Advice | Trump is in his element

Bret Stephens: Hello, Gail. I know we’re going to talk about Donald Trump’s big primary in South Carolina, but first I want to think about Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. It won’t happen until next week, but I suspect the White House speechwriters are working hard on it now.

Any advice on what the president should say and how he should say it?

Gail Collins: Let’s assume he’s going to tell the country how well the economy is doing, the progress he’s made on priorities like improving America’s infrastructure and providing relief to people drowning in student debt.

Bret: I’ll argue with you in a moment. Continue ….

Gail: Then at some point he will turn to foreign affairs. You know this is not my topic, but even an observer like me could guess that Russia’s evil will be accompanied by Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States should not protect any NATO country that does not spend a certain amount on defense spends.

Biden has already participated in this once, but he was so… powerful that I hope for a repeat.

Okay, your turn.

Bret: Many Americans view a Trump-Biden rematch as a case of morally unfit versus mentally unfit. So the most important thing Biden needs to do with this speech is to dispel the perception that he is undergoing senility. If he stumbles even a little, it will cost him a lot.

The next thing he should do is acknowledge the magnitude of the crisis at the border and blame Republicans for rejecting the bipartisan Senate bill to help address the crisis — a cynical MAGA maneuver designed solely to crisis alive for Trump’s political advantage. Finally, declare that he is sending many thousands of troops to the border, with the authority to detain migrants. It would remind people who is president and take the issue right out of the hands of the Republican Party.

Gail: Lord, I forgot the border. I just blocked it out, I think. We can fight about that later. Continue your topics for Biden.

Bret: On Ukraine, I was disappointed by the rather ineffective sanctions announced by the government last week in retaliation for the brutal death of Aleksei Navalny in a Siberian prison. I hope Biden waits until the State of the Union declares that he will seize frozen Russian assets held by the United States and give the money to Ukraine for the purpose of purchasing American weapons. The alternative is to let Ukraine lose the war because of House Republicans’ craven deference to Trump. It is un-American and Biden should challenge them directly. Republicans today are to Russia what the far left in the West was to the Soviet Union a generation ago: fellow travelers, apologists and naives.

And about those student loans…

Gail: Ah yes, always a point of conflict for us. Obviously, there needs to be a rational student loan program that encourages the generally very young borrowers to be smart about the types of deals they take. That wasn’t the case early on, and many innocent people became trapped in massive debt, flooding the schools with money that was too often used for unnecessary expansion. They deserve some help to save their already half-ruined careers and lives.

Bret: I don’t want to sound like the Mother Superior at the orgy, but for a president to unilaterally cancel a $138 billion debt is plainly unconstitutional. Congressional control of the purse strings is fundamental to our system, and virtually ignoring a Supreme Court ruling, as Biden bragged last week, is a real road to hell: imagine how Trump could set the precedent use when he re-enters the White House.

While the president certainly thinks he’s trying to curry favor with younger people whose votes he desperately needs, he’s also alienating many working-class, non-college-educated voters who see this as yet another huge giveaway to unwary borrowers. So: bad policy and bad politics. But now you will tell me why I am wrong….

Gail: The people who stand to benefit the most from Biden’s forgiveness plan are those who deserve it the most: low- to middle-income alumni who attended community colleges. They believed in the national mantra that college would lead to a good job, but many found themselves stuck in debt even though they qualified for careers that didn’t pay as well.

There are people who have been saddled with these obligations for decades and are barely able to meet the interest payments. After a certain number of years, they earn an escape route.

Bret: And what about all those people who took out loans and dutifully paid them back for years? Or those who wisely decided not to saddle themselves with debt in the first place by skipping college? In fact, they are punished for their diligence and foresight. And I don’t even want to think about how this loan forgiveness creates a moral hazard when it comes to other types of debt.

Anyway, we said we’d talk about South Carolina. You probably don’t lose sleep thinking about Nikki Haley’s interests, but is she politically wise to continue this fight?

Gail: Well, if you lose your home state, this is probably a message to pack your bags and go on a nice long vacation. On the other hand, Haley was never going to win anyway, and going through the primaries is a commendable way to draw voters’ attention to Trump’s terrible shortcomings. But of course also as a distracting way to spend spring.

Bret: The smart advice or the honorable advice?

Gail: You know I’m going to demand both.

Bret: Well, the smart advice, politically, is that she should end her campaign, support Trump, diligently kiss him and his voters, and hope to win his — and their — blessing for a 2028 bid.

The honorable advice is that she must come to terms with the fact that she may never become president, but she can become a leader of a principled conservative movement that rejects demagoguery, supports the rule of law, for free people, freedom of speech and freedom trade advocates. and free markets – and bides its time until the Republican Party is rid of the zombies and wants to return to its former self. That means campaigning for a while, maybe even before the convention.

And speaking of zombies, did I mention I watched a Trump rally for 40 minutes on Friday?

Gail: The one where he kept talking about the size of the audience?

Bret: Size is a theme with him.

I watched the meeting with my mother, who thought it was reminiscent of the style of the Mussolini regime under which she was born in wartime Italy. She referred to the incoherence, the bombast, the grandeur, the extravagant lies, the demonization, the xenophobia, the false nods to religiosity and patriotism, the references to himself with the royal ‘we’, the condescending sops to his mushrooms, the ecstatic look of the people lined up on stage behind him. But there’s also an undeniable comedic aspect, especially when he gushed about how he took the nickname “crooked” from Hillary Clinton (which is now “Beautiful Hillary”) and gave it to Biden, who used to be “Sleepy” (and probably still). I admit I giggled a little, against my better judgement. The whole thing was a bit like, “Il Duce, Live at the Comedy Cellar.”

It’s… terrifyingly effective. If his opponents are Biden and Kamala Harris, I fear he will win.

Gail: Funny, I was watching his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday and found myself falling asleep. I think I’ve seen his act too many times. Usually I try to stay alert by counting the number of times he quotes someone calling him “sir,” but this time it just didn’t work.

Yet it is completely wrong to become drowsy when someone tells the audience, “The only thing standing between you and destruction is me.”

Bret: It’s something you’d expect from a cult leader right before he hands out the Kool-Aid.

Gail: I can’t argue with you about his talent for whipping up a crowd when he’s in the mood. But it’s far, far too early to give up hope. God knows what will happen between now and November.

Bret: Truer words have never been spoken. Which do you think is more likely: Biden dropping out of the race after a terrible stumble? Or will Trump be convicted of a crime? Both are of course possible.

Gail: Wow, imagine an election without either of the two inevitabilities. If Trump is convicted of a crime, he would appeal and that could lead to a very interesting nominating convention. He would never give up for the good of the party even if he was taken away in chains.

Hmm. Really like that image.

Bret: Just think of James Michael Curley, the mayor of Boston who ran for his fourth term while under federal indictment, went to prison for a few months, had his sentence commuted by President Harry Truman, returned to a hero’s welcome and the rest served his sentence. mayoral term. That could also be Trump.

Gail: They made a movie about Curley called “The Last Hurrah,” right? Great Spencer Tracy movie. I wish Trump was finally… something.

Biden is, of course, a much wiser man, although he is clearly someone incapable of recognizing the limits of mortality. If the Democrats managed to oppose his nomination at the convention, he would certainly admit it, but it is difficult to imagine which one Democrat could organize such a meeting.

Bret: Anyone, anyone, anyone who can stop Trump – I’m for it.