Trump on a bunch of issues, but also kind of hate him? I'm curious how Brett wrestles with that dichotomy and how he thinks Americans should see the next four years. Brett, thanks for joining me.

[Bret Stephens]

Such a pleasure to be here.

[Patrick Healey]

Brett, I really love talking to you because you push me on ideas and you push readers and listeners and you don't let anyone off the hook, yourself included. So I want to start with something you've been candid about. You've been tough on Trump from the get go, but you also of how he's used power to secure the southern border and how Trump has pushed to get rid of DEI and the Department of Education and his support for Israel. So what's your starting point with Trump? Is it being open minded about his agenda? Is it disliking him personally? And can you talk a bit about how you've been processing the past couple months?

[Bret Stephens]

Well, you know, Patrick, I think your intro may be 24 hours out of.

Date because my feelings about not only.

Trump, but the administration are falling like.

A boulder going into the Marianas Trench.

And so the memory of things that.

This administration has done of which I.

Approve, is drowning in the number of things that are, in my view, reckless, stupid, awful, un American, hateful, and bad.

Not just for the country, but also for the conservative movement.

So it is true that I give.

Him credit for getting control over the southern border.

It was a colossal folly of the Biden administration not to get a better grip on that.

I thought DEI had gotten out of.

Hand and I was happy to see.

The administration's orders about it.

But I have two large, maybe three large objections to what is going on. One of them is that even when.

The administration does what I think is.

The right thing, it does it in the wrong way. The second thing is that some of what it is doing. I'm thinking of the case of Grego.

Garcia, the migrant who was unlawfully deported and whom the administration refuses to bring back and come compliance with a court.

Order I think is unconstitutional and un American. And I think that there is a mean spiritedness of vulgarity that just sits outside of the spirit of the America that I love.

So those three things together do a.

Lot to obscure the increasingly sort of dwindling number of policy decisions, of which I say, okay, yeah, that's what I.

Might have done, or what I wish, what I would have seen done by another administration.

[Patrick Healey]

Let me bear down on this because I think you've pushed me and others to remember this is a president of the United States, that to start on day one in a posture of resistance and oppose, oppose, oppose, oppose, everything can be a limited way of thinking about it. But what was the turning point for you, and I'm not saying you're now Mr. Resistance, but was there kind of a moment recently where things really changed for you, or did he somehow reveal himself just that much more to be the person he is?

[Bret Stephens]

One of the things I've come to appreciate is the extent to which the.

First Trump administration was helped by Republican opposition to some of what Trump was trying to do, which kept him from.

Going off the rails. And when the administration resumed in January, I probably had it too much in.

My mind that this administration would look.

A lot like the previous one. And it turns out it looks nothing like it at all, because there are no Republicans who are willing publicly, or even, it seems, privately, to push back against Trump's worst impulses and ideas, of which there are so many. So the turning point for me was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to the Oval Office, where a person that the.

United States ought to consider a vital.

Ally, not to mention a heroic figure, was publicly humiliated and treated with the.

Most incredible kind of discourtesy by the president and the vice president, basically kicked out of the White House.

And as the saying goes, it was worse than a crime.

It was a mistake, a crime, because America should never treat an ally that.

Way, certainly not one who is bravely fighting a common enemy. But it was also a mistake, because nothing could have delighted Vladimir Putin more than the sight of that public humiliation. It merely emboldened Putin to press the war harder. So if Trump's goal is actually to end the war, he'd put that goal.

Further out of reach.

And it's this kind of combination in the administration of a kind of a malice and idiocy that is almost unique in American history. And the presidents we've had, I think.

Of Richard Nixon, who sometimes acted with.

Malice, were usually pretty clever. But here, it's like a face plant presidency. It's doing terrible things and screwing up, even in its own maliciousness.

[Patrick Healey]

Brett, let's talk more about that. That malice, that humiliation you were talking about with Zelensky, the way that Trump appreciate approaches people and institutions and even policy, what do you think he wants America to be?

[Bret Stephens]

I think he wants a nation of toadies. If there is some kind of reptilian cunning to what he does to his.

Entire approach, it's to turn everyone into a supplicant.

I'm thinking of the way in which he went after law firms so that they had to kind of bend the knee. Even the tariffs, when you think about it, by imposing these tariffs, it means.

That the Tim Cooks of the world.

The tech people, have to go begging to the White House to carve out exemptions. And I think that's essentially the way in which Trump operates.

He gets the most satisfaction when he.

