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☆ Opinion | For the Sake of Democracy, Celebrate Mike Johnson
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The music swells. I never expected the music to swell and the credits to roll with Mike Johnson’s face in the center of the frame. But before we move on to the next congressional melodrama, let’s make sure we’ve given Johnson his due. In an era this intensely and corrosively partisan, it’s especially important that we give warranted praise and appropriate thanks to people with whom we usually disagree. Tribalism discourages that, but a healthy democracy demands it.

Persons: We’ve, Mike Johnson’s, Johnson, he’d, that’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, — Locations: Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan

☆ Opinion | The Unsolvable Mysteries of Donald’s and Melania’s Marriage
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“He reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.” That’s what Kellyanne Conway said about Donald Trump in her testimony before a congressional committee in 2022. But then we don’t get to look at them all that much — not the two of them together. It’s a mystery, like so much about their marriage and about the former first lady herself. Journalists wanted to know what Melania Trump was thinking. And Donald Trump fumed to reporters that the trial might prevent him from joining Melania at the high school graduation of their son, Barron, on May 17.

Persons: Melania Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump, Melania, ”, Stephanie Grisham, Donald Trump’s, Katie Rogers, Stormy Daniels, Donald Trump fumed, Barron Organizations: “, The, Journalists, Melania Locations: Manhattan

☆ Opinion | Republicans Are Fleeing the Stench of a Rotten Congress
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When it comes to Donald Trump, House Republicans do a convincing pantomime of love. They grovel for his favor, gush about getting his endorsement and speak and vote in line with his desires. They’re half partisan, half courtesan. That’s the truth of the Trump era, and that’s the moral of the 2024 exodus from Congress. More than two dozen House Republicans, along with more than two dozen House Democrats, have headed or are headed for the exits, but the largeness of those numbers — which track with those in other election years over the past decade — don’t tell the story.

Persons: Donald Trump, merrily, gush, Trump Organizations: House Republicans, Republicans, House, Trump

☆ Opinion | Joe Biden Is More Than His Age
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-02 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion, March 30):Mr. Bruni was absolutely right to point out that the presidency is not a one-person job. The president needs the right people under him and around him. Joe Biden put together a great cabinet and other advisers quite quickly three and a half years ago. Janis DelsonNew YorkTo the Editor:Like President Biden, I turn 82 this fall. And, yes, we sometimes experience brief memory freezes as the memory bubbles surface more slowly through our brain’s molasses.

Persons: Frank Bruni, Bruni, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Janis Delson, Biden Locations: York

☆ Opinion | The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In terms of optics and in terms of energy, I wish President Biden were younger. And from the casual conversations all around me and the formal polling of voters, I know I’m in robust company. A great many Americans consider his age unideal, and that belief is why there’s no wishing away the focus on it. Even so, aspects of the subject actually get too little consideration, starting with this crushingly obvious and yet frequently overlooked fact: The presidency isn’t a solo mission. And the president of the United States is only as good as the advisers around him, whose selection reflects presidential judgment, not stamina.

Persons: Biden, There’s, isn’t, brawn Locations: It’s, United States

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with the politics writers Joe Klein and Olivia Nuzzi to discuss the state of the likely Biden-Trump race, this week’s State of the Union address and the state of possible third-party threats. Frank Bruni: Olivia, Joe, I’m so psyched to be doing this with two journalists I so hugely admire. What, really, are the chances that something happens today, or tomorrow, or when President Biden delivers his State of the Union remarks on Thursday, that translates into either him or Donald Trump not being on the November ballot? And which of those two would be more likely not to be? Olivia Nuzzi: Aside from biblical intervention, I don’t think anything could possibly happen this week, in the primaries or at the State of the Union address that would dramatically shift the conversation.

Persons: Frank Bruni, Joe Klein, Olivia Nuzzi, Olivia, Joe, —, Biden, Donald Trump Organizations: Biden, Trump, State Locations: week’s State

☆ ‘Fix the Damn Roads’: How Democrats in Purple and Red States Win - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-03 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania got an emergency call about I-95 last June, his first thought turned to semantics. “When you say ‘collapse,’ do you really mean collapse?” he recalled wondering. Highways don’t typically do that, but then tractor-trailers don’t typically flip over and catch fire, which had happened on an elevated section of the road in Philadelphia. Shapiro’s second, third and fourth thoughts were that he and other government officials needed to do the fastest repair imaginable. He knew how disruptive and costly the road’s closure would be and how frustrated Pennsylvanians would get.

