Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Do you think it would be a good idea if Joe Biden gave presidential pardons to us in advance — as well as anyone else Donald Trump might go after once he’s back in office?
Gail Collins: Ah Bret, you bring up several — hey, maybe several dozen — issues that have come up this month, in which Biden behaved in a manner so peculiar it might have made the transfer of power look less terrible. That is, if the transferee had been anybody other than D.T.
Bret: From D.T. to J.B. and back to D.T. by way of loads of B.S. Go on ….
Gail: Let’s start with Hunter Biden. I think we’ve already sorta disagreed on the president’s decision to keep his son out of the clink. You denounced it; I felt that given the horrendous series of family tragedies Biden has undergone, it was hard to blame him for being hyper-protective of the one surviving child of his first marriage.
Bret: Just not buying it. Biden’s entire presidency was supposed to be about restoring decency and law-abidingness to the White House after four years of Trump. Now he’s abused his presidential power on behalf of his repugnant son after spending the better part of a year lying to the American people by saying there would be no pardon.
Gail: OK, that no-pardon-promise is a major point on your side.
Bret: And it isn’t right to reply that Trump is just as bad. It just means Democrats won’t have a leg to stand on, politically, the next time they try to present themselves as the defenders of Constitutional norms.
But getting back to the subject of pre-emptive pardons: Is that a good idea?
Gail: Believe I speak on behalf of many, many citizens when I say, What the heck?
Bret: You’re being polite.
Gail: The idea is to protect people who’ve angered the Trump camp with righteous behavior — like Liz Cheney, and all the other members (and former members) of Congress who investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riots.
Given the fact that Trump has been saying, as recently as Sunday, that he thinks they ought to go to jail, I can understand the concern. But pre-pardoning seems to suggest they’re actually guilty of something.
Bret: If I were Cheney, I’d pre-empt the pre-emption by refusing the pardon. If Trump wants to go after her or anyone else on some kind of enemies list, they should have faith in the justice system to do the right thing. The alternative is turning the pardon power, which was intended as a vehicle for personal mercy or for resolving emergencies of state, into just another all-purpose political weapon.
On the other hand, what would you say to the idea of Biden publicly urging that the cases against Trump in New York and Georgia be dropped in the name of giving the incoming administration a clean start?
Gail: I would say, Say what?
Bret: Srsly, as the kids say. It would be a way of calling it even in the Trump-Biden feud. It would do something to erase the stain of self-dealing that came with Hunter’s pardon and it would look magnanimous, restoring some of the luster Biden lost.
Gail: Yeah, I guess you could say that the public voted not to send Trump to jail. But don’t put me down as a super enthusiast.
We’re in such a crazy moment, Bret. I’d say Trump critics were being paranoid, if it weren’t for his deeply terrifying pick for F.B.I. head, Kash Patel — who vowed to go after “the people in the media” and federal employee “conspirators” who he thinks led the public astray with attacks on Trump and his presidential campaign.
Bret: Well, the F.B.I. could definitely use a shake-up.
Gail: Shake-up by turning it into a presidential attack squad?
Bret: I didn’t say Patel was the guy to do it. In fact, if he manages to get confirmed by the Senate, he’ll probably be singularly ineffective because he’ll command so little respect within the bureau. But the list of misbegotten or mishandled F.B.I. investigations — from the AIPAC case 20 years ago to the Ted Stevens case 15 years ago to James Comey’s serial bungling of Hillary Clinton’s email issues to the whole Russiagate mess — is too long to ignore.
Gail: I think Patel is possibly Trump’s most troubling cabinet choice. But gee, there are so many. Who’s the one that scares you the most?
Bret: Tulsi Gabbard is my gold medalist. Nominating an apologist for former Syrian dictator and current Russia resident Bashar al-Assad as director of national intelligence means that, if confirmed in the job, we’d need to rename her job title “director of national idiocy.”
As for the silver and bronze medals in this competition, I’m awarding them to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth. Help me decide who’s worse.
Gail: Big challenge, right? Would you rather have a secretary of defense like Hegseth, with his messy private history — from drinking issues to a grisly allegation of sexual assault — plus very public opposition to allowing women to serve in Army combat positions, which is upsetting even some Republicans? Or the worm-in-my-brain guy who’s been nominated for secretary of Health and Human Services despite a longstanding history of opposition to vaccinations?
