Bret Stephens: Hi, Frank. I promised we wouldn’t discuss the Melania documentary, so let’s tackle another foreign subject: Should we bomb Iran?
Frank Bruni: Yikes, Bret, give a guy a chance to take a few deep breaths, collect his wits and get in the groove before you wallop him that way. It’s as if I’m in a steakhouse and the server is slamming the porterhouse down on the table before I’ve fished the first olive from my martini.
Bret: OK, would you rather bet your next martini on the Super Bowl? I know nothing, but my brother thinks the Seahawks will beat the Patriots 28-23.
Frank: It’s hard for me to go here, because I’m a Broncos fan in mourning. But I do know my football, and your brother is wrong. The Seahawks will win by more than five points. They’re a terrifying team.
Bret: Now can we go back to Tehran?
Frank: We can and since you’re prediction-minded, I’ll make one — you’re all for bombing.
Bret: I’m for bombing the regime leaders who last month murdered thousands of protesters, perhaps tens of thousands. I’d make that case both as a matter of justice and prudence: Iran’s leadership will continue to make its people and the region suffer so long as it remains in power.
As a matter of prediction, though, my bet is that the Iranians are going to make a deal so that Trump can get his Nobel Peace Prize and they can wait out his administration for the next 35 months.
Frank: Bret, you know how much it pains me to fact-check you in real time, but Trump has a Nobel already. Plucked it right off María Corina Machado’s neck — at least figuratively. Which allows us all to rest easy and know that his motives, as he expertly scripts our nation’s foreign policy, are not accolade-driven but entirely high-minded.
Bret: Trump has a Nobel the way Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon.
Frank: My problem with your analysis of Iran is twofold. One, are we now going to start bombing all brutally repressive regimes that perpetually immiserate their people? We’ve got our work cut out for us. Two, I can’t separate whether we should bomb Iran from whether we can trust this administration to construct and conduct that mission and, most important, anticipate and plan for its aftermath. Are Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth & Co. up to that? I know you have a diplo-crush on Marco Rubio, but a team — as the saying goes — is only as strong as its weakest link. And in this White House, we have weakness galore.
Bret: I think your second objection is stronger than your first. On what makes Iran different, I’d say that it’s directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans it has tried to assassinate U.S. citizens on American soil and plotted to kill the president, according to a 2024 federal indictment; it uses its proxies to disrupt global shipping; it arms Russia with drones to terrorize Ukrainian civilians; and it hasn’t abandoned its nuclear ambitions.
The larger question, I think, is whether an attack on Iran would be enough to badly destabilize the region but not enough to topple the regime. That’s harder to predict and gives even a hawk like me pause.
Frank: This sparrow or parakeet or whatever I am has one more question: Are you at all concerned, as Trump harrumphs and Hegseth tries to show everyone how manly he is, about an American military overstretched and distracted from even more important matters?
Bret: I think of you as a blue jay, Frank. And I’m a tufted titmouse.
Frank: You get all the alliteration? Fine. Regardless, you were involved in a powerfully unsettling series in Times Opinion about how badly the United States has failed to modernize its armed forces and stay as strong as it needs to be. How should that factor into decisions such as bombing Iran — and potentially setting off a protracted military conflict?
Bret: It’s a serious problem. We had to pull an aircraft carrier out of the Pacific to credibly threaten Iran, but that leaves a hole in case China decides to attack Taiwan. The truth is that we need a modernized military but also a much larger one — and that’s something a security-minded Democrat could credibly get behind for 2028.
Before we get to 2028, we have to get through the midterms. Your thoughts on Trump’s talk about wanting to “nationalize” midterm elections?
Frank: In a thousand ways, Bret, Trump is making it clear that he will not let Republicans lose control of Congress in the November elections. He will not be a lame duck. He will not suffer investigations and, possibly, impeachment. (Third time’s the charm!) He will do whatever it takes to prevent that.
Every time we talk about the usual midterm pendulum swing and the Democratic advantage on this issue or that issue and Trump’s low approval ratings, we’re deluding ourselves. The normal rules don’t apply, and that makes this a very, very scary crossroads.