Persons: Josh Shapiro, ”, I’ll, you’ve, ’ ”, you’re Organizations: Pennsylvania Locations: Philadelphia

☆ Opinion | Nikki Haley Is Actually Winning
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In her make-believe quest for the Grand Old Party’s presidential nomination, Nikki Haley seems to be having a grand old time. She’s not running for president, or at least that’s not her sole or even principal goal in 2024. She’s running for a different kind of glory, and to some degree, she’s winning it, even though she doesn’t deserve it. It’s a big, bold billboard for the new model Haley, who is taking on a titan and telling inconvenient truths. When this is all over, her speaking fees will be astronomical.

Persons: Nikki Haley, Donald Trump wasn’t, Haley, She’s, Haley grappled, It’s, Trump Organizations: Old, Trump Locations: Michigan, South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire

☆ Opinion | We’re Running Out of Names for Trump. At Least Polite Ones.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And that’s not principally because we used them too often in the past — though we’re somewhat guilty of that. We do our best, but finding words for worse than worst, a marker that Trump passed long ago, stumps us. Our society needs front pages beyond the usual front pages, superlatives beyond our superlatives, a thesaurus to supplement our thesaurus. Trump tests more than our sanity and surviving optimism. When you’ve been dwelling at Defcon 1, there’s no new emergency declaration for Americans deaf to Trump’s con.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, expectorations, weren’t, we’re, who’s, Paul Pelosi’s, exhorts, idolizes, Trump, autocrat, —, what’s, hasn’t Organizations: NATO, Trump Locations: Russia

☆ Opinion | Talk to Us, President Biden, but Not About Trump
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Biden curses. It drew a spasm of attention last week, when Politico reported that in private, on the subject of Donald Trump’s depravity, Biden is hardly at a loss for words — he’s ready with four-letter ones. If that doesn’t give Biden a point of connection with tens of millions of Americans, I don’t know what does. He should go after Trump more viscerally. How — and how often — to talk about Trump?

Persons: Biden, Donald Trump’s, Trump, doesn’t, That’s Organizations: Politico, Trump

☆ Opinion | Trump’s Running Mate? It’s Gotta Be Vivek Ramaswamy.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The conventional wisdom has long been that a presidential candidate should pick a running mate who provides some extra vitamins or different flavors. If you’re a rib-eye, you do broccoli. But if you’re Donald Trump, that makes no sense whatsoever. You double down, which means you double Donald. Because if you’re Trump, your whole brand — your whole point — is to defy norms and break rules.

Persons: you’re, you’re Donald Trump, Donald, you’re Trump, Putin, undiluted Trumpness

☆ Opinion | The Victorious, Censorious, Malicious Donald Trump
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

About an hour and a half after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the Republican primary in New Hampshire, he appeared onstage at a victory rally in Nashua, N.H., to bask in his accomplishment and bash lesser mortals. As Trump performances go, it was an unremarkable one. Maybe sacrificing scruples on the altar of ambition is more joyful than I ever imagined. Or maybe Scott was intent on being as sunny a sidekick to Trump as Vivek Ramaswamy, who jittered into the frame to take a turn at the microphone and declare his devotion. Trump is an inconstant ally, but no matter: He’s rewarded with a retinue of fawners and flatterers.

Persons: Donald Trump, Tim Scott, Scott, Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, It’s Organizations: Republican, Trump, CNN Locations: New Hampshire, Nashua, N.H, Trump, Trump’s, Stockholm

☆ Opinion | The G.O.P.’s ‘Nasty’ New Religion
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I’m still stuck on what happened before:We saw just how faithfully the Republican Party now worships at the church of nasty. He called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” back in the day. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis got the “nasty” memo. In Iowa, they were campaigning, at least theoretically, as alternatives to Trump, so you would have expected them to be less, well, nasty. Both DeSantis and Haley wagered that in their party today, remade in Trump’s image, that behavior wouldn’t seem cheap and desperate.

Persons: We’ve, I’m, nastiness, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, —, DeSantis, Haley, Haley wagered Organizations: Republican Party, Trump Locations: Iowa

primary and what the general election might look like after the primary. Frank Bruni: Mike, Kristen, happy Iowa caucuses. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table in a parka and earmuffs, in honor of the freezing temperatures that caucusgoers are expected to brave. Kristen Soltis Anderson: I doubt that the events of the last few days have done much. This is still Trump’s caucus to lose.