Sees that he's managed to turn someone into a dependent on him. I mean, think of the people who are now in his inner circle.

Lindsey Graham was a vociferous opponent, turned into a toady.

J.D.

Vance, another vociferous opponent, now a toady. Marco Rubio.

You'll remember the 2016 debates. Another toady.

That's how Trump likes it.

He likes the feeling that he has conquered and humiliated another person and that they are now paying him court.

[Patrick Healey]

Brett? Yes, people have talked about it as an imperial presidency. People talk about it as a dictatorial one. I just think he loves signing executive orders. I think he loves sitting at that desk and exerting a kind of leverage that, that doesn't need Congress, that doesn't necessarily need the bureaucracy. It's him dominating people.

[Bret Stephens]

And the aesthetic of it, of him.

Sitting at this desk with no papers, no evidence that he is busying himself.

Except to be handed a decree, which.

He then signs in that Ostentatious signature.

Of his, that iconography clearly flatters some.

Deep part of his vanity or his ego.

But it's also so contrary to the spirit of the presidency. It's so contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

You know, a co equal branch of government working through respect and negotiation, looking.

For win win solutions. And Trump is incapable of thinking beyond a zero sum. That's what's so corrosive and troubling for me. And by the way, I actually think.

That those of us who are critics.

Of Trump, who find him at some level vomitus, are better critics when we.

Concede from time to time that he.

Has accomplished something, that not everything is dreadful, idiotic, you have to keep your brain on.

And I think the danger for a lot of Trump critics, and one of the reasons I resist the term resistance.

Is that once you join the resistance, your brain goes off and you have a hard time understanding the deeper sources of his appeal or the ways in which, even if he's not entirely right, he's at least half right. And I think that's an important way in which I think Trump needs to be approached. Because I think one thing everyone can agree on, Trump supporters and critics alike.

Is that so far the efforts to.

Stop him have so obviously failed.

[Patrick Healey]

What's an example of half right that is illuminating or revealing, Brett, about what Trump is really up to, do you think?

[Bret Stephens]

Well, let's take the universities, for example. When the list of demands for Columbia University came down, I know that privately many university presidents said, well, this is what we should have done. Banning face covering masks, having a disciplinary process that's meaningful, ensuring that Jewish students feel safe on campus, all perfectly fine. And to the extent that if he.

Had limited, if the administration had limited.

Itself to those sorts of demands, it would have been hard to make the case against them. But what clearly is now happening, what.

We'Ve learned over the last 10 days.

Is this is an effort not to.

Curb or reduce antisemitism.

It's an effort to destroy academic freedom. So he latched onto the question of.

The issue of anti Semitism on campus, which is real, which is right, which.

I think the left was in denial about to a great extent. But he's using it for an agenda.

Which is destructive to American liberty.

[Patrick Healey]

Not just destructive to American liberty, Bret, but you've been such a powerful voice and thinker on antisemitism. How much does it bother you that Trump has used antisemitism in such a, frankly, Brett, exploitative way to get the ends that he wants?

[Bret Stephens]

So this is A column that I really need to write because it really rankles.

I'm a UChicago person.

I have a fundamental commitment to concepts of academic freedom which include the right of students and professors to espouse views which I find mistaken, wrong, and even loathsome. And so what Trump has now done is turned a legitimate grievance, and specifically Jewish grievance, into a tool to undermine and potentially destroy a value which is, I think, a core Jewish value, which is the value of debate, dissent, reason, inquiry, criticism, and so on. The one mistake we cannot make is.

We cannot get on the side of illiberalism. We cannot get on the side of.

People who pretend to be our friends, but seek to undermine a political order centered on the notion of the freedom.

Of conscience and thought, the freedom of and the dignity of the individual.

I don't mean liberalism in the kind of progressive sense.

I mean liberalism in the classic Jeffersonian, John Stuart Mill sense of the word.

I think it's dangerous because it means.

That it puts the Jewish population sort.

Of as a protected class of the ruler. And that's how, historically, for Jews over the centuries, we keep hoping the next king is not gonna expel us or.

Put us to the torch.

But the whole purpose of liberalism is.

That Jews enjoy the same kind of rights and privileges and freedoms as everyone else as equal citizens.

That's the promise of Washington's letter to the Newport congregation. You know, he says, we no longer speak of mere tolerance because Jews are every bit as American as everyone else. And so there is a side of the Jewish population that's sort of cheering Trump because he seem to have the.

Same enemies, or many of the same.

Enemies that we do. But the methods he's using to oppose those enemies are methods we ought to fear.

