Opinion | Avengers, Assemble

Gail Collins: OK, Bret. Who’s your pick for the worst Trump nomination? I know there’s a lot to choose from — but I’ve got dibs on Matt Gaetz.

Bret Stephens: None. I love them all. #MAGA.

Gail: Very funny.

Bret: I’m pulling your leg. But I wonder if the choice of people like Gaetz for attorney general, or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for secretary of health and human services, or Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence or Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, amounts to a Big Trump Troll — “troll” in the sense of a deliberate effort to elicit a furious reaction. And the worst response to being trolled by Trump is to react the way he wants us to: by rending our garments and gnashing our teeth.

So my attitude toward these people is: Great! Brilliant choices, Mr. President-elect! Now, some staffer in Congress: Please leak the Ethics Committee report on Gaetz, and let’s replay the clips of Gabbard cozying up to Bashar al-Assad, the genocidal Syrian dictator. Is that the wrong response?

Gail: Well, there’s a pretty good chance that House Ethics report will be leaked. Or some other witnesses will volunteer info on Gaetz’s … behavior.

Bret: In a normal political era that would make Gaetz unconfirmable in the Senate after he’s resigned from the House — which would be a win for everyone. But this isn’t a normal presidency, and Trump is talking about bypassing the Senate entirely by installing his people through recess appointments. Which really would put us on the road to a Constitutional crisis, if the incoming Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, rolls over for that one.

Gail: I’m kinda wondering if Trump threw Gaetz out there to distract us from his other dreadful picks. You know, the Senate Republicans probably can’t revolt more than once. Actually, is there anybody that you like on his list so far?

Bret: Sure. Marco Rubio is a reasonable Republican pick as secretary of state. Mike Waltz is fine as national security adviser. Doug Burgum at Interior and Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency? OK. And if Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk can sensibly cut the size and reach of the federal government — a much harder task than either of them probably imagines — it could make the United States more competitive, efficient and financially solvent. I’m also looking forward to watching Elise Stefanik take a hammer to the Organization of Antisemites and Other Useless People, generally known as the United Nations.

But the rest go from bad to worse in my book. Who worries you most?

Gail: Gonna refrain from arguing with you about Elise Stefanik and the U.N. Really, we’ve got years.

My Scariest Pick goes to Pete Hegseth, who would, I believe, become the first secretary of defense whose major work experience was as a Fox News host. Yes, he’s a veteran, but we are talking about a job managing a few million people who have their hands on tons of killer weaponry. And a man who believes women shouldn’t qualify for combat jobs. Who bragged that he hadn’t washed his hands in years. I could go on …

Bret: Pretty sure the hand-washing comment was meant as a joke. This is what I mean by not allowing ourselves to be trolled. He’s worrisome enough even when his hands are clean.

Gail: Metaphorically, I’m right.

Bret: I’m not opposed to an unconventional pick as secretary of defense. The Pentagon is a hidebound bureaucracy struggling to keep pace with the rate of technological change, pass an audit, or even meet annual recruitment goals. It could use a disruptor, and I would have been impressed if Trump had chosen someone like Alex Karp, the gifted chief executive of Palantir Technologies. But Hegseth is a TV personality who, as far as I can tell, has built nothing and run nothing. And his views about women in combat are worse than insulting; they’re wrong. He should sit down with Tammy Duckworth, the Illinois senator, if he wants to know what a warrior looks like.

Switching gears, Gail — Joe Biden is kinda slinking out of office. With the election behind us, how would you rate his presidency?

Gail: I’m so torn on that one, Bret. In the future people may well look back on his administration’s achievements — from expanding health care access to the fight against global warming — and give him a high grade.

But at this particular, painful moment, I can’t forgive him for hanging onto his office so long that it became impossible for the Democrats to hold primary elections to find a successor.

How about you?

Bret: On a ranking of presidents, I’d have to place him alongside Franklin Pierce or John Tyler: inconsequential in a generally bad way.

Gail: Well, if you’re going to denigrate him, it’s pretty impressive to do it in a way that allows you to mention Franklin Pierce and John Tyler. Go on.

Bret: Through hubris, Biden destroyed his single greatest accomplishment, which was the defeat of Donald Trump. Through diffidence, he failed to achieve what might have been the most impressive goal of his term, which would have been Russia’s battlefield defeat in Ukraine, thanks to rapid and overwhelming U.S. assistance. Through inattention, he allowed a preventable immigration crisis to unfold, along with a huge spike in inflation that was the predicted result of his reckless overspending. Through imprudence, he permitted the Justice Department to prosecute his predecessor in a way that did more to resurrect Trump’s political fortunes than it did to bury them. Through self-delusion, and the dishonesty or silence of his close confidants, he covered up the extent of his mental decline. Through political malpractice, he anointed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee instead of encouraging a more open process that could have yielded a better candidate.

I bet you think I’m being way too harsh.

Gail: Well, um, yeah.

Bret: But don’t worry. After another four years of Trump, we’ll all look back at Biden as Abraham Lincoln II. Question is: Will the Democrats have learned the lessons of this election so they can win in ’28?

Gail: Well, if the lesson is to point out when a president’s too old, there’s certainly a whole new opportunity.

Bret: Touché. Although the problem with Trump isn’t senility. It’s … sinisterility.

Gail: We’ll be spending the next couple of years fighting Trump and giving points to the governors and legislators who are doing the best job of pushing back against his worst excesses.

Bret: Paging Ritchie Torres, Seth Moulton, John Fetterman, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and any other Democrat capable of understanding why normal, decent people still voted for Trump.

Gail: I fear the battle on the Congressional side is going to be mainly negative — just keeping you-know-who from messing things up. As much as possible. Sigh.

Speaking of which, one of the things at the top of Trump’s agenda is tax cuts. I take it you’re cheering that on?

Bret: Tax cuts alongside tariff increases, so I’m not cheering entirely. But I think it would be great to eliminate taxes on tips, which would be a huge boon to service workers, even though it would probably create incentives for tax mischief as people reclassify earnings as “tips.” And of course there’s the risk of blowing an even bigger hole in the deficit.

Gail: Deficits don’t seem to bother the G.O.P. these days.

Bret: I know you think the tax cuts will fail as policy. But what really worries me is that they succeed so well that a burst of prosperity leaves average voters indifferent to Trump’s darkest excesses, like using the Justice Department to go after people he considers his enemies, including us in the news media.

Gail: Well, those excesses are certainly dark — and the mass deportations could get very ugly, very quickly. But that burst of prosperity is quite likely to lead to rising prices if it isn’t combined with improved efficiency on the business side. And it will also lead to a bigger deficit. If it’s combined with a war on immigration, it’ll be a real mess for farmers and others who depend on immigrant workers to keep their businesses going.

Bret: Could well be, especially if interest rates come down too far too fast and inflation comes roaring back. On the other hand, the economic record of the first Trump administration was much better than the so-called experts predicted. In Turkey, Russia and Venezuela, illiberalism succeeded in part because the initial economic results under Erdogan, Putin and Chávez were good.

Just something to keep you awake at night. Anything, um, cheering you up?

Gail: I really have spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling over the last couple of weeks. And we didn’t even get around to R.F.K. Jr.!

Bret: Please hold my beer while I reach for my bear.

Gail: So I’m falling back on the personal — family, friends, work. I also have a great dog. I notice people are talking a lot about their pets these days. It’s a pretty good way to block out Donald Trump, the president-elect who apparently hates … dogs.

Bret: Funny you should say that. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my dog — long walks in the fields in the day and evenings by the fire. Good to know there are still a few true and pure souls in our lives, blissfully unaware of the political storms above.

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