Persons: Frank Bruni, Mike Murphy, John McCain, ”, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Mike, Kristen, I’m, Donald Trump’s, Chris Christie’s, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis Organizations: Center, University of Southern, Republican Locations: University of Southern California, Iowa

☆ Opinion | What a Petty Pair DeSantis and Newsom Made
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s remarkable how fixated Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom have been on each other. These two opposite-party governors from opposite coasts of the country have been sparring — repeatedly, haughtily, naughtily — for more than two years. It was there at the start of the debate, when DeSantis, in the first minute of his remarks, managed to mention Newsom’s infamously hypocritical pandemic dinner at the French Laundry. It was there in the middle, when DeSantis brought up the French Laundry again. He noted that he and DeSantis had something “in common,” alluding to the fact that he himself is not making a White House bid.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Gavin Newsom, —, naughtily, Newsom, Newsom’s, DeSantis, DeSantis’s, ” Newsom, Trump, ”, Ron, You’re, Nikki Haley, Donald Trump Organizations: “, Trump Trump, ”

☆ Opinion | It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Fascism.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Not if he’s beaten by a Republican who had to buy into his fictions or emulate his ugliness to claim the prize. Not if the Republican Party remains hostage to the extremism on display in the House over these past few months. That assessment isn’t Trump derangement syndrome. Cheney describes House Republicans’ enduring surrender to Trump as cowardly and cynical, and she’s cleareyed on what his nomination in 2024 would mean. That’s why the stakes of this election are titanic even without Trump on the ballot.

Persons: Donald Trump, Trump, Liz Cheney’s, Peter Baker, Cheney, she’s, ”, ” Trump, inured, diatribes, they’re, They’re, Long, direst, cowered, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis Organizations: Republican, Republican Party, Republicans

☆ Opinion | On Thanksgiving, Can Biden’s Family Talk Turkey?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And Joe Biden, at the pinnacle of American politics, is to some degree isolated, as all presidents wind up being. But he’ll spend Thanksgiving Day on Nantucket in a tight circle of trust, among family members who command his affection and have his ear. It’s perhaps the best and last opportunity for those relatives, as a group, to talk about the grueling, uncertain road from now to Election Day 2024. I wish them a tender turkey. That he has the right answers for the toughest questions, the right energy for the toughest junctures.

Persons: Joe Biden, he’ll, Biden, Donald Trump’s Locations: Nantucket, America

☆ Opinion | Are We Looking at George H.W. Biden?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-09 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

It breaks your heart, but as Carly Simon sang, there is more room in a broken heart. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Flagg’s highlight mixtapes are downright gratuitous — look at him reducing these poor kids into piles of gristle and bone! It should honestly come with a content warning.” (Matthew Dallett, Brooklin, Maine)In The Wall Street Journal, Jason Gay rendered a damning (and furry!) Maybe the dog lies down and chews a big stick.” (Paul Shikany, the Bronx)

Persons: Anne Lamott, Carly Simon, ”, Melissa France, Steve Aldrich, Maria Popova, “, “ Oppenheimer, Jo Radner, James Bennet, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, Trump, Romney, bankrupting bender, Roger Tellefsen, Luke Winkie marveled, Cooper Flagg, Flagg, Matthew Dallett, Jason Gay, Paul Shikany Organizations: Washington Post, Times, Republicans, Duke basketball, Street Locations: Washington, Flemington, N.J, Minneapolis, Bulgarian, Lovell , Maine, Berwyn, Pa, Brooklin , Maine, Bronx

They also dug into and sorted through a blizzard of political news — particularly the new New York Times/Siena battleground-state polling with dreadful news for President Biden that has Democrats freaked out (again). I mean: Donald Trump ahead of President Biden in five of six crucial battleground states? Should Biden at this late stage consider not pursuing re-election? Nate Silver: Thanks for having me, Frank! And the answer might just be that he’s 80 years old, and that colors every impression voters have of him.

