A conversation between Gail Collins and Bret Stephens on March 24, 2025.

Gail Collins: Hey, Bret, I know you’re a Trump critic most of the time, and no big fan of Elon Musk, but you’re also a champion of lower taxes and spending cuts. Tell me one thing they’re doing that you love. Or at least like.

Bret Stephens: Lots of things. Getting control over the southern border. Strong-arming Mexico into finally surrendering top cartel gangsters to American justice. Finally getting serious about the Houthi threat to global trade. Getting tough on Iran. Abolishing counterproductive diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military and other federal agencies. Giving the administration at Columbia University an excellent excuse to get serious about the school’s antisemitism problem. Pushing for an extension of the 2017 tax cuts. Passing a spending bill that avoids shutting down the government (with a brave assist from Sen. Chuck Schumer).

If it weren’t for the fact that mentioning all this is like praising a fine meal prepared for me by Chef Hannibal Lecter, I’d almost be happy. I gather you’re mainly focused on the Lecterism.

Gail: Yeah, I see an out-of-control government dedicated to smashing current programs — both foreign and domestic — that have been successful in helping the poor, treating the sick and protecting people in peril.

Bret: Well, there is that.

Gail: An administration, by the way, that often seems to be doing its cost-cutting through inept, undisciplined young Musk minions.

Bret: That, too.

Gail: About Schumer, by the way. I think we agree that he did the right thing in voting with the Trumpians to keep the government operating. I’ve always liked Schumer and the things he stood for. But should he continue to be Senate minority leader? If so, he has to rally the Democrats around a serious message of reform. And by that I don’t mean tax cuts.

Bret: Schumer did something genuinely brave: He took a bullet for his party. A government shutdown would have been blamed on the Democrats, giving Trump the talking point that the absence of government was wholly the result of the Democrats caring more for ideology than they do for the country. And it would have given the president carte blanche to decide for himself what parts of the government he deems critical — and which parts are even more disposable.

Gail: Absolute agreement.

Bret: The larger question you raise is whether Schumer is the right messenger for reform. And I guess my answer is whether the next Democratic leader will be someone in the Elizabeth Warren progressive mold or a centrist like Colorado’s Michael Bennet. If the former, I’d say to Chuck: Hold on with your fingernails.

So, who would you prefer as the reformer? And what would be your message of reform?

Gail: Tough question, which the Democrats in Congress are far from together answering. I’d love to see the caucus acknowledge that it’s not a bad thing to cut some funding for programs that haven’t been trimmed down in a while. After coming up with new plans to accomplish the original goals.

Tell the world: “We’re thrifty but not shifty.”

Bret: Or, “We’re lame but not insane.”

Gail: And they need to make their image less — depressing. A friend of mine recently suggested that communities should organize “Canadian love-in” events to show support for our beleaguered neighbors to the north. I believe he mentioned a program of Leonard Cohen poetry festivals and Jeanette MacDonald-Nelson Eddy movie revivals. Up for it?

Bret: Yes to Cohen. The theme song for the event could come straight out of his last masterpiece, “You Want It Darker.” Key lyric: “You want it darker/we kill the flame.” (Or, wait, maybe that’s the motto of the Trump presidency?)

Speaking of darker, your thoughts on Trump’s assaults on the legal system, including his taunting of Chief Justice John Roberts?

Gail: I’m wondering how long Roberts has realized that sooner or later, there would have to be a break with the administration. The point of having a Supreme Court, after all, is to have a body capable of stopping a president from breaking the law.

Bret: Or a Congress.

Gail: This is certainly an administration that reminds us why the framers decided on separation of powers. Trump doesn’t care about stuff like that. I do worry that since this is constitutionally his last term in office, he’ll do something insane to stay in office forever. Am I too paranoid?

Bret: I’m much more worried about the JD Vance-Don Jr. administration that could take office in four years than I am about Trump tossing out the 22nd Amendment. The real crisis will come when Trump decides to openly flout an adverse ruling, a la Andrew Jackson and John Marshall in Worcester v. Georgia, or, well, Abraham Lincoln and Roger Taney in Ex Parte Merryman.

Damn: I had almost forgotten about Old Abe thumbing his nose at the chief justice over the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Right call, lousy precedent.

Gail: These days we do need every merry man we can get.

Bret: The other legal story that’s got my attention, Gail, is that Brad Karp, the head of the giant law firm Paul Weiss, which has a history of supporting Democrats, capitulated to an outrageous executive order by the president to bar its lawyers from federal buildings and deny them security clearances. Instead of fighting the order, which was surely illegal, Karp has now agreed to give $40 million in pro bono work to Trump-supported causes in exchange for having the order lifted. This was a political shakedown, pure and simple, and shame on Karp for capitulating.

Gail: Not very long ago I still lived in a happy place where everyone expected Trump’s critics and opponents would spend his second term pointing out the errors and disasters of his administration. But it looks as if faith in the future isn’t enough to stave off capitulation.

Maybe — I’m thinking about Canada again — we should sponsor a showing of the old Nelson Eddy movie in which he and his fellow Mounties vow to run down the bad guys “like a pack of angry wolves on the trail.”

OK, maybe I’m getting carried away.

Bret: That’s one cultural reference that’s beyond me.

Gail: Well, we do divide our expertise. You quote European intellectuals and I quote forgotten musicals of the 1930s.

Bret: But since we’re on the topic of Trump’s shakedowns, I have to confess that there’s one of them that I think isn’t bad at all. I mean the deal the administration reached with Columbia University to begin the process of having $400 million in federal funding restored in exchange for the school agreeing to ban the use of face-covering masks in protests that violate school policies, hire internal security to stop disruptive protests and put its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under review. I know I’m going to drive some of our readers around the bend, but I think the president did the university a favor. Now they can blame Evil Donald for making them do what they should have done a year ago.

Gail: Sorry, I just don’t like the idea of trying to dictate a university’s curriculum by threatening to withdraw federal funds, more than half of which are being used for medical and scientific research.

Bret: I would have been more sympathetic to Columbia if they had shown they were able and willing to clean their own house.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens/Haiyun Jiang
c. 2025 The New York Times Company