Bret: Except, well, the normal rules do apply, at least in this case. Trump may be a wannabe authoritarian, but he keeps being rebuked by courts. He’s all but certain to lose the tariff case in the Supreme Court. The court probably won’t let him get away with firing the Fed governor Lisa Cook. His case against Letitia James, the New York attorney general, went nowhere. And remember when we were about to invade Greenland? That seems so … last month.
Election laws are well settled, and attempts to meddle with them will probably be squashed in court. Also, his effort to goose the G.O.P.’s chances through redistricting? Democrats, particularly in California, are showing that two can play that game. Not that I’m not alarmed by the mere fact that Trump is talking about this. But the bark-to-bite ratio of this presidency is roughly 10 to one.
Frank: That ratio is no consolation to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And Minneapolis is an example of — and warning about — something else, something beyond rules: Trump and his administration will intimidate Americans however they can and however they must to achieve their aims. That’s going to be a factor come Election Day. If Trump and Stephen Miller and the whole miserable lot of them feel that provoking unrest will serve them, they’ll provoke unrest. If they think they can suppress turnout among Americans who are almost certain to vote Democratic, they’ll do so.
Bret: I take your point. But I’d also argue that it proves my point. A year ago, Trump’s attitude toward immigration was broadly popular, especially after he was able to quickly gain control of the southern border. Now Americans are recoiling at ICE’s thuggishness. It’s why the administration is suddenly withdrawing its agents from Minnesota and running scared politically and why even this Justice Department has opened up a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s horrific killing.
Frank: We’ll see just how thorough and honest that Justice Department investigation is. I have not found Pam Bondi to be a pillar of rectitude. But maybe I do prefer her to Tulsi Gabbard, who recently took a trip to … Georgia? That’s what I mean by the crazy lengths to which this administration will go. The director of national intelligence is spending her time trying to prove, more than five years after the fact, that Trump really won Georgia in 2020, when Trump really didn’t. It’s madness.
Bret: Funny, but I was sorta relieved when the Gabbard went down to Georgia — which should be a parody of an old country song. Better that than having her work in what is supposed to be her day job.
Since we’re on the topic of Trump’s threats to American civilization, your thoughts on him shutting down the Kennedy Center — I mean, the Trump-Kennedy Center — for a couple of years of “renovations”?
Frank: It’s makeover as face-saving. Musicians don’t want to perform there, programming was clearly going downhill, and now there’s no embarrassment about that because, well, it’s closed! For urgent upgrades! Trump can claim to be saving it — with gold leaf and marble and fluted columns and whatever else he equates with imperial grandeur — when really he’s just camouflaging its artistic death. Too harsh?
Bret: What he’s done to the Kennedy Center is a disgrace. Not to mention his plans for what used to be the East Wing of the White House, or his gold-plated Oval Office that looks like the inside of a late Roman bordello — I mean, as I’d imagine one. And it gets at a part of what so many of us find so loathsome about Trump: the aggressive tastelessness, the suffocating tackiness, the absence of class. I know some readers are going to accuse me of elitism, and I plead guilty: I miss the days when not just the Kennedys and the Obamas but also the Reagans and Bushes upheld standards of taste and decorum in Washington. What we have instead is the D.C. version of the Beverly Hillbillies.
Frank: Melania does have a certain je ne sais Zsa Zsa Gabor about her (and before you go all “Green Acres” on me, Gabor has a cameo in “The Beverly Hillbillies” movie). Oops, I broke my “no Melania” pledge. See, Bret? Trump brings out the worst in everyone, me included.
Bret: Let’s turn to something less tacky. Any reading recommendations?
Frank: Yes. It’s both a specific and a general one. The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show just wrapped up, and once again we got wonderful writing about it by our news-side colleague Sarah Lyall. She kicked off her coverage with this terrific article about how show dogs spend their time outside the ring, so to speak. These pooches can do more than primp and pose, Bret. They have all sorts of talent and usefulness under that fur. I’ll refrain here from making a Melania joke.
Bret: Somewhere in there lies a sketch about “‘Be Best’ in Show.” Really, isn’t this White House ripe for a Christopher Guest sendup?
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