Persons: Frank Bruni, Katherine Mangu, Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight, Biden, ”, Donald Trump, Nate, let’s, Frank, Biden doesn’t Organizations: Republican, New York Times, Times Locations: Siena, The

☆ Opinion | Mike Pence’s Hell Is Ours Too
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mike Pence, God love him, did the latter, and that sealed his doom. But that’s not the only moral of Pence’s miserable polling and early exit from the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, which is, incredibly, even less appetizing for his departure. He did something else that was just as dissonant with the mood of his party — with the mood of America, really. An exchange involving Pence and Vivek Ramaswamy in the Republican presidential debate last August in Milwaukee foreshadowed that. Pence took aim at his much younger rival’s perversely exuberant negativity, schooling him: “We’re not looking for a new national identity.

Persons: Donald Trump, Mike Pence, MAGA, that’s, maniacally, Pence mellowly, That’s, Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, “ Organizations: Republican, White Locations: Milwaukee

☆ Opinion | With War Raging, Colleges Confront a Crisis of Their Own Making
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For the past two and a half weeks, college leaders have canceled or anxiously discussed canceling campus speeches and events that touch on Israel and Palestine. Students, meanwhile, have blasted those administrators for saying too much or too little. Many students now turn to the colleges they attend for much more than intellectual stimulation. They seek an acknowledgment of their wounds along with the engagement of their minds. And that’s in significant measure because many schools have encouraged that mind-set, casting themselves as stewards of students’ welfare, guarantors of their safety, places of refuge, precincts of healing.

Persons: They’ve Locations: Israel, Palestine

☆ Opinion | The Marketing of a Massacre
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

We watched the marketing of a massacre. Much has been written and spoken about some progressive groups and many progressive students (and faculty members) at American colleges, who reacted to the hunting, the shooting, the slashing, the burning of all those people in Israel by blaming … Israel. As Ezekiel J. Emanuel wrote in Times Opinion just days ago: “It is possible to condemn the barbarism of Hamas and condemn the endless Israeli occupation of the West Bank. So, too, is it possible to condemn the treatment of women and the L.G.B.T.Q. Why should they be any different from the so-called adults in this country?

Persons: … Israel, —, Ezekiel J, Emanuel Organizations: West Bank, Duke, Democratic Socialists of America Locations: Israel, Gaza, United States

is leading Democrats by over 20 points on “dealing with the economy.” So how is Joe Biden even still in this race? Second, the strongest argument for these other candidates was that Trump couldn’t beat Biden. But that’s becoming a harder and harder case to make — more because of Biden than Trump. And if Trump isn’t the nominee, he’ll quite possibly be acting to undermine whoever is the G.O.P. So it’s possible that Republicans are actually more likely to win the election if they nominate him than if they don’t.

Persons: Sarah Isgur, Joe Biden, they’d, Trump, Bruni, Sarah, you’re, Biden, Biden doesn’t, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, —, he’ll Organizations: ’, Trump, Republicans, Trump couldn’t, Biden, Republican Locations: “

☆ Ronna McDaniel Gets the Trump Treatment - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Just ask Ronna McDaniel. The chair of the Republican National Committee, McDaniel is responsible for its presidential primary debates, including the one next week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Trump is skipping it. Dismissing her wishes, ignoring her entreaties, he has made other arrangements, just as he did in August, when he jilted McDaniel and pointedly took a pass on the first Republican primary debate, in Milwaukee. When Trump snubs you, he snubs you in neon. That’s why she went by Ronna Romney McDaniel until Trump came along and his contempt for Uncle Mitt complicated the luster of that middle name.

Persons: Donald Trump, Ronna McDaniel, She’s, McDaniel, Ronald Reagan, jilted McDaniel, that’s, Trump, —, Tucker Carlson, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, George Romney, Mitt Romney, Romney, Ronna Romney McDaniel, Uncle Mitt Organizations: Republican National Committee, Ronald Reagan Presidential, Trump, United Auto Workers Locations: Simi Valley, Calif, Milwaukee, Detroit, Michigan

☆ Opinion | Kevin McCarthy, Humiliated Once Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I watched him and I thought of Mitch McConnell clinging to a different lectern in a different city two weeks earlier, his physical struggle unquestionable but his thirst for dominance still unquenched. I thought of all the other Republicans — Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Lindsey Graham, the list is endless — who prostituted themselves for Trump. McCarthy right now is the main character in that story. And what a pathetic character he is. It wasn’t that the accumulated evidence had finally crossed some threshold or reached some tipping point.

Persons: Kevin McCarthy strode, Biden, Mitch McConnell, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Lindsey Graham, McCarthy, Hunter Organizations: U.S, Capitol, Trump

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