[Patrick Healey]

That's the thing I don't understand, Bret. Why do some Jews. Why do so many conservatives throw in with Trump's illiberalism? Is it that the ends justify the means? Is it something different? Do they ask? Well, I don't think that's first of all.

[Bret Stephens]

I mean, I'd have to look back at the exit polling, but I think.

Harris won an overwhelming share of the Jewish vote.

[Patrick Healey]

She did.

[Bret Stephens]

Including this Jewish voter. My vote precisely with the same fears that I have.

Look, I mean, this is a uniquely vulnerable time.

I think the answer is that for many Jews, including Jews who voted for Trump, did so through with immense reluctance because they see him for who he is. I mean, I'm sure there's some number.

Who are enthusiastically maga, but I don't.

Actually know any of them. I think the ones that I know who voted reluctantly for Trump said the Jewish people face is a kind of.

A state of emergency.

Israel is under a unique kind of threat.

The eruption of antisemitism is something the world hasn't witnessed since the 1930s.

And extreme times call for extreme measures.

Sometimes you need to summon the bully.

To fight back the furies. Right. I'm trying to do justice to the thinking of a minority of Jewish voters who I think, for understandable reasons, said, this guy's on our side and we.

Can'T be choosy at a moment of existential peril.

[Patrick Healey]

And I want to be clear, this is not just Jewish Americans. This is many Americans who I think saw a version of a national emergency, that America had kind of lost the plot that the country had turned into something over the last five or ten years that was different than what they knew. And there were a lot of people who saw Trump, who still see Trump as essentially a strong figure, as someone who is going to take stands that might be deeply unpopular, might get him called illiberal by New York Times columnists, but who see him as having his back against a wall for America. Am I puffing him up or does.

[Bret Stephens]

This stick to you? No, I don't think you can explain Trump's rise without fully taking account the extent to which the Democratic Party, as.

Exemplified by Biden and Harris and Biden was the ostensible moderate. But I'm talking about President Biden, not.

Candidate Biden simply lost the confidence of the American people for exactly the kinds of reasons that you just illustrated. It became a party that seemed to represent an Alphabet soup of Americans rather than America itself. It became a party wedded to a set of ideas that profoundly alienated a lot of Americans.

And actually, for all the talk about.

Inclusion, very exclusionary of those of us who just thought, well, I'm an American, you know, that's the foremost aspect of my social identity or my political identity. And then the gaslighting of the United States through the pretense that Joe Biden.

Was fit to run for president, the.

High handedness of anointing Kamala Harris an incompetent candidate, in my view, in the space of a day, there's a segment of the readership that is always angry that I was sort of slow to.

Publicly endorse Kamala, which always amuses me.

Because it sort of so puffs up my importance. The idea that, you know, my reluctance.

To vote for Kamala was a reason.

For her defeat is hilarious to me. But what I spent the entire time, the political season doing before I endorsed Harris is first begging Biden to get out of the race. I started begging him in 2021 and then saying, please, let's have an open primary. Don't anoint Kama as your candidate. Because judging by her performance in 2019, she never even made it to 2020. And the Democrats couldn't rise to that.

I think there's.

Now I'm thinking of people like Seth.

Moulton, Ro Khanna, Richie Torres, John Fetterman.

Alyssa Slotkin, Josh Shapiro.

There's much more intellectual ferment in the Democratic Party, more of an effort to.

Reckon with their mistakes, and that gives me some hope.

[Patrick Healey]

What is all of this cruelty and overreach by Trump due to the conservative movement, to Republicans, to people who believe in the rule of law and identify themselves as conservatives? I mean, to some extent, folks like you who've described a sense of being politically homeless right now, but also there are ideas that you believe in. You can sort of see Trump's point in some ways, and yet it can kind of muffle the record and the agenda, what he's doing.

[Bret Stephens]

You know, at some level, my only standard is I try to maintain a sense of intellectual honesty and humility. If Trump is gonna do something that I've advocated for years, long before, you know, he came on the political scene, let's say, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, I'm going to praise it. What else can I do? Oh, Trump did it. So therefore it's corrupt because it's drowned out by his cruelty and his otherwise general terribleness. And I don't think that occasionally finding.

Areas of agreement diminishes the power of my fundamental criticism of the guy.

I think it's. It enhances it. If you can point to the fact that you're not just sort of suffering from what the Republicans like to call.

Trump derangement syndrome, that you are capable of seeing areas of agreement that you're.