Bret: Hey, no fair making fun of him for the worm in the brain. It’s the worm-in-the-thinking to which I object.
Gail: You’re the international affairs watcher — as you know I try to stick to domestic. So Kennedy’s my pick. And I’d put him ahead of Gabbard, although her most significant qualification for director of national intelligence was ditching the Democratic Party to support Trump over Biden.
Bret: I’m old enough to remember when the Senate rejected another defense secretary nominee, John Tower, partly on account of his heavy drinking. It’s 100 percent disqualifying, especially for someone who might participate in a decision to use nuclear weapons. My guess is that Hegseth will withdraw, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, will get the job. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing.
Gail: But Ron DeSantis. Yeuw.
Bret: A step up is a step up.
Changing subjects, Gail. Brian Thompson, a top health insurance executive, was murdered last week in midtown Manhattan, and some people think that’s a reason to cheer. Your thoughts?
Gail: Completely obviously totally never a reason to cheer any murder of an unarmed person on a city street. I’m not comfortable with making excuses for the killer.
Bret: Wretched and revolting. And another sign of the morally degraded age in which we live. I’m afraid he won’t be the last person killed this way.
Gail: But I hope hope hope that after the shooter is arrested, we’ll get a chance to discuss health care in general. Far too many people are shut out of optimal treatment because their insurance doesn’t cover it or are left scrambling through stacks of bills after a loved one dies.
Bret: Very true. The brilliant novel to read here is Lionel Shriver’s “So Much For That.”
Gail: The Trump administration and the Republican Congress are going to have to find ways to pay for all the tax cuts they’re planning, and I fear federal support for health care is going to be one of the targets.
Me, I way prefer the taxes. You?
Bret: Uh, no. I’d rather we not end up like France.
Gail: Hmm. Any priorities for cuts? They’ll have to really slash away at the budget.
Bret: There’s about $100 billion in unspent Covid relief money that needs to be cut immediately. Medicare and Medicaid fraud wastes as much as $100 billion a year. Raising the retirement age to 70 for Social Security benefits would also save billions while helping to keep the program solvent. And, since you’re probably wondering, I’d have no problem getting rid of the Department of Education in its entirety, along with all funding to U.N. agencies.
Your turn to wield the ax.
Gail: Our about-to-be president has called for an end to the income tax on Social Security benefits, which is exactly the opposite of the way I’d go. One of the strengths of Social Security is that it covers everybody, but there’s absolutely no reason in the world that people who have good incomes in their 70s and beyond shouldn’t continue to support the program through taxes.
Bret: Fine by me. It would also be fine by me if people who make, say, $400,000 or more were asked to forgo their Social Security benefits entirely.
Gail: As for your suggestion about raising the retirement age to 70, that would be a terrible burden on people who don’t have the physical stamina to work that long.
Bret: Or maybe we raise the age of retirement with allowances for demonstrated physical disability?
Gail: How about cutting military spending? Everybody knows we need a national defense system, but I’ll bet we could save a lot of money by closing bases and other facilities that exist only because some powerful member of Congress wants the jobs in his or her district. Tell Elon Musk to work on that one.
Bret: Well, we probably need to raise the defense budget by 50 percent, if we’re serious about containing rising global disorder. But we’ll save that argument for another week.
Gail: About the Department of Education — I’m totally in favor of federal oversight of the quality of schools in different states. But now that wrestling czarina Linda McMahon is going to be in control, it’s kinda hard for me to get worked up about protecting it.
Bret: A nice point of agreement! And while we’re at it, I’ll bet we can agree on something else: This tribute to Manchester United’s Kath Phipps, by The Athletic’s Daniel Taylor and Laurie Whitwell, is a glorious remembrance to a great woman who gave her all to a great team. Phipps, who died last week at 85, was the team’s longest-serving employee (56 years), the front-desk receptionist who treated David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and other legendary footballers as if they were her own children.
Best bit: “Kath was so fond of Beckham during his time at United that when he was late to training one day she made up a white lie to cover up for him and pretend it was her fault. When Ferguson” — that would be Sir Alex, the manager — “found out recently, the former manager had to laugh. ‘Should have fined you instead,’ he told her.”
God bless the colleagues who cut us a bit of slack sometimes.
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