Trump’s First Four Weeks Felt Like Four Years

Opinion|Trump’s First Four Weeks Felt Like Four Years

Bret Stephens: Hi Gail. You may or may not be happy to hear this, but once again I feel completely nauseated by Donald Trump. That took all of four weeks.

Gail Collins: Bret, what’s left for us to talk about? Except taxes and government spending and diversity programs and …

OK, tell me your Trump Trauma and I suspect we will find common ground.

Bret Stephens: Vladimir Putin being invited to the United States is the equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt receiving Adolf Hitler in Hyde Park sometime after Hitler marched into the Sudetenland. Trump’s style is to be brutal with our allies — Canada, Mexico, Panama, Denmark, Europe in general — but obsequious toward our enemies. The betrayal this represents for Ukraine, which apparently will now have to pay us in minerals for our tepid support for its right to live free, will be a mark of shame for the United States for decades to come.

Gail: We don’t argue foreign affairs, but I suspect if we did I’d agree.

Bret: On the domestic front, I’m appalled by the decision to drop the criminal case against Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, apparently in exchange for him changing his tune on immigration policy. The only silver lining is that the episode has made a star of Danielle Sassoon, the once and former acting U.S. attorney for the southern district and a former clerk for Antonin Scalia, who resigned on principle over the matter after just a few weeks on the job. The MAGA crowd will surely go after her, but she’s a reminder, along with people like Liz Cheney, of what principled conservatism looks like.

Gail: You think it’s a coincidence that these two sterling stand-for-principle conservatives are women?

Bret: Surely not. Do you have a theory as to why?

Gail: Well, women are often growing up now with the same advantages and expectations of men. But I think there’s still a feeling of … being a little separate for many who come into the hard-charging world of work and politics. Men are still three-quarters of the members of Congress, and despite the many wonderful American husband-fathers, women still tend to have more responsibility for child-rearing. While making, on average, lower wages.