Not willing to abandon your former point of view simply because Trump's position coincides with your own. It just strikes me that you are maintaining a sense of intellectual honesty. I mean, I've kind of watched the.

Way in which the Never Trump movement.

You know, that I was a charter.

Member of back in 2015, the way.

In which it has gone.

And of course, some Never Trumpers, like J.D.

Vance just became ardent Trumpers. Some never Trumpers just kind of adopted a George Costanza do the opposite frame of mind. They effectively became indistinguishable from the leftists they used to oppose. But I also think this is maybe the key point, Patrick.

The United States needs a healthy conservative movement. The United States needs a conservative movement.

That is grounded in its foundational liberal, classically liberal principles. And the way I see my role is to express the conservatism, which I think is essential for a healthy democracy.

I mean, every society is going to have a conservative side.

There's never been a society in history that doesn't have a kind of conservative leaning people. I think it's psychological. And the question is, does that conservatism express itself in a Reagan esque fashion?

George H.W. bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, those types.

Of conservatives, or does it kind of.

Tilt into an illiberalism that Trump represents?

And what I'm trying to do is uphold the idea, however lonely it is, of a conservative movement that that seeks to have an honorable place in a liberal democratic order.

[Patrick Healey]

That resonates for me, and I might put it a slightly different way. I always thought that a really strong Democratic Party would be the greatest threat to conservatism in this country. But now I think it's Trump. Trump's in ways the greatest threat to conservatism. Do you agree?

[Bret Stephens]

Yeah, because he presents himself as a quintessential conservative. And a generation of young conservative minded people are coming to see his brand of the right as being the real.

Brand, the real version of the right. And I think one of the things that I now find really worrying among.

My kids generation is meeting young right wingers whose idea of what a conservative is, is Viktor Orban. And I just parse. I just completely part company with them.

I mean, I do my best to say no.

In the spirit of Gladiator, There was a dream that was Rome and this is not it.

[Patrick Healey]

I mean, Brett, you wrote a really powerful column recently about the idea of Democratic nobility, sort of small D Democrat. And what you're saying kind of resonates with that. But it also makes me think of the introduction to this episode where I think what is special about the work that you do are those values about openness and inquiry that I wasn't trying to say that you're somehow a Trump hugger, but you're someone who approaches these issues from a fundamental point of openness and sort of asking what is the intent? I think what a lot of readers and listeners of yours and myself included, as kind of a colleague, do wonder, what path do you see America on right now? What do you see Trump leading us toward, if not Democratic nobility. And as someone who tries to frankly, model kind of openness in the way that you think about this guy.

[Bret Stephens]

Well, I mean, I think his aspiration.

Is what Viktor Orban called a liberal.

Democracy, which isn't quite autocracy but resembles.

Not only Orban's Hungary, but Erdogan's Turkey, for instance.

On the other hand, I am not a pessimist about the United States, and I think this is important to say America has endured other presidents who exceeded.

By a lot the bounds of the.

Constitution in pursuit of their agendas, and the country tended again to find its balance.

I mean, if we were having this conversation in 1973, 1974, we would be.

Saying same thing about Richard Nixon. The United states is a 250-year-old next year, 250-year-old Republic, and we have seen worse. And what I think is actually happening now is in some ways healthy, which is that Trump's aggressiveness, his overreach, is changing the conversation. In the United States, we used to.

Be saying the vibe shift was to the right.

It doesn't seem like that right now.

That's the nature of a free society.

And democracies that are constantly attentive to the ways in which things are going wrong tend to be more adaptive and more flexible and ultimately more resilient than states like China, which, you know, pursue.

The path of the leader and then find themselves running into trouble.

So I actually think that a lot.

Of Americans are going to learn from.

These four years of Trump, and we might come out of the other end of a better country. I mean, I know that sounds a little Pollyanna right now, but I think.

History in this sense is on my side.

And there have been other periods of deep pessimism and in some ways seemingly justified pessimism about the direction of the country.

And we've surmounted and survived them and.

Learned from those episodes, just as we did. I don't know the red scare, the McCarthy period. So I'm not completely doom and gloom yet, although sometimes it's hard to shake it.

[Patrick Healey]

Thanks a lot, Brad Patrick.

[Bret Stephens]

It's a. It's a pleasure.

[Patrick Healey]

If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Opinions is produced by Derek Arthur, Sofia Alvarez, Boyd Vishaka Darba, Christina Samulewski and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Allison Bruzek and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota The Fact Check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Margelocker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Christina Samulewski. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser.